On The Philosophy of, well, Philosophy

There's a detectable physiological response when the brain learns a new skill, or new information. Why on Earth would that be the case? Except that philosophy doesn't settle any disputes. It never has; it can't. As mentioned - Plato vs. Aristotle, Round one. Still unsettled after 2300 years. That philosophy was completely unable to settle even the first major philosophical dispute is a pretty large mark against it's dispute-settling ability. There you go again, giving philosophers credit for the works of others.No, the work of astronomers like Galileo, Kepler, and Brahe settled geocentrisim by providing evidence that geocentrism was not an accurate description of the solar system. The philosophers - in the modern sense of the word - did nothing but tell Galileo he was wrong because he was employing empiricism instead of Plato's idealistic deductions. Logic may have originated with philosophers, but it was useless until refined and rigor-ized by mathematicians. Except empircially. Empiricism has held up to every empirical test.That this is epistemologically insufficient as verification is a problem with epistemology, not with empiricism. It is obvious that empiricism is valid. That philosophy cannot even detect what is obviously valid is indicative of the lack of rigor in the field. Yes, exactly. The fact that 2300 years of philosophy have been completely unable to justify something everyone knows is true - "I refute it thus!" - is philosophy's greatest failure.How could it be otherwise? We're sitting here, living lives of technological wonder in an age unmatched in terms of knowledge about the world around us, and philosophy still can't tell if empiricism is valid or not? What a colossal failure of philosophy! As I've successfully defended all my evidence against your ham-handed attacks, it looks like the opposite is true. You continue to act like what I'm doing is philosophy. That, more than anything else, is what refutes your own argument.

Great, empiricism and rationalism. Logical Empiricism. That's a philosophical position by the way. Some people actually disagree with you, and will say that knowledge is only gained when it has entered into the soul or some nonsense. You intend to relatively quantify something you haven't defined? Yet both of us agree that Aristotle's view is better than Plato's right? And we both have good reasons for that opinion. It's like Lamarckism: we have good reasons to prefer Darwinism to it. They are still at loggerheads as schools of thought, it's just that there are few if any Lamarckists around any more. And yet geocentrism can still be used to give predictions about the solar system. Galileo et al were able to demonstrate a more parsimonious model which is the preferred one since as logical empiricists we generally accept the philosophical principle of parsimony, and one that could explain a wider variety of observations (which makes it a stronger theory according to the philosophy of science). The scientists get full credit for demonstrating heliocentrism as a better model, that we are able to define it as 'better' is thanks to philosophers. As science progressed, heliocentrism simply became even better looking until it was just simply impossible to be an empiricist and refuse heliocentrism. Much of our disagreement stems from the fact that you are using a different meaning of the word 'philosophy' that you think is the modern sense of the word, which seems to me to be idealism or metaphysics in general. Do you have any evidence that this is the modern sense of the word and not simply used in a derisive fashion. There's that word again. What is rigor and why is it a good thing? OK, show me, or describe to me, an empirical test that verifies verificicationism? Explain. Nobody can detect what you say is obviously valid. However, logical empiricism, the philosophy, can use good reason, consistent logic and other strong argument to state why it is valid and an accurate way of describing reality.
It isn't obviously accurate at all. I even have evidence for this - look at those religions that think it obvious that 'reality' is an illusion. They might agree that empiricism does a good job of describing some of this illusion, but it could not describe the illusion, nor reality. 1) Not everyone 'knows' it is true. You certainly think it is true, how can you know it to be true? It could in principle be false, and you would therefore be wrong. Logical empiricists solve this this with the principle of the tentativity of knowledge, but you reject philosophy so how do you do it?
2) 'Philosophy' cannot justify anything. It doesn't make sense to ask it. The schools within the field of philosophy all attempt to justify themselves and their conclusions. One cannot justify something using 'philosophy', one could use logical positivism or coherantism or theological perspectivism or the categorical imperative to justify something, however. You've not actually posited any evidence have you? A debate between philosophers I suppose is evidence...and there isn't any dispute there other than the fact that 'philosophy' itself is not a method of learning about something, a philosophical position can lead to learning about something, whatever 'something' happens to be. That two people with differing philosophical positions disagree isn't evidence of anything but what I have been saying...there are different positions in philosophy. We can't say which one is right, but we can prefer one to another (you go for logical empiricism of some flavour for example, as do I).Is there any other evidence you have presented - I thought you mostly were employing rhetoric. You are attempting to show how something that looks like logical positivism or empiricism is a better way of examining the world than something like theological perspectivism. That's a philosophical debate right there.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

I found an interesting adaptation of Russell's work. It begins with the problems inherent in defining philosophy. Then it goes on to examining philosophy and its relationship with science. It kind of answers one of the criticisms that people have levelled at philosophy:

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When we look at the history of philosophy it appears that philosophy never attains final conclusions about anything. Even though philosophy takes its subject-matter both from our everyday experience and the sciences, it constantly remains on the level of conceptual analysis, critical examination, new ideas, and so time and again fails to produce definitive "positive results". Russell admits that philosophy is not very much successful in providing "definite answers" to its questions but explains the apparent inconclusiveness of philosophic answers partly as deceptive, partly as inevitable:

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(a) "Those questions that are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answers can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy." Philosophic questions can turn into scientific truths. In other words, many scientifically established truths have started as philosophic questions, but once they received definite answers they get moved to the realm of science. If one is not familiar with the historical development of science and does not know that its many questions originated in philosophy s/he may think that philosophers have been doing philosophy over two thousand years without being able to produce anything valuable ("positive results"). But this impression of perpetually continuing futility would be a very deceptive impression.

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Might this be a different, more productive springboard from which to dive into the subject?

Because they're there?Anyway, the answerable questions are too easy .

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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

Hell, why wouldn't it be? Everything else is! Sure. Hell, we do that all the time. "I can't define pornography but I know it when I see it." Or SETI's search for extraterrestrial intelligence. What is intelligence? SETI doesn't know, but they pretend like it's "the ability to build a radio telescope" in order to do their jobs.It's not necessary to know what knowledge is to know that you have some. If epistemology was a prerequisite for learning - and we're not born with master's degrees in epistemology - how could anyone ever learn anything? We'd remain as ignorant as babes our whole lives, unable even to learn about epistemology simply because we didn't already know epistemology.Obviously, learning happens completely divorced from any epistemological concerns. Epistemology is an irrelevancy. Not accurate ones, though. That's the basis on which is it rejected.On the other hand, there's no basis on which to reject an argument of philosophy, assuming that the argument is correctly formed. Philosophical arguments are either fallacious or tautological. Every single one.That's what it's like in a field with no rigor. I've been explaining what rigor is, throughout. It's the ability to discern between truth and fiction, reliably. It's the ability to detect wronginess, if you will.Philosophy doesn't provide that. Now, it does provide the ability, borrowed from mathematics, to distinguish between arguments that are well-formed - that is, are based on applying to premises a series of valid transformations - and those that are not, but that's not at all the same thing. Indeed it's known to be impossible for them to be the same thing. At least that's better than what theology provides but it's not sufficient to establish rigor. Every time empiricism is used, it validates empiricism. I don't know what you mean by "verificationism", it was empiricism about which we were speaking. There are none. The religious of which you speak may consider reality to be illusion, but certainly none of them act like this conclusion is at all obvious, or anything but the result of years of meditation, learning, and enlightenment. You're simply misrepresenting religious thought, here. That philosophers have a hard time seeing what is obvious to everybody else is not a mark in their favor, Mod. Perhaps you could speak to your cohorts about that? What they're telling me is that, not only can philosophy lead to learning, only philosophy leads to learning. To listen to NJ and AO, one cannot learn even the simplest thing until one has finished a master's program in philosophy. Never mind, of course, the legions of learned people who have done exactly that. Given, but which position is right? If your answer is "there's no way to know", that's exactly what I've been saying all along. If the whole of philosophy consists of debates that can't ever be resolved, confidently, in one direction or another - what the fuck use is it? How is my characterization of philosophy as a dumpster for unanswerable, impressive-sounding questions wrong if that's exactly what you admit philosophy to be?

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Because they're there?

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You just let me know what you get to the top of that mountain, OK?I won't hold my breath.

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Anyway, the answerable questions are too easy.

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Huh.There's a reason very, very, very few people make it all the way to the PhD level of science.That's becasue doing so is the opposite of "too easy".

Except that they're not at all easy, Java. Somehow you've managed to get it completely fucking backwards, probably based on something some self-important philosopher told you, once.Nothing in the world is easier than asking a question that can't be answered and acting like you did something wise. Finding actual answers to questions takes time, inquiry, and rigor.You want hard? Prove that P = NP. (Or that it doesn't.) It's an answerable question. And you think it's "too easy" to be bothered? Stop acting like a jackass.Edited by crashfrog, : No reason given.

I think you would find it difficult to argue that the entire field of economics contributes nothing before governments or businesses that hire economists.Besides don't physicists still have that particle and wave dichotomy in quantum theory? Maybe it is an admixture of supply and demand, not either supply or demand.Also don't a lot of fields debate certain basic principles? Like biology concerning abiogenesis? Does that also mean that since biology can't explain how life began, it lacks 'rigor' and 'therefore contributes nothing to human knowledge?' No, I'm thinking of history which is the study of the past largely via primary source materials like writing. How does one have a full appreciation of what happened during the Reformation with absolutely no knowledge of theology or philosophy. I disagree, sometimes having basic familiarity with what does not work, what is wrong, what is false, is important to human knowledge as well as what does work.That being said, I basically agree with the idea that physical science has more evidence for it's current conclusions than less quantitative and more qualitative fields such as the social sciences. What I don't agree with is a statement that equates the concept of 'rigor' with 'value.' The humanities, such as history, literature, the arts, and even philosophy and theology generally lack both quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence for their conclusions. It does not automatically follow that the humanities or social sciences such as economics, political science, psychology, sociology or anthropology - due to their greater reliance on qualitative data - "contribute nothing to human knowledge." Are you saying that I, or anyone else, must be psychotic to disagree with you? Are you claiming to be the final arbiter to all others of what is valuable and what is real?One value that is best learned through familiarity with the humanities is humility. But one would have a difficult time apprehending that concept if they hold that all humanities, indeed even the social sciences, "contribute nothing to human knowledge."

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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

No rigor in economics either? What do you constitute as "rigor" then? So Alan Greenspan can't reasonably be credited for anything? He just sort of haphazardly ran the economy for a few decades? He gets no credit at all? Thank random chaos because there is no rigor in economics (which is a bald assertion)? But you just said it deals with mathematics, which has to be completely precise in order to ascertain facts, or to make predictions about the market based on graphical support. So now mathematics has no rigor? The suffix "ology" is not attached to the word philosophy, so I hardly see the correlation. But "ology" simply means "the study of." What's wrong with that? And truth, by its very nature, only comes by epistemology. Grapple with that for a moment... Unless of course you can describe to me what truth is using your highly touted and highly coveted scientific rigor. You speak of knowledge in a philosophical light. You are tacitly saying that knowledge is good, and the lack of knowledge is bad. What is good and bad in science?The more you push against these very simple precepts, the more it pushes back against you.

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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

Philosophers and theologists have jobs, too. Bullshit artists that can't get people to pay for their bullshit don't last very long. It's a kind of natural selection. That's was settled pretty quickly, actually, within about 30 years of the emergence of the problem due to the observations of Kirchhoff, Boltzmann, and Planck. Only a few decades after particle behavior of photons came to be observed, we had reconciled the particle and wave behaviors of light.Contrast that with Aristotle V. Plato, still raging on after 23 centuries. "Abiogenesis" isn't really a "basic principle" of anything, it's a field of study. By reading the writings that you're talking about - which is anthropology, the study of humanity.Maybe I just don't understand what you're trying to say. The study of human beings and human civilization through their writings and other artifacts is anthropology, it's not philosophy, theology, or economics. If a given field can't distinguish between reality and fiction - between what is true and what is false - what can it possibly contribute to human knowledge? Answer the question that I asked, then. What are your feelings on dragonology? Unicorn science? Are we supposed to accept anything at all as a science simply because its proponents say that it is?

See above. I've been explaining it throughout. NJ, how do you think you would run an economy? I mean, you're in the economy. Did you have to get permission from Alan Greenspan before you bought a cheeseburger at McDonalds?Why not, if he's "running the economy"?I think that the fact that you've completely uncritically accepted the idea that the Chairman of the Federal Bank is somehow "in charge" of the economy is indicative of there being no rigor in economics. Or, at least, no rigor that people choose to apply. What deals with mathematics? Look, I can use mathematics to do numerology if I wanted; math can be looked at as a kind of tool. The rigor of mathematics doesn't automatically extend full rigor to the things that it's used to do.Economists may very well add and subtract as well as anybody else. That, by itself, does not insert rigor into their field. Not everything that can be studied adds to human knowledge by doing so. What's the merit of dragonology? Unicorn-ology? I can define unicornology as the study of the physiology of unicorns, but since there's no such things as unicorns, of what merit is that field of inquiry?Are we to accept phrenology as valid simply because it says "ology" at the end? By epistemology's very nature, it cannot come by truth. It's the "thus!" in "I refute it thus!"

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.

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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 see your "great minds of democracy" and raise you one Norman Borlaug, who saved 1.5 billion human lives with the rigorous application of the scientific method to solve a real human problem.While your guys were arguing that people should be free, Borlaug was figuring out how to make it possible for them to be fed.

In my previous post, I assumed that I basically knew what you meant by 'rigor.' The assumption is based upon the relative application of quantitative vs. qualitative vs. deduced assertions of fact.It occurs to me that my assumption may be incorrect.Now you also stated in regard to the concept of 'rigor' that certain fields such as philosophy, theology, and economics lack rigor and therefore "contribute nothing to human knowledge."So, I am curious, which of the following fields of study have rigor and therefore contribute to human knowledge and which do not have rigor and therefore do not contribute to human knowledge.I will use the hierarchy commonly used in most public universities to go from the most rigorous to the least, otherwise known as the 'pecking order.'I will fill in the blanks based upon previous posts.Mathematics - YesPhysical Sciences
1. Physics - Yes
2. Chemistry - Yes
3. Geology - ?
4. Computer Science - ?Biological Sciences - ?Social Sciences
Economics - No
Anthropology - ?
Political Science - ?
Psychology - ?
Sociology - ?Humanities
History - ?
Literature - ?
Philosophy - No
Theology - NoThe Arts
Music - ?
Art - ?
Theater - ?Trades - ?Also, which of the following professions, which do not have a single overriding theoretical construct but rather depend upon what is known as 'best practices' from several fields would you consider as rigorous and which not, AKA, which contribute to human knowledge and which do not?Medicine - ?
Law - ?
Engineering - ?
Business - ?
Education - ?Please answer this test so we can know which fields contribute to knowledge.

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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

I don't understand why I'm continually being asked to define "rigor" when I've been doing that, consistently, throughout.I tell you what, Ang. Go back and read all the posts that you've clearly skipped over, and then we can debate meaningfully about which fields contribute to human knowledge, and which fields have other benefits. But it's abundantly obvious that you have not been keeping up with the arguments in this thread.And also - if you want me to take a test, do me a favor and don't try to answer it for me. Although if you're so willing to play both participants in the debate, why don't you just go off and play with yourself?