On The Philosophy of, well, Philosophy

I'd say the importance of these questions in general is evidenced by the number of people who consider them at length and the importance they place on the answers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to suggest that the fact that other people think about these things means they are important to you. You profess a belief that these matters are not worth the efforts that have been and are being expended on them. (I'm willing to take your statement as true for purposes of the present discussion, although I suspect a vigorous cross-examination might expose a few kinks in the armor of your claim.) But you seem to be dismissing the importance of these things for all people. The way you describe things, it makes it sound as if you believe that philosophers are the only ones considering these questions while non-philosopher types are sitting on the sidelines, cheering on one side or the other. However, I believe that most people spend at least some time contemplating these questions in one fashion or another. Perhaps many of them do so in the context of religious worship. Quite often, people make vital, life altering decisions based on the answers they come up with in these deliberations. Thus, I dispute your claim that the importance of these questions is "unevidenced." The evidence of their importance is found in the fact that people think they are important enough to consider them. I think you are saying two different things here. Let me try and sort it out.First, the very fact that people can be persuaded of the rightness of another's position on say a matter of morality shows me that these matters are not "purely and wholly subjective." Compare, for example, matters of taste. I like spinach. I'll assume for the time being that you don't. No amount of persuasion can convince you that spinach tastes good. I might be able to fool you into thinking you are eating something else. I might be able to convince you to eat it despite the fact that you don't like it. I might be able to disguise the taste of it so that you'll eat something that it's in. But, if you have eaten spinach and not liked it, I cannot describe the wondrous things it does for my palate and convince you to like it. Matters of taste are purely subjective.Contrast this with "questions and subsequent answers dreamed of by philosophers/religious." While I wholeheartedly agree that these things are influenced by culture and society, you go too far in declaring that they are dependent on culture and society. Were you correct, everyone in a particular culture and society would agree on these matters. Further, it would be impossible to convince anyone that the pronouncements of their culture and society were incorrect. Both of these things are patently false, therefore it must be false that "questions and subsequent answers dreamed of by philosophers/religious" are culture dependent.Given that the most that we can say is that these questions are culturally and societally influenced, the obvious responsive question is, "So what?" That different cultures and societies have come to different conclusions does not prevent the questions from being important. Nor does it prevent the questions from being discussed, opinions exchanged, and positions modified on the basis of the exchanges.You seek to condemn philosophy for its inability to do something that it doesn't intend to do (except for certain situations that I will address in another post). Philosophy (mostly) isn't concerned with empirical truth. But to criticize it on that basis makes as much sense as criticizing science for not answering value questions. The ToE doesn't tell us that it's wrong or right to eat our young. It simply says that in certain cases, that behavior will occur in nature. Science didn't tell Truman to drop atomic bombs on Japan, it only said that if he wanted to, he could. Instead, it takes philosophy to answer these questions, and many others of great important to a great many people.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Please explain why the fact that different people ask different questions, or come up with different answers to the same question, means that the questions or answers have no inherent value, because I don't see that that follows.Each of them has different inherent value to those who consider them. You seem to place a great deal of emphasis on the fact that these questions and answers are not universal. I'm not sure that none of them are universal. However, even if we assume that none of them are universal, so what? Why do you assign value only to those things that can be universally empirically demonstrated?You know, an implicit assumption in your calculus is the idea that value can be found in philosophy only to the extent that it provides universally accepted principals. Might I suggest to you that value can be found in philosophy quite independent of whether it ever produces universally accepted principals? Other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?I would argue that "semi-egalitarian societies" are the fruits that are now blossoming from the seeds sown by the philosophers of the 18th century. Perhaps the ideas of liberty and equality are now in the process of becoming universally accepted.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Yes of course, you're quite right.Jefferson, Paine, Mill, Locke, Gandhi, Rousseau, Mandela.... What a complete waste of human potential it was for these great minds to spend their time arguing for such an unprovable proposition that people ought to be free. How much better off the world had been if they had instead devoted their talents to making a better mousetrap.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

[qs]While your guys were arguing that people should be free, Borlaug was figuring out how to make it possible for them to be fed.[q/s]Wonderful defense of a person that I was never attacking and whose works I never questioned. Brilliant!Now, in order for your response to actually apply to what I said, you have to show that 1.5 billion people being fed means questions about freedom and the right of humanity to self-determination are meaningless. If the only thing you can do to attack philosophy is make apples to oranges comparisons, you don't have much. Your thesis seems to be that philosophy is worthless, not that it's worth less than other disciplines. The fact that Borlaug fed people says nothing whatsoever about whether the debate about liberty is meaningful. Apples and oranges, mate.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Well, now that we've agreed that what you said has no bearing on what I said, do you have anything relevant to say?

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I'll recap, let's see if you can catch up.You've been advancing the thesis that philosophy is worthless. I gave you a list of philosophers who argued for the idea that people should be free. Your non sequitor told me about a guy who fed people. I asked you to explain how people being fed shows that the idea of freedom is worthless, not that it's worth less than being fed. You have yet to respond to that request, although you did manage to insult one of the seven people I named.Did I miss anything?

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Well, I've asked twice, you dodged twice and are now resorting to personal attacks. I imagine that's as close as anyone will ever get to an admission from you that your position is meritless.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I will agree with you on one thing, the pointlessness of continuing.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Interestingly, you stumbled upon a truth that you've been denying so far. Yes, a branch of philosophy says that "Empiricism tells me that empiricism is right" is circular. That branch is logic. It's your problem as well, if you want to claim that empiricism is anything more than the exact same kind of tautology that you've been slamming philosophy for.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

That's right. All that philosophers did was realize the value of these ideals, describe them in ways that can be applicable to human societies, then convince the rest of society that they were right. But the credit for all that should go to the lawmakers, lawyers and politicians (many of whom were actually philosophers) who listened to the philosophers and decided they were right.Never let it be said that you don't give credit where credit is due.I must say, this thread has turned out to be considerably more entertaining than I expected it to be. Thanks, crash.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Says you! I suppose it's easy to win any argument by simply defining the terms conveniently for your position. Got any support for you claim? Let's see you define empiricism and justify it without running into a tautology.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Wonderful. You've proven that mathematics uses logic, a proposition never in dispute. Your claim is that logic is more properly part of math than philosophy. The fact that math uses it is a far cry from supporting your proposition.In support of my proposition that logic is a branch of philosophy, I offer the following:In a Google search of the phrase "university philosophy department class list" every one of the first 11 universities included logic as a component of the philosophy program. (I stopped after 11, but have no reason to believe that the result would be different if I went farther down the list. Feel free to check it yourself if you like.) I'm quite certain that you can dismiss this with a wave of your hand, possibly suggesting that all universities are running a huge scam on their students. Nonetheless, I offer it in case any rational people are reading this thread. The fact that you are unable to define your term strongly suggests to me that you don't really have a good grasp of what it means. It's really rather nonsensical for you to say that you can't define empiricism but you use it every day. Sounds a lot like superstition to me ("When you believe in things that you don't understand then you suffer." -- Stevie Wonder.) Defining one's terms isn't philosophy, it's simply necessary for clarity of discussion. On the other hand, if you really believe that defining one's terms is part of philosophy, then you've engaged in philosophy every time you've asked a creo to define a term.In any event, I fear that continuing this discussion with you would be as futile as trying to pin down a creo on "kind." I have other obligations to tend to at the moment, but will give some thought to how we might possibly continue from this point on. In the meantime, if you care to take a stab at defining your term, I'd be delighted to see what you can come up with.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Well, I guess I have to admit I was wrong. You didn't dismiss my argument with a wave of your hand and indict the entire university system. You just ignored it. Well done.It's quite simple. If you can't define a term, you don't know what it means. And if all you got from what I said is that I think you're a creationist because you disagree with me, you either skipped a lot or your reading comprehension is much lower than I would have thought it is.Once again, we seem to have reached a point beyond which any further discussion would be pointless.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Up yours, Bruce!

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Rigor in philosophy is exactly the same thing as rigor in science: consensus.Rigor in science is producing reproducible results, in other words, the ability to convince other scientists that one's conclusions are correct. Rigor in philosophy is constructing an argument that other philosophers agree with, in other word, the ability to convince other philosophers that one's conclusions are correct. Rigor in either field is the ability to convince others in the field that one's conclusions are correct.The difference, of course, is that science deals in conclusions about the natural world, whereas philosophy deals in conclusions about nonmaterialistic matters.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat