I edited it while you were replying to avoid the contradiction. The first is merely a starting assumption which proves to be false. The point is only that we can show that we know there is at least one unknowable truth. We cannot know whether there are others perhaps, I don't know.

What about all the truths regarding what happened in the pre-human past? Are they unknowable? You might say they are not unknowable in principle.

Whether there are other unknowable truths may be unknowable but that doesn't contradict the fact that we know there is at least one. In fact it is the very fact that we can know whether there are other unknowable truths which proves that we can know that there is at least one.

Perhaps I should have simplified by saying that the claim that there are no unknowable truths is knowably false because we know there is at least that one.

You go from a) "there are unknowable truths" is unknowably true to b) "there are unknowable truths" is knowably true. This is a contradiction. If (a) is true then (b) is false and if (b) is true then (a) is false. — Michael

You are not addressing the argument, I don't say as a starting premise that it is unknowably true that there are unknowable truths I say that at first glance it simply appears to be unknowable—that is it could be true or false and we have no way of knowing which. However if the starting assumption is that the truth or falsity regarding the existence of unknowable truths is unknowable then we know that there is at least one unknowable truth. We don't have to know if there are others because one is enough. There is no contradiction

It is obviously impossible even in principle. because no matter how many truths we know there could always be an unknowable truth.
— Janus

This is begging the question. — Michael

What question is it begging?

1. "there are unknowable truths" is knowably true — Michael

I have shown that we know there is at least one unknowable truth. The question is are there unknowable truths apart from the unknowable truth about whether there are other unknowable truths. If there is a truth as to whether there are unknowable truths, then that truth is an unknowable truth. So we know there is at least one unknowable truth. If you think there is something wrong with the reasoning, then say what it is.

I have no doubt there are other unknowable truths, but all that needs to be shown is that there is at least one.

So pragmatically that leaves us with (4) and (5). How do we decide between them without knowing any unknown truths? — Michael

1. “All truths are knowable” is knowably true
2. “All truths are knowable” is false — Michael

Answer the question I posed:

Do you think it is possible to know whether the claim that there are unknowable truths is true? — Janus

It is obviously impossible even in principle. because no matter how many truths we know there could always be an unknowable truth.

But then if the truth as to whether there are unknowable truths is known to be unknowable, then we know that there is at least one unknowable truth. Address that and stop with the red herrings.

Do you think it is possible to know whether the claim that there are unknowable truths is true?

I am only concerned with refuting the claim that all truths are knowable. As I've shown we know there is at least one unknowable truth.

↪Janus what I said. — Wayfarer

Sorry, I have no idea why you think what you said has any bearing on the question at hand.

. "some truths are unknowable" is true and knowable — Michael

That's the right one.

We know that we can't know the truth as to whether all truths are knowable because no matter how many truths we know we have no way of knowing whether there are further truths that are unknowable. But then the unknowability of the truth about whether all truths are knowable shows there is at least one unknowable truth.

And as mentioned before, the antirealist rejects the conclusion. They might claim that every truth is knowable but that some truths are unknown. — Michael

How can the anti-realist justify the claim that all unknown truths are knowable? You would have to know them to know they are knowable, no?

“It” here being observation, and observation is pre-cognitive? — Mww

"It" denotes how the body/ brain is apparently affected by the environment to produce perceptual experiences. We can tell the scientific story about how that happens, but that account is post hoc. If you would call that pre-cognitive affection "observation' then we would be talking about the same thing.

I would agree with this as well, iff interpretation here is meant as judgement. Experience is the common character of already interpreted perceptions, but not all perceptions result in determined experience, so always interpreted cannot be imposed on experience. Judgement fits both always and already, and….added bonus…judgement is the very epitome of conceptual apparatuses’ functionality. — Mww

I guess it depends on how you intend the word "experience" to be taken. We can say the organism experiences the pre-cognitve affect of the environment and we can refer to the already interpreted perceptions as experiences. It seems to be the "seeing as" which I refer to as "interpretation" that you denote by "judgement"?

Language can be problematic. Meaning is not as transparently obvious as we would like it to be.

If you think Socrates' example shows that philosophy is not about how best to live then we are so far from being on the same page as to make responding pointless.

:up:

I suppose I'm speaking in favor of philosophy so I really do mean it the other way about: that philosophy doesn't influence but is the beginning of those thoughts, and so metaphysics and all the rest cannot be dismissed as a game else all the rest is a game. — Moliere

The difference I see is that ecology, economics and politics all necessarily have real world consequences. As I've acknowledged I see that metaphysics can have such consequences, but I think it does not necessarily. I guess it could be said that the way the significance of ecology etc is seen is a metaphysical matter right from the start, but again I don't see what necessary difference to those seminal views the differences between idealism and physicalism or realism, for example, could have.

If people think this world doesn't matter then of course that is a problem. They could arrive at that view by thinking there is a spiritual realm and that's all that matters, or alternatively they could think that since it's all just mindless atoms in the void nothing matters. Any such views would be dogmatic ideologies though, and I've already acknowledged that they are deeply problematic.

I'm not sure what you mean here. If you mean that metaphysical attitudes can influence how folk think about ecological, economic and political issues then i agree.

What I don't believe is that there is any inherent or logically necessary relevance of for example questions like 'materialism versus idealism' for human life. Even religious views like belief in an afterlife or divine order can certainly influence how people think about earthly matters, but I think it can go either way.

The idea that God created the world for man, for example could lead to the idea that we can do whatever we want to nature with impunity or it could lead to the idea of us being charged with the role of guardians and protectors of the environment.

So yeah, it must all be just a matter of curiosity for you, and there aren't really any stakes. — Srap Tasmaner

I really do think there are stakes when it comes to ecological, economic and political issues. I'm not convinced there are stakes (other than the feelings and preferences of individuals) when it comes to metaphysical matters.

That said if a metaphysical standpoint morphs into evangelizing dogma then of course there will be consequences. Militant ideology, and perhaps even just plain old ideology, religious or otherwise, is and has always been a more or less significant problem for humanity.

:up:

So you're like - I don't know - a tourist? — Srap Tasmaner

Insinuating what? That I'm not really a player but a spectator?

I'm sorry for implying that, it's just how I've personally always seen it. Philosophy is of course an activity, people might have different goals in doing it, I just can't understand what they are. — goremand

I see philosophy as a process of firstly getting clear as to just what my situation, epistemologically speaking, is. What can i reasonably be said to know? I've come to the conclusion that I know and can know very little.

It doesn't stop there, though—the most salient question for me then would be "how best to live?". If I know very little, can be certain of very little, then living happily with ignorance and uncertainty would seem to be the most important goal.

You'd have to show the truth to be a necessary consequence of a universally held set of assumptions. But well, I didn't literally mean "everyone", just everyone who participates in philosophical discourse. — goremand

The only potential universally held assumption (or is it a realization?) that I can think of is that we know and can know very little. As the example of Socrates shows, it is probably only those who have thought critically and extensively that will come to this realization.

Once this is realized we still need to work with provisional hypotheses in order to live, so while human ignorance and uncertainty might be in principle the one thing we could all agree upon, the ongoing choice of provisional hypotheses by which to live would likely come down to personal predilection.

What is desirable about "influence" per se? I mean that word runs the gamut from peer pressure to lobotomy. What is desirable to me is only the possibility of rational persuasion. — goremand

I agree with you that the only benign influence when it comes to what to believe would be one of rational persuasion, but I would include as rational persuasion both practical and pure reason. It's the practical reason part where it becomes tricky, but I can't see how it can reasonably be ruled out.

If an alien species from another planet saw Moore with his raised hand, they might be just as certain as Moore that something with a specific meaning was taking place, but within their alien language game the sense of the event would be entirely different that it is for Moore. It would not be a question of doubting Moore’s assertion, but of his assertion being irrelevant to their perspective. — Joshs

In any case the alien sees a hand even if he doesn't call it such.

Because it is interesting? Why do you bother?

Also I think it may be possible to get clear about the alternatives and what they each presuppose, even though deciding between them cannot be definitively justified.

OK, but specifying the premises, and determining how foundational they are, has been the longstanding task of philosophy, with no obvious right answer in sight. It's like saying, "Move the world? Sure, no problem, just give me a very large lever . . ." — J

To take one prominent example of long-standing metaphysical disagreement some say mind is foundational, while others say matter is foundational. The truth regarding that would seem to be undecidable apart from what seems most plausible in light of the whole of human experience. Unfortunately, there is no clear criterion that could determine what is most plausible, that is what the whole of human experience actually shows, so it seems to come down to personal taste.

Only once you have your preferred premise can rationality definitively enter the fray and it consists simply in being consistent with your premise in the elaboration of your thinking.

Observation takes place through an apparatus of perception, which includes not just telescopes and microscopes, but conceptual apparatuses of interpretation. — Joshs

Of course there is a sense in which our perceptions are always already interpretations. But we are blind to how the body/brain does that. It is pre-cognitive and so cannot be taken into account.

I certainly would. I mean, the theoretical end goal of philosophy is for everyone to believe the same thing, that thing being the truth. In my opinion this idea of private justification instead promotes a static kind of diversity, where a bunch of dogmatists each stay in their respective camp and engage in discourse only performatively. — goremand

You speak as though that purported "end goal" is a given. How would any philosophical truth ever be demonstrable such as to gain universal assent? I haven't spoken in terms of "private justification". If people have their own philosophies and recognize them to be personal preferences where would be the space for dogmatism? Discussion would still allow for folk to be influenced by others.

IF philosophy proceeds rationally, and can give a definition of what rationality is, THEN all of these consequences seem to follow. I'm more unsure than perhaps you imagine about whether the IF is correct. — J

What is rationality other than consistent thinking from some foundational premise or other? As to the premises, how are they to be justified?

Well, for those presupposed to doubt it, there are plenty of grounds for doubt. For those predisposed to believe it, there are plenty of grounds for belief. The difficulty is, that it is not a question that is easily adjuticable, at least by objective measures. But I do say that, absent the 'dimension of value', philosophy tends to devolve into disputes over the meaning of propositions, rather than a life-changing wisdom, which I believe was its original intent. — Wayfarer

Right and the very fact that there seems to be to both sides "plenty of grounds for doubt and belief" respectively shows that it is not a subject which can be intersubjectively decided. Jaspers says that philosophy itself is entirely a matter of personal faith and I agree with that assessment. "To each there own philosophy" I say, because that takes proper account of human diversity. Would you have it any other way?

Ironically, considering what you say about "disputes over the meaning of propositions", it seems that it is only philosophy as conceptual analysis and clarification which could claim any intersubjective adjudicability or objectivity, and even there grounds for dispute still seem to exist...

In the welter of conflicting opinions which is human life there seems little room for absolute authority. All we seem to have is the relative authority of empirical fact.

But don't simulation or modelling at the end of the day need observation to be meaningful? Simulation and modelling unobserved by humans don't exist, therefore meaningless? — Corvus

Also simulation or modeling can only be of that which is observed else it would be simulation or modeling of nothing.

In this case a more innocent framing would perhaps be that Janus is asking questions because he doesn't understand what you mean? The way I see it, what you're saying is that you shouldn't have to explain yourself because we would automatically understand you if only we hadn't grown up in scientistic western society. — goremand

The question was posed to @J. I know how @Wayfarer thinks of "higher". He thinks we moderns have lost, not merely an older set of cultural attitudes, beliefs and dispositions, but some actual higher knowledge and understanding of a transcendent nature—an understanding of reality itself which has been lost to the modern psyche.

Many today think this life is all there is. Wayfarer thinks the sages somehow were able to know that this is not true, that the truth is we may be resurrected to eternal life or reborn into more favorable circumstances depending on our karma. The obvious problem for this supposition is that those two main supposed paradigms of spiritual knowledge are not compatible with one another, which rather casts doubt on their status as knowledge. He doesn't want to accept that it is really just faith, even among those who are supposedly enlightened or "born again".

Quality represents a basis of values that we recognize intuitively but cannot fully capture within language or logic. But as it challenges 'subject-object duality' then it can't be characterised in objective terms - which generally means it is often regarded as being religious. Hence, a matter of faith - and subjective! — Wayfarer

Quality is aesthetic or ethical, something felt to be beautiful or good or true (in the restricted sense of "ringing true") or else ugly, bad and false. There definitely are commonalties between what folk generally consider to be "of quality" but there is no strict determinant of quality. As the old saying goes "there is no accounting for taste".

I don't want to be seen as naively endorsing the idea of "highest" as "best" or "most perspicuous" that is often associated with philosophy. But also it was an attempt to capture the ambiguity of "highest," which I discuss in the OP. "Highest" can mean what I just wrote -- "best," more or less -- or it can mean "up a level, beyond which there are no more levels," without comment on value. I raised the possibility that phil. discourse is only highest in this sense. — J

I see philosophy as being concerned with understanding the human condition in the broadest and most comprehensive ways. It is different from psychology in that it looks, not just at human motivation, but at the human relationship to the human-created world, and to nature as a cosmic whole.

So I don't see it as a matter of levels but of comprehensiveness. All the other fields of inquiry feed into philosophy, provide it with its subject matter and, if we are lucky, correct its excesses.

:up: A good coherently nonsensical oldie!

None of which provides a justifiably true belief of what demarcates mind from non-mind. — javra

It's not a matter of justified true belief but rather of the common usage of a word which demonstrates a certain range of understandings. We have no reason to impute mind to those things the experience of which gives us no reason to impute mind to them.

Repetition of unjustified affirmations such as that "we all know what 'mind' is in the ordinary sense" does not make the affirmation true — javra

I didn't say that we all know what mind is in the ordinary sense I said that we know what we mean when we say things which reflect an ordinary common understanding. You are trying to morph what I say into something you feel you can argue against rather than addressing it as it is it seems.

By what means do you conclude that trees and insentient, as in not able to perceive things such as gravity and light in their own non-animal based ways? — javra

Again I haven't said anything whatsoever about whether trees are sentient and the question has no bearing that I can tell on the question of their mind independent existence.

But since I, again, don't want to play devil's advocate, I'll do my best to leave you to it in turn. — javra

I haven't asked you to leave me to io it. On the contrary I was hoping for a sensible discussion. But you seem disinclined to address what I say on its own terms with reasoned counterpoints, and you always seem to be very ready to "leave me to it" when questions that present difficulties for your view are posed.

I don't so far find justification for this claim. But groovy all the same. Then, please enlighten me as to what we all know "mind" to be in the ordinary sense. — javra

We know what we mean when we say such things as "I changed my mind", "I made up my mind", "I don't mind", " I did that task mindfully", "mind your step" and so on...there are countless examples. They suggest that what we understand as mind is really minding, a verb not a noun, an activity not an object. Of course this is not to say that reification of that activity does not often set in.

I'll start here: What aspect of what we are aware of will not be an aspect of our own minds? — javra

Everything in the so-called external world is not an aspect of our own minds. Of course our perception of those things is a form of minding, but it does not follow that the things are forms of minding. It seems impossible to make sense of the idea that they could be. If the tree I see and the tree you see are forms of our respective mindings then how is that we obviously see the same tree? That we see the same tree suggests that the tree is mind-independent.

And to address the OP, it does make a difference what we believe regarding the question of realism vs anti-realism simply because different beliefs will lead to different dispositions and hence to different actions, affiliations and cultures.

That said, I agree there is also a sense in which it doesn't make a fatal difference as the example of very good theistic scientists, to cite just one example, shows. (Note: I am not suggesting that theism is necessarily aligned with either realism or idealism).

Nice. — Tom Storm

:cool:

Hence, as this one of many examples tries to illustrate, the very notion of "mind-independence" is thoroughly contingent on what one understands by the term "mind". Via at least certain interpretations, there is no reason to deny a reality independent of each and every individual non-effete mind (yours, mine, etc.) to which we all conform that is nevertheless of itself an effete mind and, hence, mind-dependent. — javra

The problem is that we all know what we mean by 'mind' in the ordinary context. In the extraordinary context the notion is nothing more than a vague gesturing. All very good for poetry, but for ontology not so much.

So, we have every reason to believe that the things of the world are independent of our minds and virtually no reason to believe otherwise.

Then if you still want to claim that things are mind-dependent you need some notion of a collective or universal or "effete" mind, and these notions cannot be coherently discoursed because there is no common experience to definitively relate them to.

Perhaps it's about joining up the stuff we can talk about in a coherent fashion.

Of course, you can show stuff as well as say it. — Banno

Coherence exists within some context or other. Philosophers have invented language games wherein they purport to be somehow saying the unsayable. Perhaps that would be, if successful, a form of showing rather than saying, of implicit allusion rather than literal explicitation.

This reminds of one of Ashleigh Brilliant's sayings: "My biggest problem is what to do about all the things I can't do anything about".

Perhaps the philosophers' biggest problem is what to say about all the things they cannot say anything about.

My question is: is that always going to be a Cartesian self? I think it might be that everytime we go to explain the self, we'll automatically conjure some kind of independent soul. What do you think? — frank

I think of different selves as being nothing more than different kinds of disposition or orientation. Do we need a notion of soul to understand that or simply the notions of distinctively individual awareness, focus and intelligence?

I just noticed this thread and have not read it through so please excuse my question if it has already been asked and answered; what do you mean by "highest"? Most comprehensive or overarching. most critical, most meta-cognitive? Or most spiritual, most enlightening, wisest?

Consciousness is something that knows of its own being even in the absence of stimuli. — Wayfarer

What theory of consciousness allows the statement "you could be conscious even without an external world" to be true? — Brenner T

The claim is wrong simply because there is never for anyone alive an absence of stimuli.

muddle classes — Swanty

Is this a jokey play on words or are you a New Zealander?

Democracy Song by Leonard Cohen


It's coming through a hole in the air,
From those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
That this ain't exactly real
Or it's real, but it ain't exactly there

From the wars against disorder
From the sirens night and day
From the fires of the homeless
From the ashes of the gay
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming through a crack in the wall
On a visionary flood of alcohol
From the staggering account
Of the Sermon on the Mount
Which I don't pretend to understand at all

It's coming from the silence
On the dock of the bay
From the brave, the bold, the battered
Heart of Chevrolet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the sorrow in the street
The holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin'
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat

From the wells of disappointment
Where the women kneel to pray
For the grace of God in the desert here
And the desert far away
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on

It's coming to America first
The cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
And the machinery for change
And it's here they got the spiritual thirst

It's here the family's broken
And it's here the lonely say
That the heart has got to open
In a fundamental way
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It's coming from the women and the men
O baby, we'll be making love again
We'll be going down so deep
The river's going to weep
And the mountain's going to shout Amen!
It's coming like the tidal flood
Beneath the lunar sway
Imperial, mysterious
In amorous array
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on

I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight
Getting lost in that hopeless little screen

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
That Time cannot decay
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
This little wild bouquet
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

:roll: :yawn: Does he claim the conditions and the responses are the same for all or not?

Edit: I suspect you won't answer this because to do so would be damning for your boy's position (and I imagine, yours).

All of what you said is pretty much the opposite of Schopenhauer's claim. — schopenhauer1

So Schopenhauer claims there is no diversity in the ways people respond to their conditions? In that case he would obviously be mistaken.

I don't think it works like that. First off, we know we die and that there is a demise. Then there is the fact that we are lacking and strive for satiation. These are just built into the framework. They are not situational, though situational harms add to it. — schopenhauer1

Sure we know we die. That fact may cause some to suffer and not others. As I said earlier its a matter of attitude and disposition. I don't know what you mean when you say "we are lacking". Lacking what? For example say I am hungry. If I have food then no problem. If I don't have food then I will possibly suffer as per what I said previously—that suffering comes from wanting the circumstances of my life to be different than they are. Even then I may only suffer if I have no means of changing those circumstances to a
more congenial situation or changing my attitude such that I no longer wish my life to be different than it is.

This contradicts what I believe to be true from Schopenhauer's observation: — schopenhauer1

Please lay out the point you want to make. I am not inclined to read that passage and have to try to figure out what the counterpoint to what I said is.