It's not normal to require people to take all action available to them to reduce any given risk. We normally only require that the rusk be reduced below an acceptable threshold. Do you think that in all your lifestyle choices I couldn't point to some action you could take to reduce the risks associated with them? — Isaac

You're ignoring the emergency status of the situation. In any case lifestyle choices are motivated by desires and aversions, pleasures and addictions; things which are of ongoing significance to one's life. Getting vaccinated, given that the vaccines are more than safe enough, is nothing more than a minor inconvenience. So, your analogy seems inapt.

I don't need a good reason why I shouldn't be vaccinated, it's not a default position. You need a good reason why I should, by which I mean some demonstration that it's unreasonable of me to hold a position that the risk I represent by my actions is below a normal acceptable threshold of risk. — Isaac

In an emergency situation it is incumbent upon everyone who can to do everything they can to maximize the best outcome for everyone. That you think you can shirk that duty on a mere whim "I just don't feel like, so why should I" shows that you lack what is generally accepted as a social virtue; the habit of holding the best interests of your community uppermost in your mind. It is simply an arbitrary and selfish choice not to be vaccinated if you have no good reason not to be vaccinated.

The talk about "a normal acceptable threshold of risk" is a red herring: you are more likely, however minimally, to infect another person, or become critically infected, and need ICU treatment and deny someone else that treatment or other emergency treatment if you don't get vaccinated.

That you would nonetheless refuse to get vaccinated, although you have no good reason for that decision, but just because you don't feel like it, shows an antisocial attitude. Would you be prepared to sign a waiver to the effect that you will refuse medical treatment if you catch covid even if your condition becomes critical? That would be at least a step towards common decency.

1+1=2 can be seen as the definition of 2, and I am not sure that definitions count as facts. — Olivier5

There are countless quantities that sum to 2, so '1+1=2' cannot be the definition of 2. You might say it is the primary instance of 2, or something like that, I suppose.

I tried to read that article, but it makes no sense to me at all. Can you explain in plain English why it should follow from the fact that there are unknown truths that are, in principle at least, knowable, that all truths are known?

in order to get to a true statement describing some state of affairs accurately, you need an observer observing. — Olivier5


You can say "Leonardo was gay" and " Leonardo was not gay" and one of those statements will be a true statement, a fact; no observation required. — Janus


But you still need someone stating the statement for a statement to exist. Without someone saying "Leonardo was gay", this statement is not in existence so it cannot be true or false. And once it has been stated by someone, its truth value can only be assessed by someone based on the available empirical evidence to someone. It is not a fact if it is not buttressed by any evidence. — Olivier5

Isn't that what I just said? You are not addressing the point; that you can state a fact without any observation to back it up. If Leonardo was gay, that is a fact. If Leonardo was not gay, that is a fact. We have no way of knowing which is the fact; and that is a fact.

If you confine the meaning of 'fact' to one of its common usages; i.e.true statements, then of course it will only be statements that are facts or not. If you allow for the fact that there is also a common usage that casts facts as actualities or states of affairs, then there can be facts that are never stated, let alone observed.

You like monads I take it? You cling to ‘essences’? Some ‘pure form’? If not then explain your view regarding ‘truth’/‘fact’ please. I’m interested to hear. — I like sushi

I don't understand the thrust of your question. If you read over my posts in this thread you should be able to glean some insight into my fairly pedestrian view of what facts/ truths consist in; it has nothing to do with monads or essences.

I don't see any moral imperative for me to take a vaccine since the outcome of my doing so is very unlikely to reduce harm relative to my not doing so. I'm very unlikely to need hospital treatment if I do get it, I'm very unlikely (given my hygiene measures) to pass the disease on (and the vaccine is only marginal in reducing transmission anyway), and there's little to no evidence that mass vaccination will do any more to stop the virus long term than naturally acquired immunity. — Isaac

If you were vaccinated you would be even less likely to get infected and transmit the virus. Every little bit helps. You haven't given any good reason why you shouldn't be vaccinated, and nor have you explained why you don't want to be vaccinated.

https://theconversation.com/mounting-evidence-suggests-covid-vaccines-do-reduce-transmission-how-does-this-work-160437

What exists exists, but in order to get to a true statement describing some state of affairs accurately, you need an observer observing. — Olivier5

That's not true. You can make a true statement about whether or not Leonardo was really gay. You can say "Leonardo was gay" and " Leonardo was not gay" and one of those statements will be a true statement, a fact; no observation required. The fact that we don't know which is true is irrelevant, because the truth does not depend on our knowing it. Do you still claim that we agree on this?

For Olivier5, Is it that every fact is known? — Banno

Yes, I was thinking that if only observations are facts then anything in the human past which has not been documented cannot be a fact of history. What if Caesar didn't cross the Rubicon? Was Leonardo gay or not? On Olivier's view there can be no facts of the matter in such cases.

Faith has nothing to do with it. There must have been uncountable commonplace historical events about which we know nothing. There must be vast numbers of facts about the stars and planets in this galaxy and other galaxies which have not, and may never be, discovered. I don't know how you could seriously deny any of that. So, I genuinely still don't understand your position.

So do you have knowledge I'm not privy to? Or is there some other reason why you can say that the death toll would likely have been much much more "into the future", yet I can't possible know what the death toll would be? — Isaac

It was "now and into the near future". If no lockdowns and other measures had been in place and no vaccines, there would likely have been a much greater death toll. Are you seriously claiming that the vaccines haven't made a significant difference to the death toll?

And I said you couldn't possibly know what the death toll would have been or will be twenty years into the future. But you ignored those qualifications regarding the future.

Do you have any evidence at all of this? The prevailing scientific opinion is that the virus will become a flu-like endemic disease. — Isaac

Do you have any papers to cite in support of that claim? That may indeed be the more likely scenario, but who knows? Even the experts can't predict the future with certainty.

It's not that complicated - vaccination is a small part of a much larger raft of measures which are needed to combat the crisis now and into the future, it's a useful tool, not a panacea. There's absolutely no need to pursue anyone who doesn't want to take the vaccine for any reason (it's just not that important a tool, so long as a good number want it); and focusing all the media attention on anti-vaxxers as being to blame for the continuation of the crisis draws attention away from the huge amount of other actions which are required to protect us now and in the future, but which governments are more reluctant to take given the expense an unpopularity of many of them. — Isaac

I think you are going against the grain of expert opinion if you think that vaccination is a "small part". The consensus seems to be that without vaccines we might never get out of the next wave/ lockdown cycle, which is obviously unsustainable. Also the more people get vaccinated the better the outcome will be. I'm not in favour of blaming people as I've said, but I really can't understand why anyone intelligent who isn't given to irrational fears would be reluctant to do their bit for the effort to get the best outcome. Other social issues should be addressed of course, but the emergency now is the fight against covid. You still haven't given your reasons for not wanting the vaccine. Do you have a rational reason or are you simply afraid of it?

As long as the discussion is limited to philosophy forums, there should be no problem. — baker

I don't know about that. I wonder how many spectators of this forum who don't themselves contribute there are.

In legal terms, this is a waiver of liability, if not even more than that. — baker

I think questions of liability are moot in this emergency situation; unless of course it could be proven that there had been negligence or fraud by vaccine developers during the testing stages.

The issue is whether the limited effectiveness of the vaccines warrants the hatred and the contempt that the vocal pro-vaccers are directing at anyone who isn't all that enthusiastic about the vaccines. — baker

I don't agree with hatred and contempt being directed at people, unless they are promulgating misinformation and conspiracy theories about the vaccines; if they are merely hesitant or fearful and are amenable to reason. then education, not hatred or contempt. would be the best approach.

You're failing to take into account the fact that the figure would likely be much higher if "social, economic and political effort" hadn't been "put to reducing" it. — Janus


No. I said

we took no further steps at all — Isaac


...although, had I not, my comment would still have been true. In 20 year's time the death toll would be dramatically reduced. — Isaac

"No further steps at all" is not from the section I was quoting, and is a different point. My point stands; if the effort had not been put in the death toll would likely have been much. much greater by now and into the near future.

You don't know how great the death toll could be in twenty years; it's pure conjecture. If there were no vaccination program much more virulent strains might have emerged. They might anyway. I am really struggling to see what your position actually is. Are you against the vaccination program? Do you think there is a viable alternative to it in the situation we find ourselves in?

In any case, whatever your answer to that might be, from a pragmatic point of view, if vaccination is seen as the only viable strategy and that is the strategy adopted, pretty much world-wide, then its best chance of working would be if everyone who can get vaccinated does get vaccinated. So, given that, what makes you think any individual who has no medical reason not to be vaccinated would be morally justified in refusing to play their part in the effort; to do so simply seems antisocial.

That's a silly question; if I were to give you an example it could not but be of an observed fact. We know there are facts yet to be discovered and facts that will never be discovered.

We derive what we take to be facts via, inter alia, observation, but it doesn't follow from that that there are no unobserved facts. I'm still not clear on whether you agree with that or not.

Now, due to a new cause of death on the scene, we're back up to 900,000 or so per 100,000, only unlike in 2000, when it was accepted as normal, this time it's being seen as something which every grain of social, economic and political effort must be immediately put to reducing. — Isaac

You're failing to take into account the fact that the figure would likely be much higher if "social, economic and political effort" hadn't been "put to reducing" it.

What threat are the unvaccinated to the vaccinated? If there is still a threat even though you are vaccinated, then why get vaccinated at all? If I can still carry and spread the virus even though I'm vaccinated, then what purpose is there to get vaccinated? — Harry Hindu

Are you familiar with the notion of 'more or less' as opposed to 'all or nothing'?

Well, it was not my intention to make that point, but it seems to come out of the discussion. I have not given the subject a lot of thought before but through the discussion, I am realizing an appreciation for why we have the word "spell" which means the letters we use for a word and also the power of the word to affect what is so. There is something magical about the word. Like there is something magical about math. This is beyond accepted materialistic thinking and I am not sure if anyone wants to go that far? — Athena

:up: Words may not directly affect the world itself, as they were thought to be able to do in traditional magick, but they certainly affect the ways we see the world. And insofar as human actions have affected the world, then words have affected the world.

Maths, on the other hand, does seem to reflect the deep structures of the world.

:up: It seems reasonable that all potentially viable strategies should be tried.

Yes, but you've given no evidence at all that the theories supported by the majority of scientists have a greater quantity of these properties than theories supported only by a minority. — Isaac

Do you disagree with vaccination as the only workable strategy out of this situation? Do you agree that the vaccines are safe and effective? Do you agree that the more people there are vaccinated the less our hospital systems will be overwhelmed by covid patients and the less likely there will be variants? If you agree with all of these and also agree that in a community facing an emergency it is a moral imperative that everyone should play their part, just as they are expected to in a military campaign, then what reason could you have for refusing to be vaccinated?

If you care for the people around you, you should follow public policy. It's only if you are anti-social that you shouldn't. — Olivier5

:up:

People also say, "It is what it is," and others nod in solemn agreement. Language is some weird shit. — Srap Tasmaner

Translation: "Shit happens". :wink:

I'm fine with saying it's a fact that we use the symbol the way we do, but that doesn't make the definition itself a fact, does it? — Srap Tasmaner

I guess it kind of does, but like all tautologies it's empty and doesn't seem to deserve the status of fact. Like saying it's a fact that all bachelors are unmarried, or that something is identical to itself.

That response was more for Banno's benefit than yours...in case stipulation and fact were ending up together in his mind. :wink:

How do you feel about this formula?

C=πd

Is that a fact? — Srap Tasmaner

No, it's a formula. It's a fact that people use it to determine the circumference of circles, though. Does it represent a fact? If it is a fact that the circumference if any circle is equal to pi multiplied by the diameter then yes.

I'm positing that post facto, it is a fact that the bishop moves diagonally. The point being to show that facts are not solely the result of observation.

The act of naming brings about the fact of the name referring. — Banno

It is a fact that when people play chess the bishop is always moved diagonally, and this fact is not a result of observation (unless you mean 'observing the rule'). But this fact is determined by observation.

The act of naming does not bring about the fact of the name referring, but rather it is the fact that people use the name to refer that establishes the fact of its referring.

Fact and stipulation -- baptism being a kind of stipulation, right? -- just shouldn't end up together. — Srap Tasmaner

If a ship is christened, the name is a kind of stipulation. That the ship henceforward becomes known by the name it was christened with (if it does) is a fact. I see no problem here.

Interesting possibilities!

The dog does not recognise that the food is tasty; it just eats the food. — Banno

The dog does, however, enjoy the taste of the food; which is the foundation upon which recognizing that the food is tasty rests.

You can say that, but doing so fails to notice the very great difference between your dog's knowledge and your own.

I don't see that you are addressing the topic. It seems to me that you have simply bypassed the private language argument because you find it inconvenient. That's fine, and you might be able to work around it in an interesting way - although I think Isaac makes a better case. — Banno

I do acknowledge the great difference between the dog's knowledge and my own; it's just that I understand them both as being founded on sensory experience.

I don't see how this relates to the PLA. As I've said a few times I think a private language is impossible, because in order to create a language uniquely my own I would need to translate the words, at least the non-ostensive words, that constituted that language into English in order to explain to myself what they refer to.I don't know if that is Wittgenstein's argument, though; I've never been able to work out just what his argument is.

Knowledge by acquaintance, if it is anything, is a form of knowing how.... Knowing by acquaintance that the cup is red is nothing more than knowing how to make use of the words "cup" and "red" in a sentence. — Banno

You have it backwards . Knowing how and knowing that are forms of knowing by acquaintance; it is by familiarity with an activity that you come to know how. You know the cup is red by seeing it. It is simply the ability to distinguish between red and other colours; like the honeyeater who can recognize the red flowers that are her favorites.

The dog knows the door is shut, he knows he can't go out so he whines a little because he knows that will get me to open the door for him. If I shut the door every day at midday, he will come to expect that. Otherwise how would he know I will shut the door at midday?

The argument is that you cannot doubt that the door is shut while you are standing looking at the door - or something along those lines. That you know the door is shut by acquaintance. But you can doubt that what you see is indeed a door - that the word "door" applies here. With this and other arguments Wittgenstein undermines the primacy of knowledge by acquaintance, showing it to be as much a part of our use of language as any other sentence. "Slab! — Banno

My dog has no language and yet knows the door is shut, so this argument fails to convince. Knowledge by acquaintance is indeed foundational; without it there could have been no language to begin with..

I see a dog and I name it "dog," yet I tell no one and that private word exists for me. I then see another dog and I recall it is called "dog," and I say to myself "there is a dog," — Hanover

You must also then have invented the private words "there", "is" and "a". But how would you know what they mean without translating them into the public language you have been inducted into?

Our brains are relatively useless without language and language without classifications would make scientific thinking impossible. In different regions of the earth, people will have different names for cats and dogs, water and air, etc. so the exact name may not matter, but the ability to classify what is being named does matter. — Athena

Yes, the same facts can be expressed in different languages. There are facts of conformation and characteristic that have been criteria for classification of animals, plants and other natural kinds; that seems to be what you are getting at, and I agree.

Perhaps it depends on how you say it and what you mean when you say it. according to my experience if you love someone they will look beautiful to you regardless of whether they have the kind of looks that are generally associated with being highly physically attractive.

Plastic bag pigeons
Billow slowly overhead
The soft city groans — Noble Dust

Nice! Strangely that reminds me of a poem (faux haiku) I wrote about 20 years ago:

Lonely at the heart
the silent moon
crying over the dark ranges

I say it's "faux haiku" since its syllabic line structure is not strictly haiku (5, 7, 5) and it makes no reference to the season.

I could change it to make it closer:

Lonely at the heart
the silent moon is crying
over the dark range

or even closer:

Lonely at the heart
silent winter moon crying
over the dark range

or:

Lonely at the heart
silent winter moon crying
over dark ranges

Constraint is the mother of invention.

That would indeed be ridiculous if the vaccine were only 10% effective. (Although I suppose it would still be a little better than nothing). Are you convinced that is an accurate assessment of its efficacy?

:up:

A fact is a fact because our theories make them a fact. — Thunderballs

I think you're right. It's the public who decide what a "facts" is, not armchair philosophers. — Wheatley

Of course it is people (not the public) who decides what is fact and what is not. But that means they decide what they take to be fact and what they do not. Are you denying that they might be wrong and what they take to be fact might not be?

Historical facts are accurate observations done and recorded in the past, that's all. There usually is a way to observe the record. — Olivier5

And what if the record is not correct when everyone thinks it is? Did Caesar really cross the Rubicon? Who really knows for sure?