You don't need to read in general to be anyone, you need to spend time wisely on subjects you want to learn about. — Varde

What would spending time 'wisely' be?

Nature is the learning resource, consciousness - the tool. — Varde

Who or what in this scheme would be using the tool? In this scheme you are also reducing nature to a resource and raise consciousness to the level of a kind of formative cause. This scheme is in fact very old in the history of philosophy, but it is questionable whether it is a helpful representation. Especially recently a much more active role is ascribed to 'nature'.

I have self-educated for many years. — Varde

No jibe intended, but this as such says nothing. The question is, did it grant you the competence to reason philosophically? I have no opinion either way, or on you, but often I see self educated people loudly boasting about their abilities and I often wonder why.

Nothing wrong with reading books though - I prefer art. — Varde

That is of course fine. We all have our preferences.

Maybe you could continue your reading in silence. — frank

Or maybe you could appreciate the remark in the spirit it was made, with some irony. I conceded the point already. But anyway, the spirit of my remark was not really to investigate what makes a philosopher a philosopher, but why the OP shows disdain for reading philosophy. It is a bit like saying, "I ain't repairing no goddam shoes, but I still consider myself a shoemaker".

Ironically, if you bothered to do the reading all of your questions should be answered. — praxis

You have a point. I read the OP and was curious. I will not read 10 pages of text though because I am busy reading pilosophy. :lol:

I’m interested in hearing other people’s thoughts on this. — T Clark

I wonder why you think you are a philosopher. Your OP is very defensive and just screams 'please take me seriously' even though you have admittedly nothing to show for it. Better question is actually. why should we consider you a philospher?

PS. I found an essay on metaphysics by R.G. Collingwood very good too. That is sound philosophy. Why are you saying you read no philosophy then? Are you sure your OP is not just trolling?

Premise 1: somethings are pious while others are sin.
Premise 2: God decides which is pious or not because he is all knowing.

Deduction: if God decides somethings as pious and somethings as sin, he, before hand, was endowed with knowledge. He was programmed to be this God that labels some actions as pious and others as sin. if on the rather hand he decides these things after studying human actions, the foundation by which he uses to analyze actions to label them as pious or sin, are programmed. In both cases God becomes a programmed machine. If he is programmed it begs the question who is the programmer, which we can create another god and continue to infinity with other Gods. Which makes the whole idea obsolete.

This in turn makes his existence questionable. — Vanbrainstorm

God was not beforehand endowed with knowledge or affterwards endowed with knowledge. He did not sit at the table and decided as a human person would. Rather he created the world by his will and in this world some things are pious and some sinful. Why would he be programmed. He is cause sui, cause ot itself. In your language the unprogrammed programmer. So yes, he has free will, he is freedom actually. Our freedom is caused by us being material. We are not creators but created.

Not if we win :blush: — StreetlightX

We are not on different sides. Just remember not to take part in any executions without regard for due process of law. They tend to take place uring revolutions an awful lot. ;)

As for the rest, one only has to look at just where the attempts to 'channel class warfare and encapsulate in discourse and consensus politics' have gotten us. Here. — StreetlightX

I am less pessimistic. Not all is well, by no means, but not all is terrible either. Never before did so many people enjoy a comfortable life. We have miracles at our disposal people 100 years ago could only dream about. No modern times is not without its problems but it never was. The endless fight for the gun wil just be that, an endless fight for the gun and in the process millions get shot and die. As did Walter Benjamin, by his own hand in a society deeply embroiled in 'the struggle for the gun'.

Yes yes @StreetlightX indeed, that very same social democracy. When did Benjamin write, the 1920s the 1930s? Ohh so full of romanticism the German nation was, on the left and the right. Class warfare needs to be mitigated. The alternative is to bank on some sort of final victory of the working classes, but that is as ridiculous an idea as the end of history is. A new elite will simply grab the reighns of power. Exactly because class warfare will always be waged it needs to be channeled, encapsulated in discourse and consesus policies and, most importantly, the circumstances of the least well off need to improve most. (apologies for the rawlsian echo, was not intentional ;) )

↪Tobias If Trump is good for one thing, it's that he makes clear who the enemy is. The political field becomes arrayed in a very neat way. The mushy liberal 'consensus' of the 90s and 00s - which just so happened to mark the definitive triumph of neoliberalism - gave way to show that the whole thing was rotten to begin with. Social democracy hasn't been forgotten, so much as its been shown to be a facade that stung together by tape as workers lost their rights, pay stagnated, inequality ratcheted up, state supports dismantled, debt became structural, and the Global South was left to rot by the Global North - all long before Trump came to the scene. Trump is nothing but a crest on this wave, but he does a good job defining its contour. — StreetlightX

I fundamentally agree with you, but disagree with your rendition of social democracy. That might be due to the mistranslation of political terms in US and Western European political idom. In US politics there is nothing like social democracy, although I think Sanders tried to introduce its corse tenets in US politics. Social democracy, essentially, is about realising socialist aims without revolution or a dictatorship of the proletariat, which brought it into head on collision with communist parties in Europ, especially in the German Weimar Republic. After the war it was a strong force in Western European politics, forming the Western welfare states. In the Netherlands at least it reached its zenith in the latter 1970s wwith a socially progressive and economically egalitarian government.

In the 1980s, under the spectre of recession, the backlash came. Market capitalism became dominant, under the influence of chicago school economics, shareholder caitalism as well as the world leaders of the time, Reagan and Thatcher. The traditional social democractic parties, the labour party in the Netherlands, but also in the UK and the SPD in Germany, embraced the 'liberal' ideas, more akin to US politics and embarked on a kind of social liberalism. That is what I meant with the 'forgetting'of social democratic values. The'facade' was not social democracy of the late 1960s and 1970s, but the turn towards some form of social lieralism, which indeed marginalized the working class. There we are very in agreeent.

In the debate above this option has also been forgotten. We are presented with a choice between liberalism and revolution, scylla and Charibdis. Academic freedom, irony an a kind of magnanimous tranquility do not seem safe with the current brand of revolutionaries. I think they are essentially conservative and essentialist, but that is another debate.

Hmmm, I think the rich harvest for Trump and other populists is begotten from the ashes of the progressive factons tearing each other to pieces... ;)

The ideals of social democracy have been forgotten. In the words of an old Dutch Prime Minister, the equal distribution of knowledge, income and power... Nowardays one side wants liberalism, social but also economic, a second side revolution and a third (which I did not see on the preceding pages) the recognition of diversity in language. None of these views cater to actual needs of people who have to make ends meet in an increasingly complex and alien world.

It's probably healthier to believe in some kind of free will. All I need to do is believe and whoila, like Baron von Munchausen hoisting himself up by his pony tail in the swamp, I'll levitate out of my depressing existence. Think positive thoughts and take flight with the metaphysical placebo. — Nils Loc

It might be healthier, but when one knows it is a matter of belief, the existential question lingers. In juging for instance it seems disingenious to say: "well I believe you acted ot of free will, because it is healther to believe in it, even though deep down I know you had no choice". We then punish based upon a reason one finds doubtful. Moreover, perhaps it is healther for ones own well being to believe in God, however that has not stopped the secularization of society.

However, I believe in both, because, they are polar opposites just like yin and yang is. One side is more abstract than the other. It’s subversive that Fate is all about giving up control and trusting that the universe has all the answers and everything is up to “Fate” in itself, which essentially means you have no control over your own life, because, it was pretty much already been written since the day you were conceived...or even perhaps sooner. While on the other hand we have “Free-Will”, which puts YOU in the driver’s seat; you are what makes your life what it is now and where it will be going in the future, and the how and the why is completely up to you...make your own life as it is based on your decisions/choices and actions. — Lindsay

I do not think one of them is more abstract. Fate is actually pretty concrete. It is usually referred to as 'eterminism', The idea that our actions are already deterimined. It rests on a number of premisses. One: we are material beings and just ike any other material beings, we are suceptible to forces impinging upon us. Just like a frog instinctively lashes out its tongue when a small moving blot triggers its retina, a man or woman takes a course of action detemined by all the impulses implay,, triggering your brain which is wired in a certain way based on past experiences. Just like everything else in nature our course of action is determined, we only put those actions into words, that is all. It is very concrete. I do agree with you there are layers though. In our immediate experience we cannot otherwise but conceive our actoons in terms of choice, and therefore blame, merit, resentment etc.

I feel that both is necessary for the world to keep spinning. You can’t have Free-Will without Fate having dictated saying that it is allowed to exist as an idea at all. And you can’t have Fate without Free-Will, because Fate itself needs information of what kinds of actions you take and decisions you make to get to know you better in order to better decide what parts of your life that Fate adopts as some things about yourself that will never change, and the things that CAN CHANGE is up to your ability of having Free-Will. — Lindsay

You personify fate, but fate does not have a plan. It did not dictae anything. For if that were true, than free will would be logically prior, because it would than have to have freely decided. If not, and if fate was also susceptible to fate, than the idea leads to an infinite regress and is uninformative. The problem is we have no idea what things we can change and what not. To a determinist, every 'choice' you make can be explained by a combination of your character traits and the myriad of impulses influencing your brain at every given time. None of which you have chosen.

So they are polar opposites, but they also thread into one another like two layers of corsets/spanx. Basically, they WORK TOGETHER without most of us even realizing that’s what is happening at the time. I wonder to myself at times, how common is it that people ponder that question highlighted above? And why have I never heard of people talking about them at the same time instead of just one or the other?
Has to be a mystery for now. — Lindsay

Ohh, when I was a student I used to accost my profrssors of law and philosophy and ask them about free will and what possibilities we have for blame, guilt and punishment. In law chocie is pivotal so I thought they would think about it. they did not seem very interested in the questiion. Now though, many people talk about it. I would urge you to look into compatibilism, for instance here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/#:~:text=Compatibilism%20is%20the%20thesis%20that,between%20moral%20responsibility%20and%20determinism.

I think I have found an answer to the problem of free will, not a definitive answer of course, just an answer I am satisfied with. This answer is not along Yin Yang lines, because tey form a unity, but an answer that points to a disunity. we know we have no free will, yet, we cannot ignore the fundamental experience of having it. so we have free well and we have not free will. Well that is the gst in a nurshall. Explore yourself, and enjoy the ride.

regards,
Tobias

I’m not suggesting by this we run around and grab the pitchforks for a good ol’ fashioned witch-hunt, but surely we should give the common person some respect for choosing his/her destiny even if it doesn’t fit in with the value system of professors and (private) educational institutions. My reading of Kant’s ‘kingdom of ends,’ inspires me to say a valuable structure in power and politics can’t be found without the consent to some degree of all the people within it as moral equals. — kudos

Yes, I agree. Where do you see the academic class blocking the life path of what you call 'common people'? I agree that our current ' diploma democracy' as we say in Dutch is flawed. Our policy makers should represent the people and curently the balance between academically educated and non-aacademically educated is off. I do not think though the academic education is the problem per se, but the academically educated seem to be privoleged in other ways as well. I do not think we are that far off actually.

It's a cognitive bias: — baker

Yes, there might be a bias, however the question is how severe it is. Education would be impossible if the educator and the educatee would inhabit different worlds.

As a better-informed agent, you are unable to correctly anticipate the judgement of less-informed agents; in short, you cannot relate to them. Now, in a teacher-student setting, this can be irrelevant, because the only thing that matters are the teacher's expectations and standards. But outside of such a setting, it can be of vital importance. See, for example, the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns. Simply calling people stupid, irrational, and such doesn't help much. — baker

Sure there might be miss-matches. The funny thing is when policy makers see the ineffectiveness of the vaccination campaign they hire academics or commercial consultants to divise a way of communication that does reach the people.

Do you think this applies to all spheres of human effort, including questions of the meaning of life?

Is it up to academics to decide what the meaning of life is, in general and in particular? — baker

No, and there would not be an academic worth his'her salt who would state that he knows the meaning of life and that he should have the authority to tell others what it is.

In the Old World, having an advanced degree is mostly about status. For all practical intents and purposes, having an advanced degree (mostly regardless of the specialty) raises the person to the level of nobility, or at least aristocracy. If I would find myself in a situation where I would be expected to bow my head before someone with a Ph.D., I wouldn't be surprised. Even in informal settings these people expect to be treated with special reverence (others must greet them first, even if the person with the advanced degree is visibly younger; they get to sit down first, eat first, etc.). — baker

Well I come from the old world. I have obtained a Ph.D. Nowhere is there anyone bowing for me. Nor do I expect such a thing. I do not know which country you describe but it is not the Netherlands... Perhaps 50 years ago this might have been different, I do not know. May I ask you if there are any job openings in this country for plodding legal scholars?

Do the academically trained not believe something like "We are better humans than the average Joe"? I believe they do. Also, society at large seems to believe this about them. — baker

There might be snob-like academics, but I have encountered that sentiment more often in people who just made a fortune in business. And there are all kinds of peope just bshing academics and bluntly proclaiming that their knowledge is all bollocks. I do not think we feel better. I know it is sometimes tiring to discuss a complex subject of which you happen to know something with someone who does not, but still thinks he does. That does lead to me thinking "I am better", but does sometimes lead to a feeling of annoyance especially because some people think the subject is easy or 'common sense' whereas if it was I would not have spent years studying it. But no... better... that would be a very silly thing to feel. I cannot speak for all academics though.

Fachidiot. Do you know what this German term means? — baker

Yes. 'Of course', I might add, but you will probably accuse me of academic arrogance. ;)

Rigour which is relevant only to academics. — baker

No, it is relevant to each of us. Science and academia have made our lives a lot better. I in any case choose evidence based practices over the hunch or intuition of some kind of person with a peculiar opinion.

Should actual lay people, Tom, Jane, Mary, Henry, be convinced to get vaccinated by the arguments given by the virologists? Do they have such an obligation to the specialists? — baker

No, not at all. The state should be covinced that it is in the public interest to raise vaccination rates, because believe it or not people are actually dying and I belief, based on the opinions of experts, that vaccines stop people from dying. There are a number of ways to do that of co urse and I hope they consult lawyers among other people to discuss the pro's and cons.

-You may not, but many do. Metaphysics specifically suffer by bad non naturalistic speculative frameworks from philosophers and scientists who find a way to publish their ideas outside the difficult "audience" of science. — Tobias

It may be. I hardly read metaphysics papers anymore sadly and if I do they would be in the contental vein. Though I think you would disapprove of them, but that is just a hunch.

-Again its not my personal thought. Its a fact that many philosophers point out.IF you subscribe to Academia.edu you will receive all kind of "news letters" on new publications spanning from "the role of intuition"(while Psychologist Daniel Kahneman won a Nobel in Economics by exposing intuition's untrustworthy nature as a heuristic) to papers about the " improper implications of an improper undertanding of genesis 1-1 and arguments on Ockham's razor simplicity(when its all about necessity). — Tobias

I have an acaemia page... The paper on genesis may be interesting enough from the field of theology or philosophy of relgion, I cannot judge that. The one on intuition may be interesting. The concept has a history in philosophy which is different from the one in science. If I write on the concept of intuition in pre Kantian metaphysics though Kagneman will get me nowhere.. By the way, the field of social psychology os frowned upon by many academics I believe. I enjoy it much though.

This is what I argue. This is the reason why Philosophy only has a handful of major advances to display while Science as a philosophical category is enjoying a long lasting run away success in epistemology. — Tobias

The problem is disagreement over what an ' advancement' is. Our understanding of scientific paradigms is a philosophical advancement, our interest for discourses of power is too. The problem is you are just unreflectively putting forward your (or the scientific community's) criteria for advancement and start judging. It is like me using legal criteria to judge a football match, it leads to misunderstanding.

-All those are true...but again in order to prove that those affect our body of epistemology you will need to point out cases where pseudo science has been accepted as scientific knowledge for respectful period. — Tobias

The dutch team of scientific experts cited lack of proof in order to wait with making mouth masks mandatory while the whole world wore them. This is a small example but why would that not happen by and large? Epiemiology for instance is plagued by data dredging, finding corelations which are represented as causations. Economic analyses have often been proven wrong or inadequate due to failures of assumptions.

So of course we should judge a philosophy when it doesn't offer WISE claims about our world. When the claims are for "other worlds or dimensions" the we are dealing with religious claims, not philosophical ideas that can assist us in understanding this world. — Tobias

Ohh ear the screaming again. Well if wisdom is your criterion we are in a whilly different ball park. A claim may well be wise, though it has no truth value. First explain what a wise claim is.

-So IMHO you are part of the problem. There is not an open question about it. Its something that Bunge and Hoyningen and Richard Carrier and many others have being pointing out and it is something that can be verified by the results. ITs the reason why many scientists accuse Philosophy for not contributing to our advances...while they are doing philosophy to conclude to that position.
So Philosophy is not the problem here but how people tend to do philosophy! — Tobias

I am not part of the problem at all. You just want your and your schools take on philosophy to rule. Sadly for you it does not. A claim like that is a mere claim to power, with a hidden assumption that they know what good or bad philosophy is.

-That is an irrelevant aspect that has nothing to do with the main problem of Philosophy. You are arguing about a completely different topic. Nothing of what I say keeps us from doing philosophy of science. And again... any hermenutic endeavour should be interpreted by the same standards and principles. — Tobias

Ohh I thought we were arguing about the same topic. Luckily you always put us back on track telling us what we should be talking about. That is just so helpful! The problem is you want to push your own schools of thought, fine but I am doing philosophy, not some reductionist game to reduce philosophy to the language game of science.

I am not arguing philosophy cannot learn from the peer review processes of science, just that the difference is far more nuanced than you make it out to be.

We have Consequentialism the main philosophical principle behind Secular Morality and our ability to produce objective moral evaluations, but we still have "philosophers" arguing and publishing papers on Divine or Absolute Morality (vs. authoritarianism / absolutism). — Nickolasgaspar

We unfortunately do not have objective moral evaluations, as anyone versed in the field of law or ethics will tell you. You yourself are badying about very controversial and misguided claims here.

We have Evidentialism and Objectivism still giving a fight against mysticism, authoritarianism, dogmatism, a priori facts, faith. (I see disagreement falling in this category) — Nickolasgaspar

Ohh an objectivist... that explains a lot. You do not mean those texts that seem to fail in every philosophcal peer review process I have encountered.

We have real life Political( and economics) Ideas ignoring Human rights and well being. ( exploiting humans as a mean to an end... for backing up a specific social organization system and meeting economic markers). — Nickolasgaspar

Human rights... that is an interesting one. They run rather cunter to consequntialist ethics. But anyway, show me the philosophical or scientific basis for human rights.

We have Naturalism still fighting against the epistemically failed principles of Idealism and Supernaturalism....and of course the pseudo idea of "free will" justifying unscientific social practices. — Nickolasgaspar

Ohh dear and we should not want any unscientific social practice, no sir! Strawson an analytic philosopher argues against your position. the problem is you mix up the normative with the desriptive. I see that a lot in scientists. It can be cureed, read up on philosophy.

-Yes but philosophy's procedure is inadequate to keep bad philosophy away from its published material. — Nickolasgaspar

Well, I do not read bad philosophical articles. Why do you think academia is flooded by bad philosophy? It is also a tough proposition to test because there is less of an agreed upon method in philosophy than in the natural sciences.

-No I am not going to absolute claims. I only state that the scientific establishment makes a far better job in monitor its peer review procedures by using far more strict rules and standards...that's all. — Nickolasgaspar

The problem is that you use similar criteria to judge the two enterprises, I think that is not productive. Studying the natural world is a different enterprise from studying the social world, let alone question our deep seated assumptions.

-They have pointed what? — Nickolasgaspar

They have pointed out the intertwinement of politics and science, where politics is understood in a broad sense. The nfluence of epistemic communities, different schools of thought, the importance of aqcademic prestige and the influence of publication pressure on the rigour of the scientific process. We see that in action in the corona pandemic. The science is the same right, however every country chooses different paths and virologists from Sweden disagree with those from the Netherlands and both are held in high regard in the scientific community.

-We should always judge a procedure by its outcome and science has enjoyed a huge run away success on epistemology while Philosophy still deals with pseudo philosophical worldviews masquerading as valid principles behind many publications. — Nickolasgaspar

I do not know which journals you read... I do not see philosophy dealing with an outdated metaphysics. This result oriented view is actually exactly what might be criticized. You say "we should always judge a procedure by its outcomes" but whether we in fact should is a philosophical quetion not a scientific one. Of coourse science has been succesful, but people are now questioning the down side of this success. Maybe that is what is meant by the death of science. Science is criticise for insance for having only a result oriented view without care for its moral implications. Many environmentalists for instance hold this view. Scientific legitimacy also seems to be eroding. Now I am not saying I would concur, but if something like that is meant by the death of science it might be dying.

Philosophy SHOULD learn by the strict evaluation standards of science and show equal respect to the rules of logic. — Nickolasgaspar

Good god, the screaming is hurting my ears. Luckily you do not get to decide what philosophers should do no matter how hard you wag your fist and how many capital letters you use. Of course learning can never harm, but you seem to buy into the iddea that there is one sort of criterion according to which every endeavour should be judged. It is an open question whether there is such a criterion.

We should listen to Philosophers like Hoyningen and Bunge that point out the problems in the current Philosophical procedure. — Nickolasgaspar

Or we shpuld read people like Latour, Daston and Beck who take a sociological approach to science. That way science learns something about itself and that in the end is I think the goal of philosophy. It is a hermenutic endeavour and not as you seem to think a descriptive one.

-Science is NOT decaying, neither as a method or an establishment or as a final product ( knowledge/theoretical frameworks). Being an institution within a corrupted economical system will always have its drawbacks but its self-correcting mechanism and monitoring of its peer view process and publications will protect the body of our epistemology from being polluted, something Philosophy can not do. — Nickolasgaspar

I am not saying science is decaying, I am saying that, if we want to answer the question we have to come to terms with what we mean when we speak of science. Sure, academic scientific endeavour has a review procedure, so does philosophy.. You seem to hold on to some ideal of value free science, but it is not there. Philosophers and sociologists of science have pointed that out time and again. I suggest reading the work on what they call the 'science policy interface', sheila Jassanoff and Jeremy Ravetz come to mind.

Latour and Woolgar wrote a very interesting book on how 'facts' are produced in laboratories in 1979. Science too rests on arguments of auuthority, paradigms, prestige and citation indices. Now I am not claiming sicence is dying. That is the claim Caldwell brought forth, not her own though but those of some authors apparently. I do not subscribe to it, but to see science as some sort of exalted untainted objective human affair is hopelessly naive.

↪dimosthenis9 I feel your pain. The university system to me seems to be instilling a sense of class separation and control through just the same phenomena; the proposed oligarchy of the intelligentsia. As if we haven't seen that mentality utterly fail over and over again throughout history. — kudos

Actually we did not. what we saw was populism reposnible for countless atrocities. Perhaps the Pinochet regime in Chile is a counter example, but nowhere have academics put their ideas in practice. Their ideas might have inforrmed policy, but the decisions have been taken elsewhere. Take the great dictators in history. They were not academics, again with some exceptions, Mugabe in Zimbabwe for instance, but he hardly ranks as the worst of the bunch. .

I would agree about the enriching, and this I think is my (known) assumption: That knowledge does 'enrich' us with a certain authority; a certain power. And the more of this power one gets it seems reasonable to think that it would become more difficult to use it effectively. Not that the intention to do good weren't there, but that the more your actions affect a greater number, the more the possibility comes that this could manifest in unpredictability and do damage to some. Especially because a great deal of this knowledge concerns the validity of the very apparatus of judgement itself. — kudos

Here you make the same mistake. The enrichment I speak of is not power or authority, but it is the repertoire of arguments, the depth of knowledge and the acumen in applying tried and tested methodology that enriches. Because they know certain things and can use certain methodologies they wield power and authority. You think it is just blind coincidence they get these desirable goods, but that is not the case.

To cite one controversial example of how knowledge itself is not always the path toward good, take the Communist Manifesto. Marx and Engels had the intention of spreading what they knew about economics, social science, and political science. These days there aren't many who don't point the finger of blame towards that action for the cruelty carried out in its name, though in my view their work rests on perfectly sound knowledge of the world. What they saw, as far as I'm concerned was the truth, but when they attempted to particularize and individualize it those universals collapsed, free will clashed with the ideal axioms of the academic world and all sorts of unpredictability resulted. — kudos

Well there can be many things wrong with Marxist economics... or with dialectical materialism. However what regimes do with knowledge is something else than what academics discover. Following your line of thought we might blame physicists for the existence of the atom bomb, hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This isn't intended to be some sort of allegory of why we should never use the knowledge taught in universities and colleges, but it does go to show one example where the good it can do can easily turn foul. And this can be worse in some cases because it associates the interest within the particularities as if it were part of the universal, allowing the worst types of violence and harm done in the name of progress. — kudos

What is the alternative? No knowledge. The human life span on average was 30 years old in those days. You had no idea if you survived another winter due to poor harvest and things like romantic love, freedom, reading and writing were anathema and perhaps only available for the upper class. Sure knowledge might have adverse consequences, so has all human endeavour. Your view is in last instance romantic. It comes down to ignorance is bliss. I dout that very much when we ook at history.

Wow, then you're the perfect person to ask this question. Thanks for replying. I seem to have rubbed you the wrong way but that wasn't my intention. I suppose the first question I would ask you is to what extent does your academic involvement — and I'm regretting using the word 'academic' already — mix with your work in law. Imagine, that you were a judge instead of a lawyer, do you think that your exposure to certain ideas about social relationships as a scientist would affect your work to any extent? The judge being an impartial third party, do you see any conflict of interest? What if instead this person had some money invested in an non-profit, would it then become a conflict? Surely the judge who knows must self-regulate their actions in accordance with the knowledge of their own limitations, but this is exactly what I mean: then according to you they are more inclined to restraint than someone who has one-dimensional ideas that draw them to immediate action. — kudos

Those are good questions. Well, my work in practice is informed by my work in theory, but not determined by it. To some extent they are different ball games. My research into legal mobilization for instance has no bearing on the way that a legal case is solved in practice, Practice and theory sometimes pose different questions. However, I do bring what I know of theory to bare on a case in practice. I think my knowledge of criminology and philosophy of law informs my judgment and makes it more kaleidoscopic. I however do not see a conflict of interest, the two are not opposed, but related. Law is a profession and the law has to be applied to a case according to some sort of procedure, that is what a lawyer or judge does. However when doing so, I think your judgment is enriched by more knowledge of theory of law. Maybe that is the assumption you have, that somehow there is a struggle between the two, but I fail to see why that should be so. In fact if that was the case it would be very alarming, it would mean our theories of the world are wholly unrelated to the world itself.

The question of having some money invested in a non profit I do not really understand. Why would that influence the merits of a case either from a scientific or legal point of view? It might in some circumstances weigh in on judgment, the character of a defendent is not unimportant, but what it exactly does, depends on the facts at hand. What it actually means is dictated by the laws of the practice. I do not know whether a man of theory or practice is more easily swayed by this knowledge. A lot depends on the 'rules' of the practice and what a judge is 'supposed' to do with such knowledge.

the scientist might have more restraint, but law in practice is about jugdment, so you cannot show restraint... You know that when you get into legal practice. It has to do also with the role one plays. I think I can separate these roles, also because I know soething about the legal profession and legal ethics. I do not think I would judge slower, but I hope sharper because of my training in the asking of questions. However I find that my colleagues are generally sharper than I am, because of their training in practice maybe. However I know I am good at legal argumentaton and knowlegdable in the principles begind certain rules. therefore I bring other skills that the table that I feel increase fair and even handed judgment, at least I hope they do.

I'm so glad you said this, because now we are getting into the real content of the question. So what is this process of knowing ones self and their limitation? Where is the limitation? Is it common sense, is it negation of the knowledge (or 'denial'), is it drawing the line in a strict manner according to some unwritten rule? — kudos

Well, it is more akin to a 'discipline' which one has to learn. As a student you are very mmuch inclined to ask all kinds of questions and try to solve each and everyone. Than a prof comes along and shows you that you basically do not have the knowledge to answer this question. Many law students for instance like asking the question whether this or that law is 'effective'. However, effective in what sense and from what perspective? Can they perform for instance an economic analysis of a certain law to see whether it increases wellfare? They can not. They do not realise that as yet, but they learn it when it is pointed out to them. In the process of writing my PhD I have time and again be told to limit my question and not forray into areas I lack knowledge of. At some point you get a feel for it and the more you work 'acadmemically', the more you train and discipline yourself to realise these limitations of your field.

This is not an attack on you personally, please try to see it otherwise. If my ignorance is offending you, please feel free to correct me because I certainly don't consider myself an expert on social science or the law. But we I hope you understand that we can't only ask questions here that pertain to only one field of study completely. — kudos

I do not take this as such, not in the least. There was nothing in your post here I thought of as offensive or jumping to unwarranted conclusions and so neither is this response meant to include any barbs. It is means as just an exchange of ideas and an explanation of where I come from.

You're not entertained? Occupied at least? Doesn't entertainment bring happiness or at least contentment? Doesn't this advance (or at least as you say bear fruit of evidence of the advancement of) the human condition and well being? Is this not the point of science? — Outlander

Ohhh that is a misunderstanding, my apologies. I did not mean to imply all avenues of philosophical inquiry bear no fruit, just that some do not, just like in science. In fact, i think philosophy is critically important for our world view. I think there is a straight line to be rawn from Nietzsche through Michel Foucault, the feminist an equal rights movement, right to the new Bond movie. Our philosophical commitments, however implicit they are held, will determine the 'decay' of science. Behind all physcis lies metaphysics.

-We don't find such types of publication in science...so its the fault of Academia for allowing "free inquiry" and unmonitored publications under its name.
We are talking about the publication of theoretical model based on epistemically failed principles like supernaturalism, theism or idealism — Nickolasgaspar

Philosophy and science aren't competitors. In philosophy we find avenues which in the end bear no fruit, but in science we do as well. We find articles about subjects that were once hotly debated and have been forgotten nowadays, such as the substance 'Flogiston'. Maybe the same will happen to substances like 'dark matter'. The philosophical gaze is different from the scientific one. Philosopy traces concepts taken for granted in science, such as objectivity. See the work of Lorraine Daston and Peter Gallison for an illuminating trip through the history of science and the concept of objectivity. A philosopher such a Latour also points out how science becomes possible due to the specific constellation of people and things.

To get a grip on the question whether science is in decay we need a firm definition of what science is. Are we speaking about a practice, a method, an institution, or a certain kind of authority?

No offense, but being a lawyer is not exactly what I meant by ‘academic.’ — kudos

No offense, but I am a sociel scientist as well as a lawyer and I publsh on a regular basis in academic journals (although less than I wish because of other pressing academic duties such as teaching classes). Law can also be performed in academia next to practice. No offense, but I am beginning to feel more and more you have no idea what you are talking about and that you jump to conclusions too easily.

But when you are being sexually harassed do you go to a women’s studies professor? — kudos

No, but when you want to know something about the cultural origins of sexual harassment you do.

The academic in my experience usually deals primarily in the universality of the subject, where the specialist in the particulars. We are talking about a similar difference between the mathematician and the physicist. Physics being concerned more with the particulars of the real world at hand, where events aren’t as much idealized in the way they are in the universal form of mathematics. — kudos

Sure, but what is the point? When you want to know someting about a practical legal case you go to a lawyer. When you want to know something about the legal culture of a country you consult a sociologist of law and when you want to know someting about the pivotal nature of the right to property in today's legal systems you go to a scholar of jurisprudence. Sometimes you want to know something particular sometimes something universal.

If you attempted to apply the idealized structure of mathematics to physics problems you’d encounter unexpected results because the real world doesn’t always deal in easily determined discrete quantities. Similarly, those who deal in the analysis of universal categories of law might still fail in persuading a jury of an argument because that is so heavily influenced by particulars. — kudos

Of course. The only problem is that hidden in your argument is the assumption that academics are such silly people who do not know this. However they do. Ask me a practical question on taxes or traffic law and I have no clue. However I know I have no clue. that is the difference between someone academicaaly trained and someone who is not. Actually the exact oposit of your point is true. Academics know the limits to their competence because they know how to delineate their field. The non-academic makes all kinds of assumptions wandering into a field of knowledge blissfully unaware of his or her limitations.

But what I’m getting at is that if you really well understood those idealities, and attempted to work in them as they were in practical terms, then wouldn’t you to a certain extent be applying a force to those events themselves to be more like your idealizations? That is particularizing the universal and ultimately vise versa: you may run the risk of those particular actions coming to represent universal concepts, and individualizing them to suit whatever aims happen to be popular that day. — kudos

If you are unaware of the limitiations to your field of study then that problem might arise. However as I have explaine above, the whole point of academic studies is to get a grip on your field of knowledge and also what its imitations are. Therefore I think an academic is more trained to spot this problem than the non-academic. Moreover, there are of course relationships between the universal and the particular and one of the tasks of the academic is to study their interrelationships. A sociologist of law for instance studies how universal categories of law influence the behaviour of certain people in certain ways in practice.

Thanks! :) @jgill

The academic may know a lot, but they don't know how to truly behave like a layman. — kudos

Before I became a lawyer I was a layman at law. An interested person. So, have I forgotten the questions that intereste me then, but which I could not solve? No why would that be?

They can never know how to not know what they know, and that is a weakness. — kudos

I teach and so I see all kinds of people who do not know what I know, but who will know in the future. Why do you think I have mysteriously forgotten how it is to be a student?

The academic is likely to encounter the traditional way of life with a critical eye perhaps because of what they believe they know; sure they know things, but do they know better so as to decide for someone else? — kudos

Yes of course they do. Say you have a broken car. Then you take it to the mechanic. If you have a problem with your skin, you go to a dermatologist and when you have a legal question you go to a lawyer. Try taing your skin problem to the garage and your car to a lawyer and see whether your problems are solved or not. Academics are just specialised in some field or other and therefore they know more about that subject.

And well, acadmeics do not decide for you. Policy makers do. They decide what behaviour you may perform and what not. they could also use conviction or nudging. But all of that is perfectly straight forward no? I do think you agree that society needs laws and policy.

What gives them that right over others when the basis of their study precedes them just as much as their subject? — kudos

What gives them (or anyone for that matter) rights is a legal question. Mostly they do not have more rights than anyone else. I have the right to judge my students' exams because the university thinks I can do it well. I have the right to write Ph.D. after my name if I so want. Those are some rights I have. Sometimes academics inflruence policy making, such as in the case of the pandemic. However, I did not know academics had more rights than other people. They are more well respected socially maybe. That is logical. They know more about the subject at hand. It is that simple.

On a less ascerbic note, I gebuinely wonder what you mean to illustrate with showing Gershowitz first one and a half minutes. I thought he was clear as day for everyone. There is not a word of legalese in there... He does not say anything 'academic', he speaks as a lawyer. A lawyer knows the law just like an architect knows architecture. so why would this be a desastrous meeting? When you need an expert you call one. They needed an expert on constitutional law so they called him..

I'd definitely say yes to this question. Being paid for philosophy means bought philosophy. — Heiko

And being paid to do painting means bought painting .... wut? No, you get paid for something because you have a certain skill or trait that people pay money for. People pay to hear an educated philosopher lecture because they think they learn more from him or her. And lo and behold, they are probably right, because the man or woman in question has been dedicating her or his time to the subject. That is what academic education provies you with: time, a structure in which you are educated and educators that have obtained distinctions making it creible to think they are fit for their jobs and know what they talk about.

I want to say that it reaches beyond the question of whether an uneducated audience would understand or agree, but if the academic has the right to impose their ideology onto the non-academic. It seems like this unquestionably happens in daily life, but I don't know of any analysis or compendium on the subject to determine if it is being correctly applied. But there do seem to be cases, take this example (only the first 1.5 minutes) from the recent US impeachment case. — kudos

There are many assumptions in your post that an academically trained philoopher or a self educated one skilled at the discipline spots. A. You assume there is some 'ideology' which apparrently the acaemically trained share. This is not true. B. you seem to think that everyting must be equally understandable for everyone. That unfortunately is not the case. If I am at a conference on cancer treatment I will not understand it because my knowledge of biology is insufficient. Now I am a lawyer and what Dershowitz says in the fiirst 1.5 minutes makes perfect sense to me. your posts further display an assumption C. and that is that somehow there are different truths which can be imposed by different people, but there is also one tuth to rule them all to which you sometimes allude. It is hard to make out because you are not clear on what you mean by truth, but you seem to assume somehow the academics have some sort of conpiracy among themsleves to corrupt hte untrained, but also uncorrupted soul of the non academic.

↪Bitter Crank Taking your English education as an example. You must run into writing that is full of defects all the time. But if it were common to step in and act, then you'd expect to see a sort of dogmatic strictness applied to ordinary language that would be very foreign to it. But if you didn't know the subject as well it would be more acceptable, because you would be closer to the same 'level.' So someone who knows less about the subject should have more ability to alter reality than someone who studied the content of their subject. — kudos

You also seem to unerestimate academics. Why would they just apply dogmatic strictness? you think that scholars of the field of linguistics are so dim that they do not understand language is a living instrument? Of course they do. Their vision is not somehow clouded by 'academic' reasoning and thinking as you seem to suggest, it is expanded by it. So they know everything the layman knows and more. Take the last sentence of the quote above: "So someone who knows less about the subject should have more ability to alter reality than someone who studied the content of their subject." What do you mean by ; 'alter reality'? Non-academics and academics alike have the same ability to 'alter reality'. Go and pour a cup of tea or crack open a beer, move your fingers over the keys of a keyboard and presto reality is altered. The argument is totally mudled by the sloppy use of terms and language. The difference between non-academic and academic writing and argumentation is that academic writing and argument has standards of rigour, rigour which the sentence quoted above and the argument at large in original post so sorely lacks.

When a guy tells a woman she's beautiful and she either says that she knows or gives an unmoved expression that indicates that the sentiment isn't worth much is this just straight up hubris? I understand beauty can be measured to some degree scientifically, but is there ever any purpose to being so confident in a quality that in and of itself probably has no substance? I find it annoying when women seem to think so highly of themselves when in truth they don't look that great in my opinion. I find overconfidence keeps people from communicating and really getting to know one another. Is there a purpose for thinking so positively and absolutely about ones appearance? — TiredThinker

A lot depends on how, where and when. When you are saying it to a loved one or to someone in an intimate moment, it different from when you say it to a woman you just talked to in a bar. When you say 'you are beautiful' you are entering some kind of game, like a dance with words. 'you are beautiful' means something else than a factual claim about someone facial or bodily features.

To give an example, I work with a lot of very bright women, though I hardly have the urge to come up to one and say "hey you are bright". When I do so it is only to a friend, or submissive in a sign of admiration. If it was not and I would just say it after a casual encounter it would be arrogant and presumptuous as if I am the judge of brightness. Would it be hubris if she rolled her eyes? I think not. So it is with "you are beautiful".

If I say it to some girl I meet, I actually say "hey, I see something in you, want to play along". My main move though is made on the playing field of physical attraction and perhaps she does not want to play along. Maybe she thinks I am not an aequate dance partner, by choosing that specific genre of dance. Or maybe she just isn't into me. Why would that be hubris? It has nothing to do with her feelings about herself, but with her feelings about the one saying it. If she reacts like that she rejects me, but she has that right no? There is nothing over confident in that no matter how rejected I might feel.

I love that, if you have not read what I am saying is so about democracy, it must not be so? Is there Christianity without charity? Well, there is not democracy without reasoning. — Athena

Que? I have read what you wrote. And I explained that what you wrote was a called a no true scotssman fallacy. And yes, there absolutely is Christianity without clarity. If there is something emphatically unclear it is religion, even by its own lights. The Islaamic theologican an philosopher Al Ghazali has written most interesting things about fate despite rational unclarity.

And then, the analogy is shoddy as well. Why would clairty and religion have anything to do with democracy and reason? You just rpoclaim something but do not argue your point.

The problem is democracy does not have one book that is the authority on what democracy is. However, we have the gods who argued until they had a consensus on the best reason and democracy is an imitation of the gods. — Athena

Wut? And they forgot to call me when the gods started to discuss under the veil of ignorance?

In his explanation of the Republic, it would-be philosophers who rule. In the past, the US attempted to prepare everyone for democracy, so we have a republic that through education had a culture for democracy. — Athena

The US id not prepare everyone for democracy. In fact the US supported ruthless dictatorships in South America.

In old test books, democracy is defined like this "Democracy is a way of life and social organization which above all others is sensitive to the dignity and worth of the individual human personality, affirming the fundamental moral and political equality of all men and recognizing no barriers of race, religion, or circumstance." — Athena

Yes and not with 'rule by reason'.

From the Democracy Series and among the characteristics of democracy is "the search for truth" — Athena

Great, by what political philosopher have those been composed? The search for truth also takes place in non democratic countries. In face the scientific revolution preceded democracy.

Then we have Cicero “God's law is 'right reason.' When perfectly understood it is called 'wisdom.' When applied by government in regulating human relations it is called 'justice.” Before education for technology, we were educated for liberty and justice and a democratic way of life. — Athena

By whom? By the Romans? They ended up revering an emperor as God. You might be right there is all things wrong with current education, but your reasoning is incomprehensible. Perhaps caused by this shoddy education system I am thinking. You link epochs and ideas to each other without any rhyme or reason.

When the Prussians took control of Germany, they centralized education and focused it on technology for military and industrial purpose. They had a Christian Republic but it was authoritarian, and that is what the US has become. That is not what we defended in two world wars. — Athena

Yes, all the more proof that Christianity is not related to democracy. The Prussian state was a militaristic 'obrigkeitsstaat', an perhaps the US has become more militaristic. I do not really know though.

The trinity of the American republic's government is as important as the trinity of God and this is devoid of superstitious notions. It is understanding the power of the trinity is like the reason a stool has 3 legs. A stool with only two legs would never work. Three, the trinity is very important. I don't think we want Trump on a unicycle no matter how entertaining he is — Athena

Your argument seems to run like this: triangles are important in philosophy. triangles are important in christianity, therefore Christianity is based on philosophy, but that is simply an invalid argument.

Most stools have four legs. I also like the number three and indeed in Islam the trinity is not accepted, but whether it is more or less reasonable to do so is up for grabs. The thread of argument that seems interesting in your ramblings is the following: The Christian metaphor of the trinity is a worthwhile heuristic device because it allows us to conceive of power as an interplay of forces without having to conceive of some centroifugal point. The number three holds value in argumentation because of how our minds work. That is all well and good. It is interesting and should be further worked out, but get rid of all the other bollocks, such as politics, democracy, justice and the military industrial complex.

What I said is the US demobilized after wars, until Eisenhower and the Korean war. That is not a false statement. — Athena

That might be true or not but that was not a statement, but an argument in support of your statement that US democracy could not go to war. That statement is false.

Do you know what the Masons are? Do you know several of the US founding fathers were Masons? If you do, you should know they designed Washington D.C. and the US government with an understanding of the power of math and form. — Athena

Sure I know and sure I know they like triangles, but that notion was known in political philosophy before the US founding fathers. It always baffles me how much US citizens revere a club of land owners who had to bash out a constitution. They did a fine job but were by no means demi-gos, just people. People are inspired by ideas current at the time. The notions llike limited government and division of the political in three branches have been around since John Locke. Add tot hat that US democracy is a flawed form of democracy. The reason for that has nothing to do with triangles or reason. but with power politics between the populous states focused on trade and the less populous ones focusing on agriculture.

Also since the beginning of civilizations religion has given governments legitimacy. And in a slightly different take on the importance of the gods, the Capitol Building in D.C. has a mural of the gods that make a republic strong. This link will explain what the gods have to do with the democracy of the US. https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/capitol-story/apotheosis-washington They go with being a Mason and the founding fathers' thrill of making history as we move closer to a new age. If you understand these gods, you know what math and science have to do with our democracy. — Athena

Seems to me an early commercial for George Washington's rule.... The fact that images of God or Gods are used says nothing. about the republic being founded on reason. Founded on mysticism is more like it.

edit: there is another interesting line you could take and that is the necessity of truth or better consensus on facts for democracy. What I do concede is that democracy cannot survive when it is internally so divided that there is not only no consensus on politics based on facts but on the facts themselves. That is an interesting line, but then drop all the links with Chrristianity.

When a democracy is no longer rule by reason, it is no longer a legitimate democracy. Education is essential to democracy and that is not education for technology! Because the US replaced liberal education with the German model of education for technology, it is now what it defended its democracy against. A police state serving military might, and self-destructing because of reactionary politics. Only when democracy is defended in the classroom is it defended, — Athena

What you perform here is a 'no true scotsman' falacy. You state that a democracy is defined as rule by reason and when I object you tell me it is no longer a democracy if it is not. That way you simply define democracy to suit your own terms. However, in no literature have I ever come across such a definition. The rule of law maybe, but the rule by reason? It is also very unclear what that is supposed to mean.
I am also interested what you consider to be the 'German model'. Last time I checked German education was quite good environmentally friendly and very pro democracy.

A saw is not a more reasonable tool than a hammer your logic seems wrong to me. I think in general Americans need a better understanding of their mathematical heritage. Many of the founding fathers were Masons and the trinity is three forces keeping each other in check and balance. If anyone becomes weak, the triangle breaks and the democracy ends. — Athena

I would recommend more political education if that is your point, not more mathematics. The trinity seems an odd way to go when what you are after is called the trias politica written down by Montesquieu, the metaphor of a triangle and all. By all means teach it, but why mathematics?

Let me clarify, absolutely, the trinity is three aspects or three forces, and this knowledge is based on math and therefore is good reasoning. That knowledge is essential to a population that wants democracy. — Athena

Of course it is not mathematics. Mathematics deals with purely formal quantities. You define forces that keep each other in check. There is nothing mathematical about that. A triangle is a mathematical figure, no more no less. The content you give it stems from theology. that is all fine, but it is not math.

That knowledge is essential to a population that wants democracy. — Athena

Why would knowledge of a trinity be necessary for democracy?

My reasoning is not false but the people in the US are ignorant of math, logos, and cause and effect. They are not only ignorant but their thinking is way too short-term and narrow! The US entering the mid-east to control oil and establish strategic power there, was sure to be expressive and have unpleasant ramifications. Doing so has seriously weakened the US, or at least Biden's hold on power, as the mistakes of the past are now in his lap. I hate to think of what will happen if this results in Trump's return to power because Trump is destructive to our relationship with our allies when these relationships are more important than ever before. My point is bad reasoning gets bad results, and good reasoning gets good results and democracy is about understanding that. — Athena

That might all be true, but I have no idea what knowledge of angles, goniometrics or triangles have to do with it.

Our democracy in the US, was not only less prone to war, but intentionally unable to engage in war because we demobilized our military force at the end of wars, until Eisenhower and the Korean war. That is the point in time when we because the Military-Industrial Complex we defended our democracy against in two world wars. During the first world war, we were best known for our missionaries and charity and it took us a year to mobilize for war. Around the world, we were known for being anti-war and working for peace. One step to world peace was President Kennedy's Peace Core, which is sent around the world to help people resolve serious problems and have better lives, without military force. — Athena

I am all in favour of peace, but the US not engaging in war before Korea is false, it entered the first and second world war on the side of the allies, it fought wars against Mexico and Spain to name but a few and during and before those, it managed to slaughter the native American population and massacre each other from 1861 to 1864. The US has a nice track record when it comes to going to war. I am not bashing the US here by the way, it is not judgment, just fact.

You seem to curiously relate politics to theology to mathematics... why though is beyond me, creating some odd mathematical mysticism that you seem to want our kids to learn. If you want to make a point about the usefulness of the triangle as a metaphor and its perennial use in theology, politics and philosophy, than you have an interesting point. However, you hang way too much on it and it breaks the whole wall apart you have been masoning here.

Looks like a damn fool reason for people killing each other doesn't it. People who value philosophy need to raise our cultural value of it and the notion that democracy is rule by reason. For world peace, and to actualize our human potential that needs to replace religion. — Athena

The problem is that democracy is not necessarily rule by reason. Democracy is rule by popular will but this will might not be reasonable. You also seem to suggest that the concept of the trinity as three aspects is somehow based in math and therefore more reasonable. Moreover that therefore people holding that view are less prone to killing. That all is false. the ISlamic god is just as mathematically reasonable because rooted in the number one. Also Christians that did all recognise the trinity killed each other mercilessly see the 30 years war in Europe.

which I've always interpreted as 'while truth concealed by dissembling feminine-like appearances' ..., 'truth is a dominatrix' to which every 'truth-seeker' must submit – never possessing or ever controlling her. For Freddy, 'the will to truth' is more often than not emasculating, or de-naturalizing (re: technoscience "disenchants" instead of cultivates human nature (i.e. higher animality)), a life-negating (weakening, even sickening – "slavish") expression of the will to power. Loving this 'goddess Truth', at best Freddy suggests, is never fully reciprocated and exacts a profound psychological, or spiritual, price which her suitors must deny to themselves, or sublimate somehow, in order to live with her faithfully on their knees. Freddy, IMO, seems to be saying to Enlightenment, science-envying, modern philosophers et al: amor fati, bitches. :smirk: — 180 Proof

I agree, but I read Nietzsche also as calling forth an active spirit. We need to submit, but also to command in the sense of setting values, proclaiming truth, governing as well as being governed, in a state of tension, For me it is closely related to the master slave dialectic and Foucault's concept of power as both enabling and dominating, a dance in which at some point the ,movements start to flow into each other and who leads and who follows becomes unclear. I think the relation between truth and power is one of Nietzsche's most profound and productive insights, but how he sees the relationship exactly is ambivalent.

But then, yesterday with a hidden reference to one of your self descriptions Proof, I called myself a truthtrickster in response to a plea to criminalize denying climate change on the basis of our obligation to tell the truth. Here I saw truth and power to coincide withouth the speaker knowing it. So I am sceptical of seeking the truth, the relationship is more important. That is why for me philosophy is about seduction, a game in which, when done correctly, the participants share mutual love. When played with truth: your love for truth deepens and so does her love for you, that is, she makes life easier. Possession though, or utter submission ends the game and makes one a dogmatic, dry and Nordic.

Sounds like you've had a bad experience. Not sure I have ever met an analytic philosopher. — Tom Storm

No not really, most analytic philosophers I met were perfectly nice people. I just find the question "what does it even mean" a bit chidish, probably because they use it a lot, so in that sense you might be right. Also you asking me to explain Nietzsche I find a bit odd,"hey tell me what it means!" While I would say either know it, or look it up.

But anyway, I do not mind explaining and talking about it a bit. Well, I liked the reference because Nietzsche had a nice chapter about how philosophers approach truth, in a crude way as if truth will immediately answer every question posed to it. So he compared truth to a woman, You do not approach a woman like that immediately demanding looking up her skirt. I liked the quote saying I am not looking for truth or other high minded persuits, but I like to approach women by doing philosophy. So it was a bit playful. It is not untrue though, I think philosophy is actually profoundly sexual and that its imagery and lines of argument are sexual metaphors.

"The daring (not to say scandalous) character of Bohr's quantum postulate cannot be stressed too strongly: that the frequency of a radiation emitted or absorbed by an atom did not coincide with any frequency of its internal motion must have appeared to most contemporary physicists well-nigh unthinkable. Bohr was fully conscious of this most heretical feature of his considerations: he mentions it with due emphasis in his paper.....[Bohr's remark]"In the necessity of the new assumptions I think that we agree; but do you think such horrid assumptions, as I have used necessary? For the moment I am inclined to most radical ideas and do consider the application of the mechanics as of only formal validity."" — Caldwell

I don't think it is a scathing remark against Bohr actually. He rather applauds Bohr for being daring, scandalous and ... revolutionary. What he seems to be hinting at is the existence of a scientific orthodoxy, not unike Kuhn described. As such the scientists and the Ulema have things in common, both form epistemic communities. That is well accepted in the philosophy of science now. That would make the death of science the death of sceintific orthodoxy. That happens frequentily in science itself though with 'science' actually dying.

Hmmm - what does that even mean? Aphorisms are amusing but are they anything more than glib provocations? — Tom Storm

"What does that even mean?" whenever I read this line I imagine a baby analytic philosopher hitting his little fist against his chair demanding meaning! meaning! but that aside. It is a metaphor and Nietzsche wrote a couple of pages explaining it rather clearly, especially considering how he usually writes. Anyway both appear in a certain way and both demand a certain approach.

Are you chasing after Truth? After a more complete understanding of Reality? After happiness? — leo

Girls. I am the first to admit it is a bit of a roundabout way to chase. But Nietzsche was on point: "what if truth was a woman".

Apparently they do. — Caldwell

Ok but it is totally unclear how or why. I have no idea why complimentarity says something about the death of science. I can conjecture a Marxist 'death of science scenario', or an ecological one, but that does not seem to be your point. So right now I am at a loss :)

I will also check that. Leon Rosenfeld was a Marxist... which leas me to believe economy would not be that far away ;) But I will read what I can find on him. Thanks Caldwell.

Hi Tobi,

You can critique science on political and economic grounds. But that would be different from the arguments of cycle framework. — Caldwell

No, it's metaphysical. — Caldwell

Yes but I am unsure what theiir metaphysical argument might be. If one points to the essence of a certain something, here science, but conveniently disentangle it from its relations. can the metaphysical argument still be sound, or are they attacking a beast of their own making? My argument here is also one of metaphysics, not economics.

The environmental perspective I would consider a metaphysical perspective, because it presupposes a certain structure of the world and tends to accept certain commitments, holism for instance and often the idea that these myriad of connections that form an ecosystem are intrinsically valuable. Basically what I and I think other posters as well is what there argument is exactly. If it is 'everything is cyclical and what begins has to have an end', than they are right but only in a trivial sense and we have no way of knowing whether we are in the dawn of science or its dusk. therefore there has to be more. So what would their argument be to say science is in decay on metaphysical grouns?

The critique against science, insofar as the decline theorists are concerned, has always been metaphysical. That is, they are arguing about the very essence of science. How else can something be destroyed, but through the demolition of its very essence. Science has qualities essential to it. — Caldwell

I wonder about that because I think it would be very hard to say what the essence of science is. There are also different styles of doing science, see for instance Chunglin Kwa, " styles of knowing" . I do not think people will stop wanting to know. What can ' decay' is faith in the current institutions of science and perhaps against a method we call scientific.

While influences outside it from different schools of thoughts or political thoughts, even economic, have been..well.. influential in shaping the scientific research and development, those are not the object of their criticisms. The scientific decline theorists are, after all, philosophers. And being philosophers, they try to maintain the proper parameter within which to attack science. — Caldwell

But if you artificially disentangle something from which is is embdedded and then attack it, aren't you attacking a straw man? An influential strand in the philosophy of science points out the political and economic nature of science. I think such a critique will hit science harder because it attacks the source of its legitimacy, its supposed purety and objectivity.

Another thing I want to stress is that these same theorists show a high degree of respect for disciplines such as the scientific psychology. They are pragmatists and empiricists. They recognize the delineation between the cultural, organic, and behavioral on the one hand, and the atomistic world on the other. And here we can understand why they reject the increasingly mechanistic view of reality. When everything and anything is reduced to bare bones formulations, with the occasional corollary here and there, one can start to wonder whether scientists and the natural world are now the casualty. — Caldwell

The way you desscribe it, to me it seems these criticisms come from an environmental perspective. However then it does not make sense to exclude the political.The 'atomistic world' has always been a mechanical world I think though and the formulations are just translations of its supposed mechanical processes. When we want to ' smell the earth' , more is needed, some form of normativity. So I do not understand their argument I guess. They want their cake and eat it too, somehow separating science from other human endeavours, but in the end ground it in some form of intrinsic value...

True. And let's be careful not to confuse precision or exactitude with mechanistic. — Caldwell

Yes very true.

Yes! We want to smell the earth not hide behind the theory of numbers and symbols. — Caldwell

Yes we do. We long for the earth and give rights to trees. And the symbols and number are countered by other symbols and numbers. Cost benefit analyses clash with impact assessments and we learn that the numbers we get are dependent on the numbers we feed and the answer becomes 42 like some sort of oracle proclaiming the wish of the Greek gods.