I like to explore this idea that "we don't believe(or know) nothing can travel faster than light" or "we don't know that for sure." One reason I have often heard is that you would need an infinite amount of energy to move a mass to the speed of light that makes it impossible, and no one knows where to get an infinite amount of energy — Richard B

That we would need an infinite amount of energy is a central plank of the theory, but the theory might turn out to be wrong. Or there might be things we are not aware of that travel faster than light. The rest of what you say also consists of a number of corollaries of the theory, and this begs the question.

I'm not saying the theory is likely to turn out to be wrong, and I would agree that we have very little reason to believe it is wrong. On account of having little reason to believe it is wrong we believe it is right, but I don't count that as knowledge, but would rather call it belief.

In another sense, as per the quote from Wittgenstein, the scientific paradigms within which scientists work are not questioned, and are the background against which questions are asked and answered, and I think this qualifies them, insofar as they are methodologies or ways of working, as being knowledge in the sense of know-how.

Of course. But concern, love, intention and judgement are all realized in actions. — Ludwig V

Sure, they can be realized in actions, but they are not necessarily.

If you had said that living in that way was a better form of life, I would entirely agree with you. — Ludwig V

That was just what I was saying, only I used the term "higher" instead of better while meaning "better". I prefer the term higher, despite its possible metaphysical baggage, because I tend to think in terms of greater love, freedom, moral sensibility, sense of justice and creativity as manifesting heightened states of consciousness, that is I think there are higher and lower states of consciousness.

The problems arise when you think that some people are not really people. — Ludwig V

We are all defined biologically as being human, and as members of societies we are all defined as being people. I'm not concerned to define some individuals otherwise, but was merely pointing to the common tendency to think of those who completely lack empathy or moral sense as being less than human and worse than animals.

There is a concept of "human rights", which aims to establish minimal norms for the treatment of all human beings. — Ludwig V

I'm not advocating removing the anyone's rights. That would be in the domain of legal policy and that is not what I am addressing.

But it is right to look after one's own interests. I don't see that it is a "lower" value than helping other people to look after theirs. What is wrong is not looking after and helping others as well.
You are forgetting that it is quite easy to do terrible things in pursuit of a selfless ideology - indeed, I sometimes think that a set of values is often the basis for worse things than self-interest - like tyranny, torture and genocide. — Ludwig V

I haven't compared looking out for one's interests with looking after the interests of others, or helping other to look after their own interests; what I've been saying is that one who is concerned only with their own interests is morally lower than one who is concerned with their own interests and the interests of others.

I am also not advocating ideologies of any kind.

:cool:

I am wondering if this is just Janustein or Wittgenstein though.. — schopenhauer1

It is my inexpert interpretation of one of Wittgenstein's ideas.

Let me ask you, are there many philosophies that would advocate that the world is composed of false states of affairs? — schopenhauer1

There are no "false states of affairs", there are only states of affairs. I think Wittgenstein's statement shows a kind of relational 'process' view of the nature of the world rather than a 'substance' or essentialist view.

I take him to be referring to actual states of affairs, the point being that things are not 'stand alone' but are relational.

Facts are not debatable, whether or not something is a fact may be debatable.

Since you bring in the mix scientific theories, I will go with that theme. Is Newtonian and Einsteinian physics knowledge? I think it would be difficult to argue with a scientist to say that it was not. — Richard B

I would say they are knowledge in the sense of being kinds of know-how.

I presume you would argue that Einsteinian physics proved Newtonian physics false. — Richard B

No, I wouldn't say that. Aspects may be false, for example Einstein's idea that nothing can travel faster than light may be false. I would agree with saying that Newtonian physics is less accurate or less "fine-grained" than Einsteinian physics.

For example, I can imagine something faster than the speed of light therefore Einsteinian physics is only a belief not knowledge. If this is how one sows the seeds of doubt on a scientific theory, thank goodness most scientists would ignore it as a philosophical eccentricity and get on doing science. — Richard B

It is believed that nothing can travel faster than light, we don't know that for sure, but if it turned out to be untrue it would not invalidate Einsteinian physics, because the latter demonstrably works to a very high degree of accuracy.

Since you bring in the mix scientific theories, I will go with that theme. Is Newtonian and Einsteinian physics knowledge? I think it would be difficult to argue with a scientist to say that it was not. — Richard B

I would say they are knowledge in the sense of being kinds of know-how.

I presume you would argue that Einsteinian physics proved Newtonian physics false. — Richard B

No, I wouldn't say that. Aspects may be false, for example Einstein's idea that nothing can travel faster than light may be false. I would agree with saying that Newtonian physics is less accurate or less "fine-grained" than Einsteinian physics.

For example, I can imagine something faster than the speed of light therefore Einsteinian physics is only a belief not knowledge. If this is how one sows the seeds of doubt on a scientific theory, thank goodness most scientists would ignore it as a philosophical eccentricity and get on doing science. — Richard B

It is believed that nothing can travel faster than light, but if that turned out to be untrue it would not invalidate Einsteinian physics, because the latter demonstrably works to a very high degree of accuracy.

But was that even addressed by Witt? — schopenhauer1

Well, he did say that the world is the totality of facts not of things.

Well, I can see that there's a difference, but let's not get picky about language. Values are related to action in a way that facts are not. That's the important difference. — Ludwig V

I'm not sure what you are addressing here Ludwig; I was making a distinction between moral imperatives and moral intuitions and relating the latter to aesthetic intuitions, love and care.

Values are related to action, but they are also related to concern, love, intention and judgement.

I'm aware that many people like to see ethical values as rooted in the human condition living in the world. I'm very sympathetic.
However, we do dehumanize people who behave very badly - and it is not difficult to find people doing things that pass my (and, I hope, your) understanding. However, I think this is a mistake. The people who set up a huge administrative and industrial system to eradicate people of certain kinds from their society (to give just one hackneyed example) are human beings. We are capable of heroism and horror. We should not pretend otherwise even though the recognition is not comfortable.
And there's the problem. If values are rooted in the human condition, how come people behave like that? — Ludwig V

For me ethical values are rooted in caring about how we are to live. My earlier talk in terms of higher and lower was meant to show that I think living with care, concern and love for others and for the whole environment, the whole Earth, is a higher form of life than living without such care.

I don't agree with dehumanizing people in the extreme, but I do think it is fair to see people who have no such care as being less than fully human. By human I mean something like "able to transcend being ruled by mere self-interest and the passions of the moment, able to be aware of and care about one's effect on other beings, both human and animal and even plant".

I am not sure what you mean by "eradicating people of certain kinds" so I can't comment on that other than to say that I think certain kinds of people certainly need to be restrained; namely those who possess little or no self-restraint or even self-awareness.

I think values are rooted in the human condition, but it does not follow that all of us will be able to live up to those values, perhaps none of us perfectly and all of us only more or less. And that refers only to those who are actually aware of and care about those values; some may have no awareness of them, or even if they do have some awareness, do not care at all about them.

But, then one can ask, in what sense can P, a proposition made up of words, correspond with reality made up of objects? — 013zen

I don't see the problem. A reality made up of objects is always already a linguistically mediated or interpreted reality.

Animal knowing is equivalent to what I would call 'directly seeing actualities'. Thought comes later

I don't see that the disposition to help people in need, to pursue beauty and truth, to eat drink and be merry, to sleep well at night can be put on a scale at all, at least not on any meaningful scale. — Ludwig V

Only in terms of degree of caring and commitment.

You are setting up a false opposition here. It is not merely natural for us, it is right. Admittedly, we need to reconcile our love of our own with more universal, and perhaps less immediate values, and the specific values can compete with the universal ones. But that doesn't mean that one is "higher" than the other. "Higher" and "lower" are metaphors and the metaphors should be very cautiously interpreted. — Ludwig V

If you think I was aiming to set up any kind of opposition, then you have misunderstood my intention. Higher and lower should be read as better and worse. Sometimes blindly following our "normal" appetites may be detrimental to ourselves and others, so the discipline or moderation that may come with a rational understanding of those appetites is better than an unreasoned addiction to them.

We all know them, by virtue of being human, but their truth cannot be demonstrated in any determinable way as the truth of the fact of the world of the senses can.
— Janus

No, no, no. An imperative is not true or false, but is valid or not, obeyed or not. Values are more like imperatives than truths. They are what we pursue. We can pursue truth (which is why it is also a value), but we also pursue other values, and needs (which are not necessarily the same kind of thing). — Ludwig V

Firstly, I am not thinking in terms of imperatives, but in terms of concern or care; our human capacity to care about justice, beauty, freedom, truth, creativity, love and so on. I see these concerns as being truths about the human condition, about being human. Those who care nothing for such things are considered to be not as fully human, and I think rightly so.

But let's not pretend that it is a simple matter to establish truth and a hopeless enterprise to establish a value; that far too simple a model to be helpful. — Ludwig V

I haven't proposed that at all. I have said that I think that empirical truths are easier to establish, but that people "know" the other human truths I mentioned above because we find on self-examination that we care about them and that we have good reason to believe that most others do too, even if we don't always act in full accordance with those intuitions.

In that conception I'm speaking only about so-called propositional knowledge, not know-how, knowledge by participation or acquaintance.

Why would you use that definition? The way I see it it clarifies the difference between knowledge and belief. I'm not sure what you would count as knowledge. Would you say that you know that the big bang theory or the theory of evolution is true? I wouldn't, I'd say rather that I have very good reason to believe they are true, but that I don't know if they are true.

What do you think I am losing by thinking about it that way?

I'm not getting your point. Are you claimimg I don't know what knowledge is? Or that you do?

Let me ask, do you believe your position that “if there can be any doubt that it is true, then we don’t know it either” can be doubted as true? If so, this is not knowledge, just belief. — Richard B

It is not really knowledge, but a stipulative definition of it, based on the logic I understand to be inherent in the idea of knowing. You may have a different interpretation of the logic of knowing, and that is to be expected when it comes to the meaning of terms and the understanding of the human experience those terms are meant to refer to.

Moore thought it necessary, which is the reason he claimed to know he had hands. — Fooloso4

Perhaps the problem lies with presenting it or parsing it as a claim, rather than seeing it as being merely a statement of what would be obvious to everyone, because when something is presented or understood as a claim that seems to logically leave room for a counterclaim.

I don't like "more important" or "highest". Everyday mundane reality is important, not "low". — Ludwig V

I haven't said that everyday mundane reality is low, in fact I have explicitly said that it is our disposition towards things which could be higher or lower.

Yet here you are, trying to say something about values and it is not obvious that what you are saying is nonsense or non-sense. — Ludwig V

I was trying to point to the difference between the things of sense about which we can make intersubjectively definitive claims and the values that we all generally hold about which we cannot make such definitive claims because of the absence of strictly determinable or tangible evidence. I was saying the latter are non-sense on account of the lack of tangibility, but not nonsense because we all generally (at least the non-sociopaths among us) take ourselves to hold such values and thus know what is meant when these values are spoken about.

I believe this is incorrect, and it's a misunderstanding of what it means to know. I assume your use of the phrase "definitely know the truth" means to know with 100% certainty. Most of what we claim to know is not known with absolute certainty. Most of what we claim to know is what's probably true or likely the case, and this follows from logic (inductive reasoning). I think your idea of knowledge is too restrictive. — Sam26

You are equivocating between what it means to know and what it means to claim to know. They are not the same. If something is not true then we don't know it, despite whatever claims we might have to know it. And I would go further and say that if we don't know that we know it to be true, that is if there can be any doubt that it is true, then we don't know it either. I'm not imputing this to Wittgenstein but highlighting the point where I probably disagree with him. Is there anything that you believe could not possibly be false?

Proof against radical skepticism is not such a circumstance. — Fooloso4

How could we have, and why would we need, proof against radical skepticism, if it is incoherent?

It is not that Wittgenstein thinks that Moore does not know it is a hand, it is that he misuses the word, as if it corresponds to a mental state that guarantees that what he knows must be true because he knows it. It is this that is not granted. — Fooloso4

I think the counterpoint would be something like 'What could it possibly mean for it to be false?'.

If science presents a theory based on experiments or mathematical models, then someone probably believes the conclusions are either true or false. If they believe they're true or false, they're using propositions. Most all of what we know is in the form of propositions. — Sam26

They believe the theory is true or false, so they do not know it be one or the other. On the other hand, in a different sense, theories are forms of 'know-how' in that they enable us to see the world in different ways, make novel predictions and so on. But that is not propositional knowledge it seems to me.

A claim to have good reason to believe X is partly what we mean by know. Good reasons are how we justify many of our beliefs and why we make claims that a proposition is true. It is a claim to know. — Sam26

That seems uncontroversial to me, I would just repeat that a claim to know is not knowledge in the sense of definitely knowing the truth of some proposition but is rather merely belief.

The philosopher raises doubts about things that are ordinarily not doubted. His concern is the truth of things. The move from opinion to knowledge is by way of doubt or skepticism (skeptis - to inquire). There is, however, also knowledge of the arts (techne) and Socrates own knowledge of Eros, from which his knowledge of ignorance arises. — Fooloso4

Yes, the philosopher questions accepted beliefs, doubts them and subjects them to examination to try to determine whether they are actually true. But there are many beliefs the truth of which is not determinable.

Techne, or know-how is a different category of knowledge than 'knowledge as beleif" it seems to me, it is rather 'knowledge as ability'.

With regard to knowledge and doubt in On Certainty:

6. Now, can one enumerate what one knows (like Moore)? Straight off like that, I believe not. - For otherwise the expression "I know" gets misused. And through this misuse a queer and extremely
important mental state seems to be revealed.

What is this mental state?

12. - For "I know" seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression "I thought I knew".

When Moore says he knows he has hands, this does not refute the skeptic. — Fooloso4

I don't see the problem with saying that you know you have hands, or that you know any of the things that can be directly seen to be the case. I agree that this does not defeat radical skepticism, but I think the latter defeats itself, because it is trying to empty knowledge of all contexts, free it from all any any contexts whatsoever, and render it absolute.

About things which one claims to know, but which one cannot be certain about, I think when one says 'I know" one is always really saying "I think I know", which as I said earlier amounts to "I believe I have good reason to think I know this". But if we want to cast this as being more than merely belief (as opposed to the knowledge we have of those things of which we can be certain) this opens up the strange notion that we could know without knowing that know.

Empirical propositions do not have the certainty of mathematics. In the Tractatus he says:

6.36311 It is an hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow: and this means that we do not know whether it will rise.

We may not doubt whether the sun will rise tomorrow, but whether or not it will is a contingent rather than necessary fact. — Fooloso4

I agree with that, insofar as it refers to inductively derived propositions, such as 'the Sun will rise tomorrow". If I am out in the rain and say, "it is raining", on the other hand; if that statement is to be counted as a proposition, then it would seem to be as certain as any mathematical truth. On the other hand, such an utterance might not be counted as a proposition, but merely as an observation. But it seems to me that what we observe and experience we most certainly know.

Yes, that's exactly his argument. What is not clear is whether he thought of that as debunking metaphysics or legitimizing it (in some form)? (Throwing away the ladder once one has climbed up it.) I can't see that he might have intended to allow (or would have allowed), if he had known about it) a project like Husserl's or Heidegger's - both of whom abjured metaphysics (as traditionally understood.) — Ludwig V

I referred earlier (might have been in another thread) to a distinction between 'nonsense' and 'non-sense'. It is the things of sense which we can treat propositionally, as determinably truth-apt. But the world of sense, as such, is not the most important or highest aspect of human life. Far more important to human life is how we value, or disvalue the things of sense, how we find beauty or indifference in them, how we love or hate them, or disregard them. We can ascend to a sense of reverence for the ordinary world, for life and for humanity.

The value, the beauty, the love, the reverence we find in ourselves for things is the most important aspect of human life, and these dispositions, even though they may be for the things of sense are themselves "non-sense". We all know them, by virtue of being human, but their truth cannot be demonstrated in any determinable way as the truth of the fact of the world of the senses can. As I understand it it is that that Wittgenstein is getting at.

Yes. I don't see that as a problem. We put our families first - not to do so is morally questionable - and we often do so to our own cost. "Putting first" in not simply "prioritizing over everything else". In any case, enlightened self-interest would prompt us to recognize that our well-being depends on the well-being of everything in our environments. — Ludwig V

Right, so to extend the above line of thought, it is natural for us to value our species, our own families and friends, ourselves, above all else. But this is something we are called upon to overcome, at least intellectually if not "viscerally" in the name of our human ideals of justice, freedom, beauty, love and truth. It is not only our material well-being which is at stake if we fail to care about the well-being of everything in our environments, but also the better parts of our own lives which we would thereby fail to value in any sense beyond our own narrow self-interest, and this would be to live diminished lives.

A. Theism=I know there's a God;
B. Atheism = I do not know whether there's a God;
C. Agnosticism = I cannot know whether there is a God; and
D. Anti-Theism = I know there is not a God. — AmadeusD

'A' is a contradiction of orthodoxy which denies the heretical Gnostic principle that God can be known. So, it should be "I am convinced there is a God".
'B' is, most moderately, "I find no reason to believe in God, so I lack such a belief."
'C' is about right, it being a denial of Gnosticism, which paradoxically orthodoxy also is, rendering it in line with agnosticism, the difference being that the believer has faith in the existence of God, whereas the agnostic finds no reason to have such a faith, nor any reason to have faith in God's non-existence.
'D' is not I know there is not a God", but "I am against the very idea" (for whatever reasons, rational, moral, etc.)

Who's to say humans are worth more than cockroaches? — BitconnectCarlos

It's natural for humans to think they are worth more than other animals, just as other animals care only, or at least predominately, for their own.

It could simply mean that your inductive reasoning, which is a legitimate form of knowing is only probable (most of science is inductive). So, I could say without sounding weird that I have good reasons to believe I know X, but that there is a small chance I could be mistaken. This happens all the time. Evidence changes and so do our conclusions. I think the problem is when we conflate the meaning of knowledge as JTB for example, and one's claim to knowledge, they are two different things. The definition is one thing, that is what it means to know, but your inductive claim doesn't have the same force of necessity (if necessity is the correct word). — Sam26

Science is a form of knowing in a participatory and a practical sense. We know the world, in the sense of participating in it, via science. It is practical too in the that it is a practice, a know-how. Propositional knowledge though, it seems to me, requires observation. I know I have hands because I can see them, observe myself using them and so on. I know it is raining when I am out and I feel the rain on my body and see the drops falling. In those kinds of cases, of which there are countlessly many in our lives, we cannot be mistaken, barring faux-doubt and bizarre thought-experiment scenarios, which I don't believe deserve our concern.

When you say "So, I could say without sounding weird that I have good reasons to believe I know X, but that there is a small chance I could be mistaken." I have no problem agreeing with you because it is not a claim that I know, but a claim to have good reason to believe that I know. And this highlights the strangeness of saying that I could know, without knowing that I know. For me, if I don't know that I know, as I say I do in cases like 'I am a human being' 'my body is bilaterally symmetrical (more or less)', I have hands and feet'. 'My head sits on my shoulders' and so on endlessly, then I would say instead that I don't know, but I believe or don't believe this or that, or I reserve judgement.

I see, not knowing and doubting, but believing and doubting as more inextricably tied. The problem I have with the idea that knowing involves uncertainty or defeasibility, is that it seems weird, inconsistent or incoherent. to say that you know, but that you could be mistaken. It also seems strange to say that we could know, despite not knowing that we know, which seems to be a corollary of JTB. What exactly constitutes justification seems underdetermined.

So, I would say knowing comes into play when we, leaving aside considerations that evolve out of indulging artificially manufactured faux-doubt, cannot be wrong concerning what we know. In the primeval scenario, for example, you see the tiger on the path in front of you—you know the tiger is there. Alternatively, you hear a tiger-like growl somewhere in the bushes and you believe there is a tiger there, but there is some room for doubt.

So, going back to the 'Moore' example, I would agree with him that knows he has hands.

But there is no explanation of how other truths cannot be philosophically valuable (not just POETRY or whatever dismissive thing you give other forms of philosophical writing).. — schopenhauer1

You assume that other "truths" can be established to be so, presumably in some way other than emprically, logically, mathematically. Can you give an example of such a truth, show how it is established to be such, and show its philosophical value?

For me, to say something is poetry is the furthest thing from being dismissive. You are doing some excellent misreading!

"incompletely in line". — schopenhauer1

Typo...should have been "is completely".

My issue isn't simply that he called things nonsense, but the implication that certain things SHOULDN'T be said, because they can only be felt or shown, or revealed or whatnot.. Which of course, flies against much of philosophical writing which does try to EXPLAIN various "non-empirical" ideas. — schopenhauer1

I think all that is your own projection.

If lots of civilisations are capable of and willing to make simulations then they will, and so simulated persons will greatly outnumber non-simulated persons.

Therefore, if simulated persons do not greatly outnumber non-simulated persons then most civilisations are either incapable of or unwilling to make simulations. — Michael

This ignores the possibility that there may not be "lots of civilizations". In other words, the three alternatives present no cogent assessment of likelihood.

That's exactly what they want me to believe. — Patterner

Do you think avatars in video games can believe anything?

But we all know this distinction. We didn't need Tractatus to tell us this.. in fact, Kant did an excellent job spelling out the differences in possible justifications for "truth" conditions.... To focus on synthetic a posteriori truth as somehow the only one that one "meaningfully" discuss, is the very point that needs to be contested.. — schopenhauer1

True, Kant doesn't tell us that the only truth is synthetic a posteriori, but then neither does Wittgenstein. I mean he doesn't talk in those terms, and neither is it implicit in his philosophy as far as am aware. So, it's not clear what you think you are taking aim at here. The distinction I referred to was not confined to synthetic a posteriori propositions.

I agree that there are parallels between what Kant's and Wittgenstein's philosophies, but the foci are quite different, the former being epistemological and the latter semantic, and even in the latter's later philosophy, phenomenological. Both do treat traditional metaphysics as being impossible as sciences of the determinable because both reject the idea of intellectual intution being able to provide knowledge or testable porpositions.

Also, your use of "sense" here I believe, is playing around with the term "nonsense".. Nonsense does not necessarily mean "non-sensed by the five senses", but more in the Frege "sense" of "sense" and "reference". — schopenhauer1

The idea of sense and reference incompletely in line with how I was treating the ideas of sensicality and non-sensicality. When we refer to logical or mathematical terms or empirical objects, then we have determinable referents. when we refer to God or Will or Karma or the Absolute, we do not have determinable referents.

So those terms are without sense in that they are speaking about "something" completely removed from determinably shareable human experience. They are "poetic" terms that signify certain kinds of feelings, certain kinds of affective experiences that are mutually comparable only in the sense that people within particular cultures use traditionally embedded terms to attempt to communicate those "ineffable" experiences.

It doesn't follow however that such non-sensical terms are nonsensical in the sense of being utterly meaningless, to repeat, they are non-sensical only in the sense that they lack determinable referents. Wittgenstein did not reject the ineffable, in fact he accorded it the greatest importance in human life, and that was precisely where he diverged from the Logical Positivists.

But anyways, there is nothing he is proving such that language cannot be meaningful if it is discussing something that has no direct reference by way of empirical a posteriori means.. — schopenhauer1

Again, this seems to be a strawman.

But that being said, no one is contesting that human communication is almost impossible to be 100% clear or meaningful, because it is impossible to get in someone's head and go, "OH YOU REALLY GET IT!". .Rather, you can never truly know beyond public displays that someone's inner understanding corresponds with their public use. — schopenhauer1

This doesn't seem to me to be the point at all. We clearly can know well enough what we are talking about when it comes to empirical, logical and mathematical matters; with religion, aesthetics and ethics, not so much, because the latter are groundless. We can get each other in aesthetic, ethical and religious discourse, but we do so in terms of canonicity, tradition and feeling, and the subjects we discuss are really ineffable when it all boils down. That's my general take on the human situation, and I think it accords fairly well with both Kant and Wittgenstein, insofar as I am familiar with their philosophies.

Thanks Anthony, your nicely articulated explanation seems apropos to me insofar as my familiarity with Wittgenstein's work goes, which is obviously not nearly as far as yours.

There's a valid distinction between propositions which can be confirmed or disconfirmed by the senses, and in accordance with the ways in which we make sense of experience; namely, causality, logic and mathematics, and aesthetic, ethical and metaphysical judgements or beliefs, which cannot be decided in those sense or rule-based ways.

The former understandings which are consistent and coherent with those sense-based modalities and the massively complex and mostly coherent web of understanding that has evolved by virtue of those ways of making sense, are readily distinguishable from the other kinds of undetermined speculations based on aesthetic, moral or religious intuitions or desires or fears or anxieties, with the former appropriately being named 'sensical' and the latter non-sensical.

The implication there is that the latter are not clearly related to the world of the senses, or the causal, logical and mathematical understandings which have evolved from the experience of that world. And I take 'non-sensical' in this context to indicate that difference in distinction to 'sensical', and not to be a declaration that such speculations are utter nonsense, or worthless, which they clearly are not, any more than poetry is or moral attitudes or aesthetic judgments are.

Why would it do "much harm"? — schopenhauer1

The idea that there could be an objective moral truth or authority might serve to blunt peoples' moral senses, undermine their trust in their own moral intuitions. There are many examples of this in history, where the moral injunctions in the Bible have led to horrible abuses. Consider, for example, the biblical injunction to kill men found to be having sexual relations together; such proscriptions are introjected and even as they may eventually be historically softened still come to fuel bigotry.

But the bigger question, and the one that's more important is why non-scientific/empirical kinds of questions cannot be true or false.. Different criteria can be used, for example, as to what counts as "evidence". — schopenhauer1

It's not so much a matter of the answers to such questions not being able to be true or false, but about our ability to establish definitely the truth or falsity of them, as we can when it comes to (at least some) empirical, logical and mathematical questions.

The point is that we know what evidence looks like in those last-mentioned domains but have no idea what could constitute definitive evidence for the truth of aesthetic, ethical, moral or religious assertions.

We are, however, never free from hypotheses. We remain in the realm of opinion. We never attain knowledge of the beginning (arche) of the whole. — Fooloso4

I agree with this; we can never grasp the whole, and as I often say any grasping is necessarily dualistic, whereas the whole would not be, so...

So Socrates' vision is inspiring, and I might see the end of the dialectic (among other pursuits) as being an altered state of consciousness wherein nothing discursive is known, but everything is seen anew.

So, while I agree we are never free from hypothesis as long as we are in discursive mode, I think we can be free in non-discursive modes. This freedom may not be of much use for discursive philosophy, but it certainly has its role in the arts and in self-cultivation.

When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.
(Culture and Value)

That is to say, in the midst of opinion. — Fooloso4

I agree with that, but I think opinion is only an aspect of the primeval chaos. Chaos also has its own kind of order apparently.

Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.
(T 4.112)

A philosophical problem always has the form: “I simply don’t know my way about".
(PI 123)

We begin from where we are. As Socrates says:

... we must follow the argument wherever, like a wind, it may lead us
(Republic 394d). — Fooloso4

All true, I think. We must begin in medias res, There seems to be no guarantee that we can ever "know our way about" in any fully determinate sense, but perhaps we can become less confused.

Ok, so the supposedly "open doors" of Wittgenstein is quite closed in your mind in terms of imaginative possibilities for reality... — schopenhauer1

Presumably there is only one way for reality to be, so it is not imaginative possibilities for reality, but exploring ways we can imagine reality might be, and I don't see any reason to think that Wittgenstein's philosophy precludes such imaginative explorations. That would be like saying that Wittgenstein's philosophy precludes fiction.

At some point, you make a case. — schopenhauer1

Why the need to "make a case"? Phenomenology consists in description, not theorizing. I see Wittgenstein as being a kind of phenomenologist at least in his later work. O also have to admit I don't know his work all that well.

A lot of people, it seems including yourself, like his style which I described, and I was saying what my problem is with this. — schopenhauer1

I haven't said I like his style, but I do tend to favor deflationary philosophies over system-building, as I don't think any metaphysic ought to be taken seriously.



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But it is illogical then to think that we, being part of the universe and actors in the universe, could then now this future, because there is a correct model of the future. It's similar basically to the measurement problem. — ssu

OK, I see what you mean now. It doesn't follow from the fact that there will be a definite future that we can, or could even in principle, know what that future will be. I agree with that.

Why are you making this a "one or the other" scenario? Some of philosophy is to critique a position, and some is to construct it. — schopenhauer1

I like to think more in terms of insights than in terms of views. (Metaphysical) system building I see as a strange for of poetry, and exercise of the imagination, a game not to be taken seriously once you realize that a metaphysical view can never be the truth but is rather just a possible way of imagining things to be.

At some point it is good to construct one's own views.. "Know thyself!". — schopenhauer1

I don't understand knowing yourself as a matter of "constructing views"...quite the opposite; I think it is a matter of relinquishing views, and the need for certainty that motivates them.

I think that would be ridiculous as far as how humans should communicate in good faith to each other.. A little is ok.. but if all your philosophy is meant for YOU to de-mystify MY philosophy, without ME being the one with the burden of explaining MY philosophy, I think that is arrogant. — schopenhauer1

I don't know what you are referring to. None of what you are saying in that post seems to have any bearing on what I had said. If you care to explain how it relates to specific things I wrote, that might help.

Mental floss can be part of philosophy, but in the way that doing math exercises helps strengthen your math abilities.. You aren't really a mathematician unless you use some of those skills for constructing proofs, etc. — schopenhauer1

It depends on how you understand the practice of philosophy. @Fooloso4 will correct me if I have misunderstood; I understand the dialectic to be, not a series of exercises, but a series of enquiries, the aim of which would be to understand just where we might be leading ourselves astray by thinking that terms have essential meanings; and that we possess, or even could possess, some absolute and unimpeachable knowledge.

What could the value of metaphysical speculation consist in if not to show us that metaphysics is undecidable, and not a matter of reaching some theorem which is guaranteed to be correct by rigorously following the rules? The analogy with mathematical exercises seems quite weak to me.

It simply goes against logic. — ssu

I don't think it "goes against logic", rather it is one logically possible way we can imagine things being.

Cheers :cool:

Are you you suggesting that all mental activities are just neuronal events and that mental causation is illusory? That's what Jaegwon Kim has said (he says mental causation would imply overdetermination). This is possible, of course, since theories in philosophy of mind are all conjectural. I'd just say that I consider Tse's theory more compelling because it jives with the intuition that mental causation is real. — Relativist

If mental events just are physical events looked at from a different angle, then both would be causal. and mental events would not be illusory, but simply the elements of a different way of looking at what is going on than the neuronal view.

:up: