So clearly truth-telling doesn't require epistemology, does it?
No, never said it does. Having a method of telling truth from fiction is an epistemological methodology.
Now, there's certainly merit in thinking about how to improve on the practice of truth-telling, but the sort of philosophical navel-gazing that constitutes epistemology has nothing to do with that.
Actually, that's
exactly what it is. But we can go around in circles all day.
Sure, let's just open the biology doors to the ID'ers and the creationists.
If Creationists and IDers are actually good at what they do, then sure. If they can teach the consensus views, if they are fantastic scientists then go right ahead. Or, if someone who has been a scientist for a while wants to talk about the arguments in favour of ID - be my guest. Welcome to LeHigh university.
Let's make sure there's ample space and plenty of research money for the "luminaries" of wizardology and unicorn science. Jesus, Mod, how credulous can you even be?
This debate has been marred by your constant sniping, your accusations at a lack of integrity, misrepresentation and so and so forth. Can you take part in a rigorous debate with an mind that is open to the possibility that you might be wrong? Why the attitude, Crash. We're just having a debate about philosophy, for Jesus' sake!
The problem with philosophy is that the whole thing is a gray area
Yes yes, that's your opinion. Contradicted by your earlier opinion that some of philosophy is rigorous and so on and so forth. Next time you argue that a proposition isn't falsifiable I'll promise not to point out the fact that falsifiability is a philosophical concept and is thus a gray area.
. It doesn't substantiate any rigor in any of those subfields, nor in philosophy as a whole.
Well I'm leaving this debate confused as to what rigour is. Is it the ability to tell truth from fiction within certain explicit boundaries as defined by you? What's the greyest it can be before it is no longer rigour? That's a debate for another time, but you now know what my position on rigour is - that it is simply holding to an epistemology rigorously.
If that is truly your position then it is, at best, orthogonal to mine, not oppositional. If there's been any confusion here, it's been the result of you trying to portray an irrelevant, orthogonal position as something that undermined my position.
I understand your position Crash - it's just I think you are wrong. Your argument regarding rigour doesn't make sense at all, and I've not been able to tease any sense out of. The best I've managed is this:
Some areas of human investigation and thought has barriers preventing it from knowing certain things. Some propositions are entirely capable of being true, but there is no way to have any confidence if they are false or true. These propositions are philosophy and are entirely pointless.
Now - I agree that they are philosophy and that they are pointless. One of the things that has emerged in philosophy is the idea that if an idea could be true or false, with no way of knowing the two, it is basically meaningless. Thus, modern philosophy tries to make statements that can be verified or falsified at least in principle. Sometimes the practice of verification is less easy, sometimes it is very easy. I can easily verify that my cup will fall if I let go. It is less easy to verify that the the most socially acceptable thing to do would be sweep up the mess.
That is a problem with being human, not with the discipline of trying to figure stuff out. You are essentially pointing to the limitations of humans as if this rendered trying to figure out those limitations and deal with them somehow flawed. It is, to some extent, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, or that its only use is to help get laid.
I can and will do so as soon as someone shows me the rigor. After nearly 300 posts it's astounding that no one has been able to.
Rigour is an object of study for epistemology. After nearly 300 posts it's astounding that you keep repeating this refrain, along with a post count. You cannot assume your conclusions, thus there cannot be a 'rigour' that 'operates' above epistemology level in some meta-capacity. One can use one's ideas of rigour to show faults in other fields of philosophy, but one cannot use one's ideas of rigour to prove one's idea of rigour. It simply doesn't make sense, and again this is not a problem for philosophy - it's just a limitation of not being omniscient.
This'll be my last post. As a summary, I simply refer back to
Message 261
™ Version 4.2
