Seems like equivocation on the concept of justification to me.

You wisdom is too strong for me Bartricks. It's scary.

Those who think God exists and their life has some other purpose, are self aggrandizing idiots who grossly underestimate God's power (and have warped and sick ideas about what love involves). — Bartricks

That's me!

Apparently, in India they were (are?) drowned in milk. — Apollodorus

Awfully expensive way to drown someone. What's wrong with water?

Banno's position is extreme and dogmatic.
— bert1

I don't agree. — T Clark

The reason I'm having a somewhat random whack at Banno is because his views on language and definitions prevent him talking about things that I and many others want to talk about, for example, my philosophical interest, consciousness. However it doesn't stop him writing posts anyway and messing up threads. I've tried to get him to talk about consciousness, but he insists on talking about consciousness. I tell him to shut the fuck up and stay on topic. And he says he is on topic.

When you identify a definition as "essentialist," do you mean that the definition corresponds to a natural boundary inherent in the phenomenon and not established by human consensus? — T Clark

I was trying to follow the usage in this thread, esp. from Michael. So I guess I'm thinking of something like the definition of 'bachelor' as that of an unmarried man. These are severally necessary and jointly sufficient for object X to be a bachelor. Is that a form of essentialism? Have I got this wrong? The essence of a bachelor is that it is unmarried and a man. Heaps, on the other hand, don't seem to have an essence. And if they do, it's a vague one.

I think this is different from the concept of vagueness though, although the two ideas probably track each other somewhat, I'm not sure. Have to think about it. So even 'bachelor' could be vague, as at precisely what point does someone go from being unmarried to married? "I pronounce you man and wife", but then exactly when did the word 'wife' finish being uttered? When the registrar's lungs stopped contracting? Or when the sound wave battered the eardrums of the couple? Or what? So vagueness/non vague is a different concept pair from essentialist/non-essentialist. But I've only just started thinking about it so I may have misunderstood something.

The Sorites paradox is a paradox, because one can reason from some prima-facie plausible premises to a contradiction. It's just a not a very stubborn paradox, and, correctly understood (and here I agree with Banno), leads to the important idea of vague predicates. And these resolve the paradox. Some paradoxes are tougher than others.

Where I don't agree with Banno is that all predicates are like this. Nor do I agree all philosophical problems can be solved this way. Some putative examples of non-vague terms (there aren't many, at least outside maths perhaps): less than seven, spatial, conscious.

Requests for definitional clarity are sometimes unreasonable, but sometimes they are reasonable. It depends on the context. Banno's position is extreme and dogmatic. Definitions are not all essentialist - Banno himself showed this.

I do think meaning (in any context) does always seem to be particularly about relationships. A solitary person may find it necessary to be creative in finding meaningful relationships between different parts of themselves, or themselves and their environment. [/casual opinion]

No, you've misunderstood TMF's point.

This thread is a fishing expedition. I'm seeking out those who disagree with this proposition: Science is a good thing, to see what their arguments are. — Banno

Well I disagree. I think we should have stopped at hunter gathering. We'd be way happier.

Whether a country is democratic is for the people to decide. — ltlee1

:scratches head:

When there's a decision to make, but you don't mind which option you take?

180, your posts are in code. I don't have the codec.

Okay. I await your BiV reasoning though. — 180 Proof

Scroll up

And I append it to the end my broader epistemic position because foundherenism is inherently fallibilist and focused on beliefs more so than knowledge — 180 Proof

But you explicitly said you knew you were not a BiV.

'pragmatist-falsificationist-foundherentist' — 180 Proof

If this is some kind of irreducible compound, I have no idea what you mean by it.

Today I got up, heard the birds singing, smelled the toast, trod on a nail. If the computers had not stimulated my brain I would not have had those experiences. I did have them, therefore the computers stimulated my brain just so.

The idea that you are a BiV is coherent, founded in experience and unfalsified.

Foundherentism is a theory of justification.

There are no grounds for me to doubt that I'm not a BiV so the point's moot. The idle doubts upon which 'the BiV speculation' is raised shows it's vacuous. — 180 Proof

I don't think I'm a BiV either. But I'm not sure why. You haven't established a prima facie reason for thinking you're not.

EDIT: I agree it's somewhat idle. It's not something I seriously worry about. But it's a philosophical niggle. It's like the New Riddle of Induction. I'm totally sure the grass I'm looking at is green and not grue, but justifying that is not straightforward.

You're using "introspection" so loosely it's worthless, bert. I rely on a lack of grounds to doubt and, where otherwise, use hypothetico-deductions tested by observation (Popper et al). — 180 Proof

Oh, OK. If you're a BiV all you have is introspection, loosely defined or not.

You're abducting from information gained by introspection.

I'm a bat in a vat. — Tom Storm

What is it like?

Yes.

I'm a brain in a skull in a body in a social ecosystem in a natural ecosystem in a planetary biosphere ... Too much unnecessary detail for a sim. — 180 Proof

You just think you are. Introspection is unreliable.

I don't need God. Idealism does! — madfool

Idealism just needs other minds, not necessarily god.

But I put it to you that you are indeed reading this post, and further that you also know you are reading this post. It follows, by reductio, that any argument that says otherwise is wrong. — Banno

Berkeley would agree I think. And Berkeley also thinks we have direct unmediated contact with the world. Your views on the relationship between language and the world seem strikingly reminiscent of idealism to me, even though you repudiate idealism.

I do think that a reader's understanding of a post is primarily the responsibility of the writer of that post. You, Apokrisis, 180 Proof, and other regular posters, all blame readers for not understanding you. Apokrisis particularly was strangely unable to perceive how his posts came across to many others. Having said that I'm grateful for your response. It is interesting and I haven't read Davidson and I should. I will do that. :)

The rats in my house are developing quite a sophisticated civilisation.

May I disagree with your description of the Berkeleyan perspective? — Nelson E Garcia

Yes

But then comes the surprise, the atom microscope was developed and his Immaterialism became a scientific fact. — Nelson E Garcia

I don't understand what you are referring to there.

The Berkeleyan subjective idealist empiricist intuition is that the external world is made up of lots of properties - that is how we experience it. However all these properties depend on a point of view for their them to be as they are. Therefore the world in general, in so far as it is composed of these properties, is also so dependent on these points of view. I'm not at all sure that this is right. But it is not enough to say "Oh but this is just to say we can't think about something without thinking about it." Is there anything we can say about the unexperienced world which isn't question-begging? Any why? More work needs to be done to deal with the idealist challenge.

Stove's Gem - again, again and again. — Banno

But aren't you a kind of linguo-idealist? Sometimes you say things along the lines of language structuring the world. But we can't talk about the world without talking about it, can we? Why doesn't that fall foul of a version of Stove's gem?

No doubt I've mischaracterised your view here, but I'm interested in the correct version.

Oh, keep in mind that what you don't know can still kill you. ;)
Anyway, I'm certainly not going to universalize self-dependence.
Kind of haphazard, unwarranted, questionable, ... — jorndoe

If idealism is so obviously wrong to you, why do you think people believe it? I'm asking for philosophical reasons, not psychological or cultural ones. I've never seen you really engage with the philosophy of idealism, despite repeated mockeries and hints at ridiculousness.

While I think the Bible can be a good inspiration or starting point for doing philosophy, I'm not sure it really contains much philosophy without the need for pretty heavy interpretation first. And discussions of Biblical philosophy are unlikely to get past arguments over interpretation. Better just to not mention the Bible and skip straight to the idea you want to discuss. Opinion bomb from bert1. You're welcome.

This sounds somewhat Lockean, with the concept of force replacing Locke's primary qualities. I'm honestly not sure what I think of it. I'm open to the possibility. I think it might well be right. A lot will depend on what is meant by 'force' of course.

They're not stable. Gravity has changed. Just taking my case, I've steadily got heavier over the last 40 years.

Mental Capacity Act 2005 - UK legislation
Waterland - Graham Swift
Contributions form a Potential Corpse - Eugene Halliday
Article 12 of the UNCRPD (and General Comment 1)
The Once and Future King - T. H. White
Defence of the Devil - Eugene Halliday
The Silmarillion - Tolkien
Loud Hands - collection of autistic writing
The Jungle Books - Kipling
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell - Blake
The Grey King - Susan Cooper
The Farseer Trilogy - Robin Hobb (and all the books set in that world)

Most of these affected me profoundly both emotionally and intellectually.

...

The re-education camps are intended to destroy a culture. You don't need to kill to effectively cause genocide. — Benkei

I read Cuthbert's post as ironic, but I could be wrong.

"Everybody wants to go to heaven
But nobody wants to die" — 180 Proof

:scratches head:

To go to heaven in the religious sense you have to die. But the transhumanist is saying we can have a heaven on earth AND not die. So the lyric is inapt.

Because I'm better at it than those who worship it. — Mystic

You haven't done any yet. Do some and you might not get banned.

Mystic, why are you on a philosophy forum?