On The Philosophy of, well, Philosophy

The knives and forks do come out when one serves a turkey, yes.The biggest problem in your post (among many) is self-invalidation. If this statement is true, this statement is BS.It's a fatal self-contradiction.You declared philosophy irrelevant and philosophical questions a waste of time. Yet here are some of the questions you intend to address:

What is the nature of valid knowledge?
Which kind of knowledge is most useful?
What constitutes relevance?
What is most important to human beings?

All of these questions are philosophical questions.You acknowledge as much in the title of your thread. You propose a discussion of 'the philosophy of philosophy.'A philosophy of philosophy is, of course, philosophy.You also quote a 'philosopher of science' in support of your argument. A philosophy of science is, likewise, philosophy.Not that I have a problem with that. Philosophy is fine with me. Or at least it was--until I met one Mr Quetzal on EvC Forum, who kindly informed me of the following: Thanks to this deep-thinking exposé of the worldwide philosophy scam, I now know that philosophical questions are BS.This leads me to the logical conclusion that Quetzal, as a philosopher himself, is likewise 'foisting' BS onto the public. I now know the appropriate response to him is 'suspicion, to say the least.' I now know the questions he addresses are unlikely to have 'any relevance whatsoever.'The post thus stands invalidated. Death by suicide.Logically, two avenues exist for salvaging the OP.

1. Admit that some philosophical discussions have merit.

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This option preserves your attack at the expense of your thesis. You discard the original thesis: 'All philosophical questions are BS'. You replace it with a new thesis: 'Some philosophies are BS but mine is not.' You may now proceed with your attack, showing why others' answers to these questions are so bad and your answers so much better. Readers will weigh what you say and make their own decisions.

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This is, of course, what all philosophers do.

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2. Declare your opening post BS, the discussion BS, ask that the thread be closed, and walk off.

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This option preserves your thesis at the expense of your attack. Abandoning the project shows you really do believe philosophical discussions to be a waste of time. The action follows logically from the belief.

Your call, Socrates._______________________Edited by Archer Opterix, : clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : brev.

Thank you, AO, for a virtuoso performance of the philosopher's art.**That art being, of course, disingenuous sophistry.

Wow, Archer... This is POTM material. I'm glad someone sees it in the same light that I do. Since you have more clout than I here at EvC, perhaps they will listen to you, 'cause they sure don't listen to me. Great post. Very thorough.

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

So now we know what your opinion is, so what.Would you like to elaborate on your opinion to the point one would have a reason to actually give a damn what you think?

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider - Francis BaconThe more we understand particular things, the more we understand God - Spinoza

Yeah but is it a suicide bomb? That is, if the statement is false does it take the rest of metaphysical machinations with it.Reexamining Hume's statement He is clearly using hyperbole for effect. I don't think he meant it as some clear cut axiom, but more of a general principle.For the Christian antagonist here, when Christ says "If you desire to be perfect go and sell all that you have, and give to the poor, and you shall have wealth in Heaven". You do not find many Christians following that axiom to the letter.Also Hume is a bit more concise and specifies "divinity or school metaphysics". The term "philosophy" is somewhat nebulous and I found no less than 8 different connotations in the definition. Therefore i don't believe references to Philosophy of Science really apply to this discussion.All this talk reminds me of a movie i recently watch with my wife on Father Damien and his work with lepers. My wife was quite impressed with this man's life and dedication. However when they mentioned that he thanked God very much for letting him die of the disease I realized that he was wallowing in the suffering for suffering sake. What I took from this story is that the true 'saints' where the men and women who discovered the cure to Leprosy using empirical methods and eliminated unimaginable suffering rendering faith-based workers unnecessary.This contrasts the usefulness of 'divinity' and the 'school metaphysics' to that of the empirical accretion of knowledge and understanding.

Not at all, Mr Frog. I merely did the work of a logician. The philosophy was provided by the author of the OP. He clearly labelled it as such.Too bad the author ruled philosophy worthless in the same breath. Otherwise a discussion might be worth having.A discussion took place in Athens once, interestingly enough, about the very question the OP raises: how best to acquire valid knowledge. Plato argued that it was best to start investigations with universals and work down to particulars. Aristotle argued that it was best to start investigations with particulars and work up to universals.Most readers will recognize the Platonic view as characteristic of idealistic thinking. They will recognize the Aristotelian view as the beginning of the scientific method.Into this fray walks the author of our OP, who declares simultaneously that (1) Aristotle is correct, (2) Aristotle is BS, (3) questions like this are worth discussing, (4) questions like this are pointless.The result is a matter-antimatter reaction. A self-obliterating post.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Ah, but you are having a philosophical discussion, iceage. Specifically, you are discussing Hume's critique of prevailing ideas about metaphysics.You have not fully registered the import of the OP. Quetzal has already declared Hume, and anything you say about him, BS. Hume is a philosopher. The OP says this puts him in that worldwide class of 'thieves' who answer 'irrelevant' questions like 'What constitutes valid knowledge?' We are not to trust such people. They are only soaking the rest of us for the riches we throw at the world's philosophy majors.I have no problem with your bringing up Hume. In any discussion of empiricism it would be disappointing if someone didn't bring up his ideas. But for your comments to address the OP you must first convince its author that (1) questions of this kind matter and (2) the ideas of philosophers like Hume matter. Both of these premises, which you take as givens, were explicitly denied in the OP. Yes, it is a bit more precise to say one is allergic to 'peanuts' rather than 'food.'That's a big shift in focus. You are saying that philosophy in general is not suspect at all (as we were told in the OP). The culprit is just 'divinity' or 'school metaphysics.' This sounds reasonable. But the OP, unfortunately for the cause of reason, says something else. It declares, a priori, all consideration of philosophical questions worthless. That would include your own discussion of Hume.Does Quetzal agree to your reworking of his argument? It would be a good idea, but I haven't seen him do this. Agreeing with you would represent Option 1 in Message 46 above: withdrawal of his original thesis, acceptance of philosophical discussions as valid, promotion of a new thesis. But until he does that, your reworking of the argument represents a misrepresentation of his views. He has already declared invalid the kind of discussion you offer. You will likewise have to take that up with the author of the OP. The 'philosophy of science' was brought up there, in a post that otherwise assumed 'philosophy' and 'science' to be irreconcilable opposites. I am content to observe merely this: the existence of the former should have provided a clue-by-four to the author about the inadvisability of making sweeping dismissals based on the latter.Science and philosophy are both applications of reason and observation to areas of human inquiry. The existence of thinkers like Hume attests to this. You present us with a philosopher who was familiar with and endorsed empirical methods of investigation. And Hume is hardly alone in this respect. Philosophers since the end of the Middle Ages (and quite a few before) have factored empiricism into the equation. All philosophers in modern times are obliged to discuss the implications of science in addressing the nature and limits of human knowledge.I am glad to see you offering an education in this relationship for those who, for whatever reason, missed the memo. I wish you well._____ Edited by Archer Opterix, : brev.Edited by Archer Opterix, : clarity.Edited by Archer Opterix, : html.

Excellent. Your post shows the true value of philosophy - achieving clarity.I'm going to nominate this for a POTM if someone hasn't beaten me to it.

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'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang

Ah, if only that were true. Sadly, there was nothing either logical or clear about your post - just disingenuous sophistry. You assert that certain questions are best handled by philosophy and philosophers, yet I can't find a single part of your post that actually defends that view with evidence.Why is that? Funny, then, that actual scientific progress didn't meaningfully begin until more than 2000 years after your fabled dialog actually took place.Leave it to a philosopher to take credit for the work of others, I suppose. The fact that the views of both Plato and Aristotle continued to be held by both of their followers - even for centuries after - seems completely lost on you. If philosophy holds the power to answer these questions, why couldn't Plato and Aristotle settle the issue in 300 BC?Because philosophy is a field with no rigor. No way to detect and reject the incorrect answers. Plato and Aristotle could not settle the issue because philosophy provided them with literally no way to discern which of them was right.In science, no one continues to hold geocentric models of the solar system, since such models have been amply demonstrated to be incorrect. Science, as a field with rigor, provides a basis to reject incorrect models. Yet, despite the success of Aristotlian inquiry, Plato's idealism continues to be advanced to this day. Why wouldn't it? From what basis in philosophy could it be rejected?Philosophy is a field with absolutely no rigor. It's nothing more than a dumpster for questions that sound interesting to sexy sophomore co-eds but cannot, in all likelihood, be answered in any confident fashion. And a dumpster, too, for wags who like the sound of their own voices far too well to muzzle them with the rigorous requirements of science.

While epistemology doesn't help me analyze or understand anything specific, I find it very helpful for judging the relative certainty (or uncertainty) of differently gained knowledge. It helps me place different but related knowledge into a consistent framework.My two cents.--Percy

Me, too. It's an eminently worthwhile question to ask, in any field.

How do you know?

Because I asserted nothing of the sort, Mr Frog. That is reason enough not to defend it.I nowhere said that certain questions are 'best handled' by philosophy. I said certain questions are philosophy.To entertain such questions is thus to have a philosophical discussion.

What good is evidence, why would evidence give you any indication of reality? Why would evidence have value to you? Does evidence help us gain knowledge? Well, we'd need to talk about epistemology to answer that question.The point is that you stating that philosophy is bunk using philosophy is obviously silly. One can of course, criticise the pragmatics of metaphysics, but to do so - one has to recognize that one is engaging in philosophy. Not really that unusual - Plato's method and worldview was very influential, and still is to many. It was so influential that a lot of the world almost forgot about thinking in anyway but Platonic ways. It unfortunately took until the 12th Century for some different ways of looking at the world were brought back into the scholarly discourse - and it had a rather impressive result. At least for a little while. And still doesn't. We have no way of knowing which is right, materialism or constructivism or supernaturalism or whatever. We can only make subjective calls about pragmatics - and that leads us to.. Exactly, what basis can it be rejected? On what basis can we accept that the real world exists so that it can be examined, described, and explained by science?We have to make certain assumptions about the nature of reality, even if we accept that they may be wrong. One might say that a suite of these assumptions forms a philosophical worldview - for example 'pragmatism' or 'logical positivism' - that is kind of like what Quetzal is proposing as superior to philosophy...which should strike you as kind of crazy. Well - we agree that many questions cannot be answered in any confident fashion. Descartes went all the way down to the existence of self as the only thing one can be really confident of. But you are equivocating the school of metaphysics with philosophy as a whole. As wiki points out:

quote:

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Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).

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Certainly. A question that Hume would've approved of. What he seems to have been against was the type of metaphysics that tried to deal with meaning (as in the meaning of the universe, rather than its nature).Quetzal's probably trying to say the same thing, but his wording could be better. His B.S. comment is about philosophy that concerns itself with "purpose", not all philosophy, but at other times his phrases seem to imply that such philosophy is all that there is, hence the apparent contradiction, as he is appreciating and using other types of philosophy at the same time.I'm sure he'd agree that it's better to read Hume on the subject, as he had thought it out more carefully, and wasn't just putting together an EvC O.P.!!Good O.P. to provoke discussion, though, and I'm happy to defend Hume against charges of contradictions, although Nemesis is the only one making them so far. I'd do the same for Quetzal if his meaning was slightly clearer.

How soon they forget. Quoth you:

quote:

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What is the nature of valid knowledge?
Which kind of knowledge is most useful?
What constitutes relevance?
What is most important to human beings?

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All of these questions are philosophical questions.

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I'm simply asking you to defend your assertion that these are questions for philosophy. For instance, why is "what is most important to human beings" a question of philosophy? It seems to me to be a question better suited to empirical methods, where one might present a survey asking "what is most important to you?" to as many human beings as possible.That would be sociology, or anthropology, not philosophy. Same thing. To say that a question is a question of a certain field is to say that that field is best suited to answer that question. For instance, if I say that something is a "medical question", I'm asserting that the science of medicine is best equipped to address that question. Similarly, you've stated that the questions you listed were the province of philosophy.I'm simply asking you why I should accept that to be the case, when it's obvious that philosophy has no ability to answer any questions whatsoever; thus, it cannot be best suited to answer anything. It can, at best, be equally suited to answer answerless questions.