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Author Topic:   On The Philosophy of, well, Philosophy
crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 250 of 307 (433427)
11-11-2007 10:41 PM
Reply to: Message 249 by Jon
11-11-2007 10:30 PM


Re: Highlights of the Creationist Method
Care to tell me why that isn't a sly, sneaky, weaselly fallacy?
I have, already. If you have half-rigor, and half-no-rigor, then the whole has no rigor, because rigor is a universal property.
Not having rigor is the same as saying "we can't tell the difference between truth and fiction." Refusing to discern the difference between truth and fiction is the exact same thing as that, and that's what philosophy does when it equates schools of philosophy with rigor with schools that have no rigor. If it's "all philosophy", then philosophy has no rigor.
It would be like, if scientists said "conclusions should be supported by evidence, unless the conclusion is being made on Tuesday." That doesn't just cancel out the rigor of conclusions on Tuesday, it cancels out the rigor of all scientific conclusions, because any one of them could have been made on Tuesday.
I know it sounds like a fallacy. It's not, because of what rigor is.
Philosophy does not accept everything under the same 'esteem'.
Of course it does. It's all "philosophy." Until philosophers get their acts together and vacate from their field all the various schools with no rigor, philosophy as a whole has none.
S'pose we could just as well say that because science is not philosophy, science is useless?
You could make that argument, but I refute it thus.
I mean it, thus. This. This message. This computer you're reading it on. The fruits of science, not philosophy. Your statement is wrong as a matter of observation.
What about bad scientists? Do they 'spoil the bunch'?
No, because bad scientists are discovered and marginalized - because science has rigor and bad models are rejected because of it.
Bad models in philosophy are enshrined. They never lose followers. They persist. They continue to be defended.
If someone is a bad scientist, they can be recognized by their bad science, and support for their models evaporates. Science is policed by its rigor. What happens to wrong philosophers, Jon? If a philosopher had a valid argument that was nonetheless wrong how would you even know?
When you can answer that question, you can show me the rigor. Until then you're continuing to dishonestly ignore the questions put to you.
Or does your argument only work one way, i.e., in the favour of Crashtoad?
Look, Jon, prove me wrong. Show me the rigor of philosophy.
Or is all you can show me the dishonesty of philosophy?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 249 by Jon, posted 11-11-2007 10:30 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 251 by Jon, posted 11-11-2007 11:15 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 252 of 307 (433438)
11-11-2007 11:48 PM
Reply to: Message 251 by Jon
11-11-2007 11:15 PM


Re: Highlights of the Creationist Method
You need to learn how to make an argument:
Apparently, I already know how to make arguments so well, you find yourself completely unable to rebut them.
Yeah, riiight
See what I mean?
Err... hence the followup comment I made: "Of course, that's malarkey,"
So why did you make an argument you knew was false?
Are you always this dishonest? Like, in everything? Or is it just to defend philosophy from valid and damning criticism? I wonder why you even care that much.
If you do, you will be required to provide evidence.
I did, remember? Message 175. It was sufficient evidence for Subbie; he had no reply. If philosophy rejects wrong ideas, how do you explain the centuries-long persistence of Plato's idealism? Plato v. Aristotle was 2300 years ago, Jon, and the issue is still unsettled.
A field that can't settle even the most fundamental questions of its field is a field with no rigor. If I was wrong about that you'd be able to show me the rigor.
So where is it? Why do you continue to avoid a question that, if I'm wrong, must be very simple to answer?
And you keep wanting to use words like 'rigor' and 'philosophy' without ever dening them.
I've defined them throughout. I defined rigor in the post you're replying to.
Why do you continue to act like I haven't defined my terms, when its obvious that I've defined them repeatedly and consistently? If philosophy is so great, Jon, why do you have to act so dishonestly to defend it?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 251 by Jon, posted 11-11-2007 11:15 PM Jon has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 262 of 307 (433528)
11-12-2007 12:46 PM
Reply to: Message 255 by Silent H
11-12-2007 4:25 AM


Re: Not too late for philosophy?
I'm not sure how or where you get a PhD without doing philosophy, unless its a disreputable University.
I've attended more colleges and universities than I should admit to, including two of Minnesota's top liberal arts institutions, and now I'm working on finishing my undergrad at UNL here in Lincoln, and I can assure you, none of these institutions specifically require attending any classes in the PHIL department.
Nothing disreputable about it. Classes in philosophy are irrelevant to actually getting a PhD in the majority of fields. Look up a few course catalogs, and you'll see. You don't have to take a single class from the PHIL department to get a PhD.
Did you have a problem with that stated methodology?
What methodology? The scientific method is science, not philosophy. Logic is mathematics, not philosophy. Textual analysis (like you might do for a degree in literature) is criticism, not philosophy.
There are scientists who support ID and argue that it is valid science. You and I would clearly say that is not the case, and that their existence does not in turn paint the whole of science with their concept of what science itself is (which is actually a valid form of science from many centuries ago).
I guess I'll have to repeat my rebuttal to this, since this argument was covered already. Is there some reason you're choosing to ignore more than 250 posts on this subject? Is that how you think constructive dialogue works? Anyway...
As a result of their deviation from the scientific consensus, from scientific rigor, proponents of ID are marginalized. Science is self-policing. Models that meet rigorous requirements and are substantiated by evidence enjoy increasing support among scientists until a consensus view emerges. Models that are not rigorous and are not supported by evidence suffer decreasing support, until the entirety of their support comes from marginalized figures and cranks, and those theories wind up in the dustbin of science, of interest only as historical novelty.
A recent example of this was the work of Hwang Woo-Suk in Korea, who announced the success of a program to clone human beings. But not days after he had published his research, it was exposed as being fraudulent.
As a result, Hwang Woo-Suk can't find a job cleaning toilets, much less doing science. That's the enforcement of rigor in the sciences. Wrong models and false results are quickly exposed for what they are and rejected by the community of scientists.
That doesn't happen in philosophy. Consider Plato v. Aristotle, a debate that remains unsettled to this day, 2300 years later. They can't both be right, so one of them must be wrong. Regardless of that, both Plato and Aristotle enjoy great prominence among philosophers, and their respective positions continue to be defended to this very day by an assortment of philosophers.
In science, wrong models are discovered and rejected. In philosophy, models that must surely be wrong continue to enjoy prominence, and their level of support is not diminished for being wrong. That's what you would expect from a field with no rigor, where an individual's support for one or another position is determined not by evidence but by the consistency of that position with the individual's personal ideology. (Economics and theology are the exact same way.)
Philosophers can't help that some continue to practice outmoded fields and schools and claim they are doing philosophy.
They could certainly help it, if their field had rigor and they chose to enforce it the way scientists do. They certainly can't help it if their field has no rigor, but then, that's my whole point.
I am not failing to distinguish between them, I am saying I can see them as clearly separate.
But it's all philosophy, and that's the equivalence. Both Plato and Aristotle enjoy nearly equal prominence in philosophy, despite the fact that one or the other of them must surely be wrong.
Because philosophers can't tell the difference. They don't know who won the debate! Because their field gives them no way to tell whether or not Aristotle was right, or whether Plato was.
Because it has no rigor. Philosophy can't settle the debate because it has no way to discern between true positions and false ones. Only valid positions and invalid ones, but the problem is, both the arguments are valid, so clearly validity is not the same as rigor. (Godel would later formalize the proof that validity is not the same as veracity.)
Hume was clearly arguing that the rotten ones should be thrown out.
And Dennett too, I'm led to understand.
So why aren't they thrown out? Because philosophy gives no justification for doing so. Sure, you can insist on rigor the way Hume and Dennett do - or you can choose not to. Either way, it's all the same to philosophy. You certainly won't be marginalized as a philosopher for disagreeing with Hume and Dennett, the way Woo-Suk was for violating the scientific method.
as I mentioned the science ID uses was at one time valid science protocol.
And its not now. In science, ideas are refined by a process where wrong ideas are excluded from support. That's because it's a field with rigor.
In philosophy, wrong ideas are never excluded, because there's no way to tell which ideas in philosophy are actually wrong. Thus, Plato and Aristotle are held in the exact same esteem by philosophers, even though one or the other of them must surely be wrong.
It's hard to imagine the same thing happening in the sciences. Darwin v. Lamark might represent a similar clash of positions, but in the present day, Darwin is enshrined and Lamark is a punchline. And that was after only 150 years or so. 2300 years after Plato v. Aristotle, the question is still unresolved - a nearly unthinkable situation in any field with rigor.
Philosophy has no rigor. Honestly, if it did, one of you would have been able to show that it does by now.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 255 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 4:25 AM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 265 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 4:39 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 279 by Jon, posted 11-13-2007 7:13 AM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 263 of 307 (433529)
11-12-2007 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 260 by Quetzal
11-12-2007 9:14 AM


Here, here.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 260 by Quetzal, posted 11-12-2007 9:14 AM Quetzal has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 264 by bluegenes, posted 11-12-2007 1:33 PM crashfrog has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 267 of 307 (433634)
11-12-2007 5:19 PM
Reply to: Message 265 by Silent H
11-12-2007 4:39 PM


More tired arguments
1) I thought I made it clear that PhD students DON'T have to take Phil courses.
Then I guess there was some confusion on our parts. I thought you were saying the opposite; my apologies.
I said they have to DO philosophy, that is they perform philosophy, in pursuit of their final degree.
Oh, I see. You're in the "everything is philosophy" crowd.
They state that it is commonly agreed that philosophy is a method, and describe it (in general terms).
Then I guess I didn't understand it when the article said it, so could you summarize, in your view, the "methodology of philosophy"?
??? What debate remains unsettled?
Aristotle Vs. Plato. Look, here's a pile of student essays on the subject, which substantiates my claim that this debate has yet to be settled more than 2300 years after either figure was alive.
Can you imagine an array of student essays in biology, arguing Darwinism vs. Lysenkoism? It's impossible to imagine anything but a stack of papers expositing the evidence that supports Darwinism, and approaching Lysenkoism from a perspective of historical interest to show how support for Lysenko's theories was driven by official pressure from the Communist Party. There would certainly be no papers taking the opposite view.
Outside of history of ancient philosophy, and to some extent ethics, they are rarely discussed, much less used as examples of contemporary relevance.
Here's another 30 student essays on the subject, refuting your assertion that the issue is "rarely discussed." Apparently discussing it is a central feature of low-level philosophy courses.
I honestly don't know what you are talking about.
I'm sorry, what part specifically do you find unclear?
First of all there is a huge difference between being wrong and being fraudulent. Second science does not throw out scientists who were wrong, only their theories.
Whereas, theories in philosophy are never discarded, despite their wrongness.
Even Einstein made mistakes, indeed much of the last portion of his career was dedicated to what modern science considers an error (with solid evidence packed in years before).
Yes. And the difference in science is that, regardless of Einstein's colossal stature - even in his own time - as a scientist, even he could not escape rigor, and those models he created which were not rigorous and unsupported by evidence were discarded by scientists, even though they had the Einstein "brand" on them.
Even a titan like Einstein still has to have evidence for his conclusions if they're to be accepted by the scientific consensus.
That's rigor. In philosophy? Nothing even comes close. The great names in philosophy are held in esteem no matter what they say, and previous success in the field leads people to think that subsequent work is also true, even though there's no reason that should automatically be the case. So here we are, 2300 years after Plato and Aristotle can't both be right, and yet both men are considered two of the greatest philosophers who have ever lived.
Another example - James Watson (co-discoverer of the helical structure of DNA) and Anthony Flew (philosopher) have both recently been involved in scandals involving ill-considered statements that they had made. Possibly as a result of creeping senescence. James Watson, despite his legendary status as one of the most influential living biologists/biochemists, found his professional engagements evaporating as a result of his racist comments offered as scientific "truth" would any evidence.
Anthony Flew apparently co-authored by mistake a book of arguments for Christian theism, a book roundly condemned for faulty logic and invalid, trite arguments; yet his status as a philosopher is unchanged.
As far as validity and truth goes, what is the difference?
"Validity" is when a given statement can be derived from one or several axioms by means of valid transformations. "Truth" is when a given statement corresponds to reality.
It's obvious that these are not at all the same thing, since a valid statement still depends on its axioms - and is only true if you assume the truth of your axioms. Godel formalized a proof that shows that even if your axioms are known to be true, it's still possible to arrive at a valid statement that is nonetheless false.
I ask because as soon as you move to answer what you are doing IS philosophy and there's no way around it.
If philosophy can be used to diminish its own significance, that only proves my point.
Even science does not exclude ideas at the outset because they are wrong.
Who said anything about "at the outset"?
In that case, you'd have to admit he'd enjoy a certain vindication, and the joke would be on you. Right?
Sure. But either way we'd know the difference; we'd know that there were reasons to believe that either Darwinism or Lamarkianism was the more accurate model. We'd know that because the evidence would have told us, and the scientific consensus, either way, would form around the model that could be proven to be the most correct.
That's not what happens in philosophy. Support for different positions is determined by the degree that they're consistent with or useful to the ideologies of its supporters, not because of the evidence. The Church of Christian Scientists adopts a position of irrealism not because of any evidence for irrealism but because that's the philosophy consistent with their religion.
Logic is not math, quite the opposite: math is a form of logic, and logic is a field of philosophy.
Mathematicians are mathematicians, not philosophers, and ever since Russel, Boole, and Napier, logic has been a form of mathematics. I'm aware it's the tendency of philosophers to appropriate the successes of other fields, but it's arrogant and ridiculous and I ask you to stop. It disrespects the great minds in science and mathematics for philosophers to take the credit without having supplied any of the work.
Likewise, while I can certainly agree that the scientific method is science, science is a branch of philosophy and whether you agree with that assessment or not, its pretty unquestioned that the scientific method was developed through philosophy (philosophers attempting to gain knowledge about natural phenomena, using empirical evidence).
No. The scientific method was developed by scientists doing science. People were doing science - accruing knowledge by observation and empirical testing - long before any so-called "philosophers of science" were around to tell them how to do it.
Philosophers of science describe how science is done, they do not determine how science is done, and the proof of that is that the vast majority of scientists go about their work and generate results without sparing a single thought to any philosophical concerns. If you don't believe me, ask some scientists! Ask them how many courses in philosophy they took. Ask them how much if their day is spent dealing with metaphysics and epistemology. I don't know a single scientist that spares a thought for philosophical concerns in their day-to-day activities, but they're generating good science, nonetheless.
How is that possible if science is only made possible by philosophy? The answer is - the philosophers are wrong. Science owes them nothing, and it's simply arrogant self-interest on their part that leads them to attempt to dishonestly appropriate the successes of science for their own field.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 265 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 4:39 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 270 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 7:37 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 269 of 307 (433674)
11-12-2007 6:49 PM
Reply to: Message 268 by Silent H
11-12-2007 6:42 PM


Re: Philosophy by example
I appreciate your post, but if you're not going to add anything new, I'm content to let my previous posts on the subject speak for themselves. I think they address essentially every point of what you've put forth here, but I appreciate the effort on your part.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 268 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 6:42 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 271 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 7:46 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 272 of 307 (433762)
11-12-2007 9:10 PM
Reply to: Message 270 by Silent H
11-12-2007 7:37 PM


Re: More tired arguments
Clearly you saw my statement that "Outside of history of ancient philosophy, and to some extent ethics, they are rarely discussed". You have the quote in your text. So I'm not sure why you bring this up.
Sounds like the fallacy of the looming caveat. "Except for all the fields of philosophy where they're discussed all the time, they're rarely discussed." Huh?
You're simply engaging in the reasoning that I've already proved is invalid. You're tucking all the unfortunate stuff into "that" philosophy - "oh, that's not the philosophy I do" - and trying to misdirect my attention, hoping I won't pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.
This really is a caricature.
That Plato and Aristotle are highly regarded as philosophers? Surely you jest. There's nothing of a caricature about it, it can't be denied - these two men, who hold mutually exclusive viewpoints, are both regarded as key figures in the field of philosophy. Kant once described all of philosophy as "footnotes to Plato", and you're going to sit here and tell me that Plato isn't a critical figure in philosophy?
Please.
Regarding Einstein, you ignored my point. Einstein's theories have been thrown out, not his stature.
You seem to have ignored mine. Despite his stature, Einstein's theories were discarded because they couldn't pass rigor. Because science operates with rigor.
That's not how it works in philosophy, where a philosopher's stature can buoy bad reasoning by fiat. Because there's no rigor.
If his logic was correctly criticized, what else do you want, that's the same as having your logic or evidence criticized in natural investigations.
It clearly wasn't criticized until non-philosophers got their hands on it, and then journalists discovered he had been taken advantage of. In the meantime, because philosophy is a field with no rigor, no review, Flew's imprimatur was enough to get bad arguments to be accepted long enough to be published.
Can you explain why both the dictionary and wiki list logic as being under philosophy, and the latter listing math as under logic?
Because philosophers are bullshit artists, and part of their bullshit is getting other people to give them credit for things they have nothing to do with.
As I said in 147:
quote:
What does it matter what university department teaches logic? My wife just completed her masters degree at one of the top universities in the Midwest, and her entomology department was in the plant science division, and I'm pretty sure insects aren't plants.
Perhaps you disagree?
And in 65:
quote:
How strange it must be to be a philosopher walking down the street, seeing people - the baker, the bricklayer, the typesetter - engaged in activities that philosophers have been told they made possible. What a sense of one's own importance one must have when one believes that the entire scope of human endeavor owes its existence to one's graduate thesis!
How preening and arrogant.
The consistent theme seems to be your definition is right... period... end of discussion.
It's not a definition, it's an observation. Certainly you'd like to define philosophy in such a way that everything undesirable and embarrassing is conveniently excluded. I'm simply observing philosophy as a whole, as it is practiced.
Yours is the game that we're not going to play, H. The game where "philosophy" is so conveniently redefined as to exclude everything that you find embarrassing about it. Redefined to conceal its complete lack of rigor.
You do admit that those doing what we call science now were known as natural philosophers, right?
I believe that I specifically said that in a previous post, which you would know if you had ever read any of them.
Again I'm astounded by how you think, apparently, that it's completely legitimate to just roll in here and ignore more than 200 posts on this subject. The simple truth is that you have yet to present an argument that I hadn't already dealt with in this thread. Why is that? Why can't you be bothered to see what has already been said on this issue?
Nonetheless, I rebutted this already. Scientists used to be called "natural philosophers" because, once, that's how the word was used, to describe anybody that was a thinker.
Now that science, logic/mathematics, and even social science/ethics have been spawned off into their own fields, all that's left under the heading "philosophy" is that which was of no use for creating human knowledge. Philosophy is simply the dumping ground for unanswerable questions, and for people who would rather hear themselves talk than engage meaningfully with the body of human knowledge.
People like you, in other words. People who would rather traverse the same well-traveled ground, offer up the same tired, empty sophistry, than address the rebuttals that have occurred in the past 270 posts.
That you by fiat define anything scientific as not philosophy, metaphysical/epistemological/logical rules used in science as not philosophy, allows only one outcome.
It's not me. It's the people in those fields. Scientists don't think of themselves as philosophers; or when they do, they recognize that to "do philosophy" is to be doing something fundamentally different than to be "doing science." Mathematicians don't think of themselves as philosophers, and they often grimace when philosophers attempt to use proofs in mathematical logic to defend their sophistry. (I'm sure my mention of Godel a couple of posts back has earned me no love from the math guys.)
Of course, philosophers ignore all that. What is a scientist's own understanding of science compared to [i]the philosopher's?philosopher says that science is his doing, that all of human endeavor owes everything to the philosophers, and how lucky we all are that they should descend from on high to impart their wise and noble truths to us, why, who on Earth are the rest of us great unwashed rubes to dare question him?
Really science is a form of philosophical inquiry and was once called that specifically.
I was born in my parent's house, but I don't live there now. Similarly, while scientists were once known as "philosophers", it's now the case that they have left that field. Science is a field in its own right, not a part of philosophy.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 270 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 7:37 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 274 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 11:12 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 273 of 307 (433767)
11-12-2007 9:14 PM
Reply to: Message 271 by Silent H
11-12-2007 7:46 PM


Re: Philosophy by example
One thing I feel is missing from your side, is an explanation of the history of science, and its methodologies.
"I refute it thus." That's the methodology. The rest is an irrelevancy. The history is irrelevant; words change in meaning, sub-fields become fields in their own right.
You have also not addressed, as far as I can remember, my points regarding the edges of science, particularly physics, chemistry, and cosmology.
This was addressed before you showed up. Attempting to introduce doubt about the rigor of science only confirms my position on philosophy - it can't distinguish between true models and false ones. The failure of philosophy to be able to confirm the veracity of the scientific method is the failure of philosophy, not science; it is philosophy's greatest failure in its lifetime. And it's further proof that there's no rigor in philosophy.
If there were rigor, H, you would have been able to show it by know. Anybody would have. Why is that point continually ignored by your side? Mod took his best shot so he's the exception, but finally he had to admit that there was no rigor in philosophy, too.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 271 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 7:46 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 275 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 11:22 PM crashfrog has replied
 Message 282 by Modulous, posted 11-13-2007 12:28 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 276 of 307 (433817)
11-12-2007 11:28 PM
Reply to: Message 274 by Silent H
11-12-2007 11:12 PM


Re: More tired arguments
Let's erase the board and start again, because I'm feeling a lot of goal posts are shifting, and (additionally) that you are attacking a straw man of my position.
I'm not, I'm honestly not. I'm trying to explain how you keep bringing up issues we've already addressed.
The big issue, of course, has not been addressed by your side. I proclaim philosophy to be a field that has no rigor.
If you disagree, then show me the rigor.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 274 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 11:12 PM Silent H has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 277 of 307 (433818)
11-12-2007 11:30 PM
Reply to: Message 275 by Silent H
11-12-2007 11:22 PM


Show me the rigor.
Show me the rigor, H. (I feel like Cuba Gooding Jr. in Jerry McGuire.)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 275 by Silent H, posted 11-12-2007 11:22 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 278 by Silent H, posted 11-13-2007 2:10 AM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 280 of 307 (433857)
11-13-2007 9:09 AM
Reply to: Message 278 by Silent H
11-13-2007 2:10 AM


Re: Show me the rigor.
To you philosophy is essentially defined as anything that does not have rigor.
I've defined "philosophy" throughout, so it's pretty disingenuous and disrespectful of you to pretend like the word I haven't. The word has been defined. Everybody knows what we're talking about.
If all you have to add to the discussion is the same dishonesty and misrepresentation that Jon, Subbie, AO, and the rest were bringing to the table, color me not impressed. With only about 20 posts left in the thread anyway that's simply not something I want to be a part of.
Thanks for giving it a try, though. I still am left to wonder why philosophy, if its so great, can't be defended honestly.
Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 278 by Silent H, posted 11-13-2007 2:10 AM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 303 by Silent H, posted 11-14-2007 1:26 AM crashfrog has not replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 281 of 307 (433858)
11-13-2007 9:10 AM
Reply to: Message 279 by Jon
11-13-2007 7:13 AM


Re: Not too late for philosophy?
I wonder why you're unable to defend philosophy with anything but personal attacks, Jon.
Is that because there's nothing there to defend, perhaps?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 279 by Jon, posted 11-13-2007 7:13 AM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 290 by Jon, posted 11-13-2007 4:16 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 283 of 307 (433892)
11-13-2007 1:02 PM
Reply to: Message 282 by Modulous
11-13-2007 12:28 PM


Re: quick correction
I did concede there is no meta-rigour, no rigour of rigours.
But that's the same thing, since rigor is a universal property.
Perhaps you didn't see the argument I was forced to make in another thread. If you define a property as "all-red", where a set is "all-red" if all of its members are red, then the union of a set that has the property "all-red" with a set that has the opposite property "not-all-red" cannot have the property "all-red", because some of its members are not red.
It doesn't matter that you can look at one or another subset of the set and say "well, look, this sub-set is 'all-red'"; that's still not reason to conclude that the set is "all-red".
You're trying to use what rigor may exist in a subset of philosophy to conclude that philosophy has rigor, but that's fallacious. Philosophy lacks rigor because it includes subsets that lack rigor as well as subsets that have rigor. But taken as a whole, since rigor is a universal property, philosophy lacks rigor because it includes subsets that lack rigor.
To admit that rigor is not a universal requirement across philosophy is to admit that philosophy does not have rigor. I thought we were clear on that which is why I'm surprised to see you going back on what we agreed on.
Like with science the cranks can always find someone who will publish (even if it is themselves).
I've seen absolutely no evidence that it's even possible to be a "crank philosopher", except in the sense that all philosophers are equally crank-ish as they engage in philosophy. Philosophical models are not rejected by anybody because they're wrong; they're rejected when they contradict the individual's personal ideology.
It's the same with theology and economics. People don't reject theological arguments because they're wrong, or the evidence contradicts them; they reject them because the argument contradicts their religion. Similarly, there are no economic models that are supported by evidence; they're all supported because of their consistency with the position of a major political party.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 282 by Modulous, posted 11-13-2007 12:28 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 284 by Modulous, posted 11-13-2007 1:31 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 285 of 307 (433901)
11-13-2007 2:05 PM
Reply to: Message 284 by Modulous
11-13-2007 1:31 PM


Re: quick correction
You have defined rigour as, essentially picking one field of epistemology and sticking to it rigorously.
Well, no, that's not at all how I defined it.
Look, Mod, you're making it a lot more complicated that it needs to be, and I suspect it's so that you can misrepresent my position and grapple with a strawman.
Rigor is when you can reliably distinguish between truth and fiction. A field that can't do that has no rigor. A field that doesn't distinguish between rigor and no rigor also has no rigor, by the grouping principle I outlined above.
If philosophy combines fields, some with rigor and some not, and the conclusions from all fields are held in essentially equal esteem (which they are), that indicates the lack of rigor in philosophy.
It's not a complicated argument, Mod, which is why I continue to be surprised that it's at all contentious. If you combine a set that lacks a universal property with one that has the universal property, the resulting union of sets lacks the universal property.
It's like pissing in soup. Any amount of piss in the soup, and it's not soup any more, because to serve a bowl of soup is to serve a bowl that doesn't have any piss in it.
When philosophy ejects and marginalizes everyone who wants to piss in the soup, then philosophy might gain some rigor for it. But as long as bad ideas in philosophy continue to be enshrined, philosophy has no rigor.
Rigour is something that is defined within a philosophy, not without.
That's just the same "everything is philosophy" nonsense. I don't see a single reason to give this argumentation any consideration.
People who try and apply dualism to philosophy of the mind are generally dismissed - whether 'crank' is used specifically I can't say, but the idea of a Cartesian theatre of the mind is generally derided.
Except, of course, for the fact that Cartesian duality of the self is a feature of every Western religion, as well as a widely-held position in neurology, as well as supported by highly-regarded philosophers such as Thomas Nagel, Frank Jackson (a Distinguished Professor at Australian National University), and David Chalmers.
When James Watson most recently made unsupportable racist comments - and was derided - his professional engagements almost instantly evaporated, and his prestigious position at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory was suspended that week. Hwang Woo-Suk will never work in a laboratory again, not even to sweep the floor.
On the other hand, Nagel, Jackson, and Chalmers all continue to hold prestigious positions at their individual institutions, a surprising situation if, indeed, these figures are being "derided" professionally for their arguments for dualism.
So, once again, we see that assertions of philosophers enforcing rigor in their field simply don't hold up to the facts.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 284 by Modulous, posted 11-13-2007 1:31 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 286 by Modulous, posted 11-13-2007 2:24 PM crashfrog has replied

crashfrog
Member (Idle past 1467 days)
Posts: 19762
From: Silver Spring, MD
Joined: 03-20-2003


Message 287 of 307 (433905)
11-13-2007 2:41 PM
Reply to: Message 286 by Modulous
11-13-2007 2:24 PM


Thus any concept of rigour must emerge from epistemology.
No more than science has to arise from philosophy of science, or plants have to arise from botanists, or that rivers cannot run until there's a cartographer around to chart them.
You're confusing the thing being studied with the results of that study. Indeed, epistomologists study ways of telling truth from fiction.
That does not mean that we need depend on them to tell truth from fiction. Every child is born with the ability to do this.
And they are basically derided by the consensus in philosophy of mind.
It's a funny sort of "derision" where the object of derision is promoted to Distinguished Professor at a prestigious Australian university.
Do you have any actual examples of real, consensus derision? Real consensus enforcement of rigor in philosophy?
Committing fraud and outspoken racism is hardly the same ball park as an unpopular view that gets widely criticised.
Watson's comments were, in fact, precisely an example of an unpopular view that gets widely criticized - differences in intelligence between races. As a result of continuing to hold it nonetheless, he's in the process of essentially being ejected from the scientific community.
On the other hand, the worst thing that you can seem to dig up on those three figures - who are by no means the only modern supporters of dualism, you've completely ignored the example of Western religious belief - is that some people wrote papers and disagreed with them, but that's been my point all along.
People write papers and disagree, but it's never settled. Dualism continues to be supported; anti-dualism continues to be supported. People adopt dualism because its consistent with their ideology. People attack dualism because its inconsistent with theirs. It's never settled because philosophy provides no way to settle it; it's a field with no rigor. In 10 years, dualism and anti-dualism will still be held by significant numbers of philosophers. In 50 years, dualism and anti-dualism will still be held by significant numbers of philosophers. In 100 years, dualism and anti-dualism will still be held by significant numbers of philosophers. It'll never change because philosophy is a field with no rigor; no way to get rid of wrong ideas.
Compare that to, say, the competition of any two theories in the sciences. There's a brief period of overlap where there are supporters of both camps and a large contingent of the undecided; over time, the right theory gains popular support while the supporters of the wrong theory aren't able to convince anybody except by fiat; eventually, all the supporters of the wrong theory have either repudiated it or died, and the other theory enjoys practically universal support among the consensus of serious scientists. The wrong theory is relegated to historical interest (as in, "look how dumb these old boobs were, they supported phlogiston theory!") if it's not forgotten altogether.
There is no philosophy so wrong that you cannot find large contingents of serious, respected philosophers defending it openly. That's a phenomenon that is simply unlike anything in the sciences, but it's abundantly like theology and economics, two other fields that have no rigor.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 286 by Modulous, posted 11-13-2007 2:24 PM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 288 by Modulous, posted 11-13-2007 3:04 PM crashfrog has replied

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