RyeZuul t1_itvbqmf wrote
I may be missing something here.
>>Since the verification principle cannot easily be accommodated within the Humean fork, according to which all meaningful propositions must be either empirical propositions about matters of fact or analytic propositions concerning relations of ideas, it looks suspiciously like a foundational principle for a positivist metaphysics. Positivism, it seems, does not dispense with metaphysics; it merely proposes a different kind of (naturalist) metaphysics. Failure to reflect on the logical status of the verificationist principle, to acknowledge it as a heuristic principle which governs scientific knowledge of reality, therefore, not only encourages a form of methodological monism, one which denies the autonomy of other forms of knowing; it also betrays a commitment to an uncritical realism which assumes scientific method reveals the ultimate nature of reality and, in so doing, places science in the position once occupied by metaphysics as the science of pure being.
The interesting thing about "other forms of knowing" is that they'd have to be verified to prove that they can provide justified, true belief (i.e. knowledge), no? If not, how can we know they're true or not? And all of those forms of knowing will require their origins in sensation, for anyone born without sensation will never develop self-awareness or language because they need their senses to acquire those things through association and contradistinction.
As for scientific method revealing the ultimate state of reality, wouldn't that actually be beyond the scope? If you dispensed with metaphysics then the "ultimate nature of reality" is beyond your epistemology beyond a few language games like "I think therefore I am" which can't actually get around ideas like philosophical zombies and simulations.
Scientific method and verification as the arbiter of truth shifts to the generation of meaningful knowledge (i.e. epistemology) in a seemingly reliable frame of reference, regardless of the "ultimate nature of reality". For an open-ended scientific approach, it doesn't matter if that's a dream of Azathoth, the Matrix or the only existing real universe. It's just working with what is actually available to make realistic inferences and deductions. This doesn't fail verification in that if it didn't work, we'd have no expectation that all the things we engineer will work, and yet they do. It may not be a perfect metaphysical proof, but it is a strong, albeit open-ended epistemological justification.
Kyocus t1_itvg08z wrote
You hit the bull's eye. "other forms of knowing" is just a blanket term with nothing defined, because there is no other form of actually reliably knowing without empiricism. Even mathematics starts with presuppositions and tautologies stemming from "the number of things we can physically count", which happens to be an empirical base. Even our intuitive "warm fuzzies" start from aggregate experiences which all correlate to an idea.
HotterRod t1_itvjf2t wrote
Principia Mathematica and subsequent set theories don't start from things you can count, they start from the empty set and the non-empty set. It's similar to basing a metaphysics on "I think therefore I am".
Kyocus t1_itvufwv wrote
So, I am no expert in Set Theory by a LOOONG long shot, regardless please hear me out.In Principia Mathematica, Chapter 1, right when it starts with Preliminary Explanations: "The notation adopted in the present work is based upon that of Peano, and the following explanations are to some extent modelled on those which he prefixes to his Formulario Mathematico."
I reference all this to point out that the book is built upon an older work, which is based on Logical Positivism. Russell's work is based on Direct reference theory, which he supported. The ideas in Principia Mathematica arise from, as I stated in my previous comment "the number of things we can physically count" i.e. Direct Reference Theory.
Please read the opening paragraph of the Wiki for Direct reference theory, it leads straight back to Logical Positivism, all of which Bertrand Russell was a proponent of.
Edit: The smallest of empirical tethers can lead to astonishing discoveries.
DarkSkyKnight t1_itvwpse wrote
This is suggestive evidence, but you would have to do better than that to demonstrate your claim.
ridgecoyote t1_itw453p wrote
His claim that Bertrand Russel was a logical positivist? I thought was common knowledge. At least, that’s what I learned in jr. College and I’ve assumed it was true ever since.
DarkSkyKnight t1_itwf17l wrote
His (implied) claim that set theories start from empirical observations.
ridgecoyote t1_itwgkjw wrote
Ahh. Thanks for clarification. I had issues with that as well, but then, I’m a Pragmatist
zhoushmoe t1_itx5s8g wrote
Where else would they start?
DarkSkyKnight t1_itxjy3h wrote
I really don't know if you're genuinely asking, but linking a possible chain of inspirations through wiki pages is not a rigorous demonstration of their claim.
noactuallyitspoptart t1_iu4rmui wrote
Russell was not a logical positivist, he predates the logical positivists and only agrees with some aspects of their project.
ridgecoyote t1_iu59loi wrote
Thanks for the update. Never been a big Russel fan. I prefer Josiah Royce’s metaphysical system and find it more logical
Kyocus t1_itvywsm wrote
Lol that's a fair assessment. I'm not going to use more time on a thread I feel is thoroughly discussed.
noactuallyitspoptart t1_iu4rfr2 wrote
Russell was not a proponent of logical positivism, and made his philosophical contributions before the Vienna Circle, Ayer etc.
Russell is associated with the “Direct Reference Theory” due to his influential paper “On Denoting”, which makes the meaning of a name the reference of its descriptive content. In this sense Russell is a “direct reference” theorist, but only in contrast to Frege, who proposed an intermediary “sense” of a name, between the idea and the object to which it refers. Russell’s work did not, at the time, fall under such a name “Direct Reference Theory” although his work may reasonably be associated with this later theoretical development. Furthermore, Russell’s account of number and of mathematics in the Principia Mathematica is not rooted in Direct Reference Theory in the way you describe: they are separate contribution that are only linked by Russell’s broader work on and advocacy of Frege’s logic. Principia Mathematica, as a project, in fact predates Russell’s work in On Denoting.
RyeZuul t1_itw7qvg wrote
I don't think you can learn/conceive of empty sets and non-empty sets (or that you think therefore you are) without sensation. While examples are thin on the ground*, the most reasonable self-awareness models rely on an ability to identify the self in one's environment and one's ability to move within it. Without sensation, brains, minds, whatever have nothing to define themselves into being.
*I did look into this years ago and found some rare cases of infants born without the ability to sense and obviously they did not develop properly and were effectively vegetables. Suggestive material exists for people with specific senses absent from birth missing certain experiences of self when dreaming and the like, although plasticity, rewiring the brain to use the visual systems with blindness have also been observed. The general point - that sensation precedes language, logic and self, and these things are genetically dependent on sensation in the hierarchy of knowledge - I think is defensible and reasonable to accept.
Kyocus t1_itwp4om wrote
I think that's reasonable, but would add that the tiniest amount of sensation leads to awareness of self and not self, and to location and relation. pinhole nerve clusters, hearing, or sensation of touch is enough for empiricism.
no_overplay_no_fun t1_itw0xmb wrote
> Even mathematics starts with presuppositions and tautologies stemming from "the number of things we can physically count", which happens to be an empirical base.
Could you please care to explain what do you mean? I am a bit confused by the 'counting of physical things' as there are many branches of mathematics that are not interested in numbers, or at least not in numbers for physical counting.
I have a very rough understanding of ZFC as foundations of mathematics but as far as I know the usuals axioms in ZFC do not involve numbers at all.
Kyocus t1_itwkiev wrote
I will attempt an answer, though we're nearing the basement bellow all of mathematics and logic, so it's not quite straight forward.
So I said "The number of things we can physically count", this was a gross over simplification. So I'm going to start at what ZFC is, from where it stems recursively.
ZFC is an axiomatization of Number Theory and Set Theory.
Number Theory is a direct abstraction of "Things we can count", so to speak.
Set Theory is the tricky part with reference to empiricism, so lets go deeper into what it's derived from.
Set Theory is the axiomatization of Naive Set Theory.
Naive Set Theory is just rudimentary definitions of the same concepts as Set Theory, described informally in natural language, rather than axiomatically. It is based on Discrete Mathematics.
Aaaannd Discrete Mathematics deals with Countable Sets, which expands into discrete integers, graphs, and logical statements.
The basis of ZFC is
- boolean logic: yes/no, existence/non-existence.
- discrete integers, i.e. "Things we can count"
- graphs, i.e. "Things we can relate to one another in some way"
So I'll append my simplistic claim to something more inclusive of ALL of Mathematics, since what I originally said didn't quite make sense. Even mathematics starts with presuppositions and tautologies stemming from conditions in reality. From countable objects to abstractions of said numbers, relations of objects in reality to the abstracted graphs of hypothetical objects, and finally to what truth can be derived from said relations and the derivative algebra that's generate there of.
All deep systems of thought start with simple observations of reality, and as long as the derivative works there of are accurate and consistent I think that small tether to reality can lead to the sum total of the knowledge of mankind.
edit* added one "s". Also had to reformat because I lost my line-breaks.
bac5665 t1_itxc5m8 wrote
Thank you for giving me flashbacks to the only class I ever flunked out of.
Good lord that stuff was hard. I could read the textbook and say "yes, I understand that." And then I could not repeat a word of it back to you 5 minutes later. It just didn't stick in brain at all.
Kyocus t1_itxjogu wrote
I'm honored that I could summon your PTSD a little bit.
colinallbets t1_itygc5d wrote
Many would argue that there are indeed other forms of knowing beyond or beneath language.
An example- the concept of physical intelligence; the continuous act of manipulating our body in space, using sensory inputs from our sensory organs, subconsciously. It's so innate that we forget that this is a condition we live with, always.
One may argue that this condition I describe is empirical, after all. It can be measured, observed, by nature of the veracity of the scientific studies' conclusions that are the evidence for my statements above. But.. In the process of waking life, we do not have to count anything, to "know" that this knowledge is real.
NotABotttttttttttttt t1_itw0pns wrote
> just a blanket term with nothing defined
Can't a room of 10 people with varying life experiences, different cultural background, different education level, intellectual capacity coexist with somethings not defined?
Kyocus t1_itw2dgb wrote
Nothing about what I just said keeps all these people from co-existing. You want to know what absolutely keeps LOTs of people from co-existing though? Dogma. Dogma unbounded by empiricism, because it leaves people in contentious silos of belief with no way to paddle to one another.
NotABotttttttttttttt t1_itw4437 wrote
Dogma is intimately tied with knowledge, just of the illogical, unrevealed kind. I'm saying that no knowledge can exist in the motley crew because they can't verify/justify it to each other because they each have different experiences. Maybe there can be overlap in some cases, but as an alternative to your kind of dogmatism, I would say that they exist in a continuous stream of agnosticism. Can they not? And in this stream of ignorance, knowledge is revealed by contingency rather than absolutes.
How can you know a stranger or know about a stranger or assume what a stranger is capable of? Tying this to ideals which justify multicultural societies that must tolerate indefiniteness within the grandeur society they all share.
I think we all accept a sort of apathetic attitude to getting to know our neighbors sometimes to justify living next to people we don't know/assume too much about. Or have no expectations of them. And this apathy rests on agnosticism rather than any knowledge. Although I can see a way out if we argue that we agree to definite laws that let us know the person next door is very likely not capable of doing anything too bad.
Kyocus t1_itwnfn6 wrote
Any group of people willing to be identified as "agnostic" with reference to any ideas they hold sacred are very likely already proficient in epistemology.
I am not claiming that all knowledge must have absolute empirical evidence prior to acceptance. That premise would be so inefficient for anyone involved that they would be frozen in a recursive cycle of defining definitions before they can make a single decision.
What I am saying is that I empirically have black hair. I have personally measured this and so have many other people who have informally seen me. I may tell you in this thread that I have black hair, and you most likely will accept my claim without further investigation. You don't accept the blackness of my hair because I'm some arbiter of truth. You accept that I have black hair because you have experienced having hair and seeing black hair. You've experienced both ideas empirically. There is no need to scrutinize simple observations which we relate to in reality because many are already shared experiences.
Though we should rely on Logical Positivism to settle disputes about our beliefs, the more consequential or extreme a claim, the more important it is that it be substantiated by empiricism. Conversely, the less consequential and more mundane a claim, the need for empiricism becomes infinitesimal.
iiioiia t1_itxf2fw wrote
>I am not claiming that all knowledge must have absolute empirical evidence prior to acceptance. That premise would be so inefficient for anyone involved that they would be frozen in a recursive cycle of defining definitions before they can make a single decision.
Luckily, evolution found a solution: belief.
Kyocus t1_itxgat2 wrote
It serves to assist our survival at times, so I suppose.
iiioiia t1_itxj23d wrote
The point is: this very popular claim that ~"the exercise of strict epistemology" would render people immobile is demonstrably false. And while this may seem "trivially true", whether it actually is is a very different matter.
Kyocus t1_itxt5qf wrote
>"the exercise of strict epistemology" would render people immobile is demonstrably false.
Have you ever taken psychedelics and become critical of all beliefs and experiences to the point of absurdity? Because it sounds like you've NEVER done anything like that.
iiioiia t1_itxw0zj wrote
I have some experience yes, although not with the absurdity part (other than realizing that "normal" consciousness/culture is undoubtedly and massively absurd, but that's not what you're getting at I don't think).
Are you a fan of them or a critic?
Kyocus t1_itxziws wrote
I am a fan. I am saying that I have experienced absurd levels of critical thought to the point of absurdity and it absolutely stops action.
iiioiia t1_ity5k9q wrote
They can be incapacitating at times!
Where do you fall on the "are (or can be) realer than reality" question - yea or nay? I'm a solid yea.
Kyocus t1_ityeruc wrote
It feels like such a level of increase consciousness that more of reality is experienced in more ways.
iiioiia t1_itzbhfo wrote
I think the world could benefit from a sound articulation of the experience/mindset, that is approachable by (and non-offensive to) various ideologies.
Have you experienced detachment from Time?
mirh t1_iu2304p wrote
This was not what they were talking about, why can't you seem to stay on topic?
The issue was people being unable to coexist together for their dear life.
It's fine to even guess the earth is flat. Just don't make that belief part of your identity or something, so much so that you are going to reject thousands of years of evidence with a loud fart.
iiioiia t1_iu24xy4 wrote
> This was not what they were talking about, why can't you seem to stay on topic?
The text I quoted suggests otherwise.
> > > > The issue was people being unable to coexist together for their dear life.
"I am not claiming that all knowledge must have absolute empirical evidence prior to acceptance. That premise would be so inefficient for anyone involved that they would be frozen in a recursive cycle of defining definitions before they can make a single decision."
Are we in the same thread?
> > > > It's fine to even guess the earth is flat. Just don't make that belief part of your identity or something, so much so that you are going to reject thousands of years of evidence with a loud fart.
This seems like sound advice.
mirh t1_iu2f7pa wrote
> The text I quoted suggests otherwise.
He replied to a dude suggesting that with a high enough bar for asserting knowledge, then everything becomes dogma.
> Are we in the same thread?
Yes. And nobody was claiming any absolute (whatever the word may even mean in the context). Except the example where somehow "having different experiences" is supposed to be a good reason not to trust others (and not in the simple sense that you are "unsure" about what to believe, but specifically that you decide to dismiss them because they aren't you and fuck them).
iiioiia t1_iu2frvf wrote
I quoted the text to which I replied, that you claim does not exist. I don't mind if you pretend as if I did not, it's even more fun that way!
mirh t1_iu3nf5w wrote
... you understand every sentence has to be interpreted, right?
iiioiia t1_iu41es5 wrote
I do, yes.
mirh t1_iu41qiu wrote
Then I don't know why you think I denied the existence of the words themselves.
iiioiia t1_iu43a17 wrote
Because I quoted physical text that contains content that does not require non-common interpretation to illustrate that your claim is incorrect:
> > This was not what they were talking about, why can't you seem to stay on topic? > > > > The issue was people being unable to coexist together for their dear life.
From earlier in the thread:
> >>I am not claiming that all knowledge must have absolute empirical evidence prior to acceptance. That premise would be so inefficient for anyone involved that they would be frozen in a recursive cycle of defining definitions before they can make a single decision.
> Luckily, evolution found a solution: belief.
NotABotttttttttttttt t1_itzmai4 wrote
>identified as "agnostic"
I'm talking about before identity comes into play. Identity is one of the three laws of logic/thought. I'm talking about a meta-analysis (such as "three laws of logic" that acknowledge identity within an identity already made).
In the meta-analysis, identity is contingent and unknown but follows certain principles (eg, correlation, verificationism, correspondence theory of truth). You've already gone through this. I'm just re-stating it because we agree in a lot.
>they hold sacred are very likely already proficient in epistemology.
I'm not saying they may be aware of their own agnosticism. Rather, agnosticism is something they implicitly accept by continuing their association in such a community. They may not know this is what it's called. For example, New York in the early 20th century. A lot of different cultures congregating and maintaining their own identity while collectively giving New York an identity of its own. This identity wasn't entirely defined but it didn't need to be to be.
>What I am saying is that I empirically have black hair. I have personally measured this and so have many other people who have informally seen me. I may tell you in this thread that I have black hair, and you most likely will accept my claim without further investigation. You don't accept the blackness of my hair because I'm some arbiter of truth. You accept that I have black hair because you have experienced having hair and seeing black hair. You've experienced both ideas empirically. There is no need to scrutinize simple observations which we relate to in reality because many are already shared experiences.
I don't disagree entirely while wishing to highlight the part where there is a continuous, perpetual construction of truth that is justified by its pragmatic value. As we walk down these philosophical halls together, we see the door marked "Utilitarianism" but we leave it closed for now.
The importance of acknowledging the pragmatic aspect is where we get stuck. And I think you alluded to this. We get stuck in analysis paralysis, neuroticism, an ouroboros, a mobius loop.
But getting stuck is not all bad. Sometimes it's validly pragmatic to get stuck. Like an art gallery where there is an open basis for analysis. Where various analyses, maybe even some that contradict each other, may be pragmatic. Or using Rorshack tests for therapy. Or again art but the kind of art that is banned in certain contexts because it threatens the authority.
Or the current political climate of "wokeness" where previously subjugated people gained a platform (internet) where they could gather and unionize against the bourgeoisie, who were and continue to be the arbiters of many "truths." Your hair being black or someone's skin being red become more that just mere, unquestionable correlation (pigmentation tied with color palettes). They potentially become political. An Aryan ideal of blondness, a football team's name become offensive. Truth becomes propaganda. Or rather, truth sheds its outer layer to reveal that it was always propaganda to some degree.
>"other forms of knowing" is just a blanket term with nothing defined, because there is no other form of actually reliably knowing without empiricism.
I'm not in disagreement with your stance thus far. Ironically, my contention started with the above quote (that I may have read wrong). "Nothing defined" is significant, non-trivial, politically relevant.
mirh t1_iu25l2f wrote
> I don't disagree entirely while wishing to highlight the part where there is a continuous, perpetual construction of truth that is justified by its pragmatic value.
If you'd rather walk out from a room (or worse), than be able to settle your difference with some other presumably educated people, than this "pragmatic" value sounds like very arguable.
> Like an art gallery where there is an open basis for analysis.
People aren't killing themselves over the different interpretations of quantum mechanics. Or the best music, or the best tastes of ice cream.
But over us vs them straw men dressed up as "values" by wicked individuals.
> An Aryan ideal of blondness, a football team's name become offensive.
Criminalizing "being" (let alone somehow having to discard objective reality in name of any moral consideration) sounds a lot like dogma you know.
Just like whatever use of the W-word.
> "Nothing defined" is significant, non-trivial, politically relevant.
They aren't talking about the concept of "not knowing". Like, I don't have an opinion on rocket science, so whatever NASA should do in the next decade is undefined from my pov. And I thus shut up.
They are talking about handwaving. You build your argument through a crescendo of negative rhetoric.. and then you just move on when instead you should explain the way it actually would not be possible for the original idea to make sense.
NotABotttttttttttttt t1_iu4d5jd wrote
> If you'd rather walk out from a room (or worse), than be able to settle your difference with some other presumably educated people, than this "pragmatic" value sounds like very arguable.
You're talking about ideals. I mean pragmatic in a sense that regardless of opinion, wants, idealization, "reality" has certain characteristic that are apathetic but work and all that matters is that they work. You're a few steps ahead of me if you're already filtering out human beings based on education level or mental capacity.
I'm not sympathizing with world leaders but world leaders walk out the room and room walks out with them. Example, the scientists screaming about climate change and people ignoring them.
>People aren't killing themselves over the different interpretations of quantum mechanics. Or the best music, or the best tastes of ice cream.
>But over us vs them straw men dressed up as "values" by wicked individuals.
It's complicated and it's all tied together. There are principles at play that we must reflect on but must be careful to act on. It's like looking at a mirror. As soon as you try to get closer or move away, whatever you're looking at also changes. This ties to the correlation/correspondence found in theories of truth.
There's truth to saying that life is nasty, brutish, short. An inescapable quality of living.
>Criminalizing "being" (let alone somehow having to discard objective reality in name of any moral consideration) sounds a lot like dogma you know.
In the sense I'm saying it, being has consequences to others. It's not criminalizing being. It's criminalizing taking meaning for granted and instead encouraging sympathizing with others and what meaning means to them. As long as this sympathizing makes for a better community (defined as less suffering, etc).
>They aren't talking about the concept of "not knowing". Like, I don't have an opinion on rocket science, so whatever NASA should do in the next decade is undefined from my pov. And I thus shut up.
>They are talking about handwaving. You build your argument through a crescendo of negative rhetoric.. and then you just move on when instead you should explain the way it actually would not be possible for the original idea to make sense.
Knowing and not knowing are intimately tied. We must have ideals and expectation of what righteous ignorance is (eg, you deciding to stay silent during certain interchanges) and what kind of other ignorance is there. The handwaving is relevant to making the greater concept of "knowing" more impactful. Again the example of climate scientists. Climate scientists are handwaving because the audience is not receptive to their legitimate claim to the kingdom of climate epistemology. The audience is not righteously ignorant. The question is how do we make/encourage better audiences that know when to stay silent.
iiioiia t1_itxhk6s wrote
> You hit the bull's eye. "other forms of knowing" is just a blanket term with nothing defined....
Maybe this is something different than what you're talking about, and it's likely not the best resource on it, but...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology > > > > Nearly all debates in epistemology are in some way related to knowledge. Most generally, "knowledge" is a familiarity, awareness, or understanding of someone or something, which might include facts (propositional knowledge), skills (procedural knowledge), or objects (acquaintance knowledge). Philosophers tend to draw an important distinction between three different senses of "knowing" something: "knowing that" (knowing the truth of propositions), "knowing how" (understanding how to perform certain actions), and "knowing by acquaintance" (directly perceiving an object, being familiar with it, or otherwise coming into contact with it).[16] Epistemology is primarily concerned with the first of these forms of knowledge, propositional knowledge. All three senses of "knowing" can be seen in our ordinary use of the word. In mathematics, you can know that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to add two numbers, and knowing a person (e.g., knowing other persons,[17] or knowing oneself), place (e.g., one's hometown), thing (e.g., cars), or activity (e.g., addition). While these distinctions are not explicit in English, they are explicitly made in other languages, including French, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, German and Dutch (although some languages closely related to English have been said to retain these verbs, such as Scots).[note 1] The theoretical interpretation and significance of these linguistic issues remains controversial. > > > > In his paper On Denoting and his later book Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell brought a great deal of attention to the distinction between "knowledge by description" and "knowledge by acquaintance". Gilbert Ryle is similarly credited with bringing more attention to the distinction between knowing how and knowing that in The Concept of Mind. In Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi argues for the epistemological relevance of knowledge how and knowledge that; using the example of the act of balance involved in riding a bicycle, he suggests that the theoretical knowledge of the physics involved in maintaining a state of balance cannot substitute for the practical knowledge of how to ride, and that it is important to understand how both are established and grounded. This position is essentially Ryle's, who argued that a failure to acknowledge the distinction between "knowledge that" and "knowledge how" leads to infinite regress.
> ... because there is no other form of actually reliably knowing without empiricism.
I think you may have overlooked a fundamental problem: empiricism may be able to confirm that a proposition is true, but a lack of confirmation does not cause something that is true in fact to be false - it can certainly cause it to appear that way, but that's a different issue. This of course overlooks the "justified" part, but that is on a different level of reality than pure truth.
Kyocus t1_itxl3qb wrote
I'm on my phone, so I'm not going to link it. We had a discussion about the fallacy fallacy, which I will adamantly contend is stupid till my deathbed.
I agree with you that it's obviously terrible for someone to claim something is false based on faulty argument. I'm also saying that's a red herring, because if the only thing substantiating said claim was the fallacious argument, then there is no longer support to believe such a thing. It's not that I am saying "That's a fallacy, therefore your conclusion is false" I am saying your premise is wrong so I'm agnostic to the claim till it's substantiated, important difference.
iiioiia t1_itxo8oa wrote
> We had a discussion about the fallacy fallacy, which I will adamantly contend is stupid till my deathbed.
Depending on which side of it you fall on, I will totally agree, or argue to the death!! 😂🙏
> I agree with you that it's obviously terrible for someone to claim something is false based on faulty argument. I'm also saying that's a red herring, because if the only thing substantiating said claim was the fallacious argument, then there is no longer support to believe such a thing. It's not that I am saying "That's a fallacy, therefore your conclusion is false" I am saying your premise is wrong so I'm agnostic to the claim till it's substantiated, important difference.
I think you may have missed my point: there is a level of "reality" where "absolute truth" (at least on some matters) exists, but since we do not have access to this level, we seem to have decided to ~pretend that it doesn't exist, or have decided on educational curriculum that does not cover it (causing it to appear to not exist, unless one learns about it elsewhere).
This is the distinction I tried to get at with"This of course overlooks the "justified" part..." - you were talking about Knowledge (JTB), but the "T" is typically/often completely independent from humans - our ability to measure it (empirically or otherwise) has no bearing on the actual underlying truth. But the way we describe reality is often other than this, and thus many people seem to believe it is this way.
Kyocus t1_itxs1oa wrote
We're mixing two distinct subjects.
- The Fallacy Fallacy, which I contend is like a distracted dog chasing a squirrel of irrelevance.
- Truthiness? Even Science approximates accuracy with reference to the most accurate of knowledge we have, rather than revealing absolute boolean truths about the Universe. I doubt we can reliably achieve such lofty goals with regularity.
iiioiia t1_itxwex8 wrote
> 1. The Fallacy Fallacy, which I contend is like a distracted dog chasing a squirrel of irrelevance.
To me, the fallacy fallacy is a lot like "good/bad faith" - excellent rhetorical tools, and those who use them typically have little to negative interest in whether they are using them correctly. Occam's Razor would be another good candidate, as would "no evidence" and several other popular internet memes/heuristics.
> 2. Truthiness? Even Science approximates accuracy with reference to the most accurate of knowledge we have, rather than revealing absolute boolean truths about the Universe.
I agree, although that would get you in hot water with most Redditors, in my experience anyways. Peeople love love love their science!
> I doubt we can reliably achieve such lofty goals with regularity.
Mountains don't climb themselves, that's for sure!
theartofcombinations t1_itvu4u0 wrote
“True justified belief” is not a good criterion for knowledge (cf. Gettier)
RyeZuul t1_itw8tlg wrote
You can reword it to "tentative, seemingly reliable, predictable and useful conceptual relationships between abstracts and observations" if you like. I think we can usually clump together enough common ground to infer what was meant relative to the general thrust of the argument. I just wanted to be quick and non-weasel wordy with it.
shaim2 t1_itvzryb wrote
So what is?
mirh t1_itwyykk wrote
I tend to go with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic_minimalism
TomasFitz t1_ity19gx wrote
Nothing, the concept of truth is simply an empty and reflexive compliment we pay to those of our ideas that are useful in helping us do what we want to do, see Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.
El_Rei_Dom_Manuel t1_itxmb00 wrote
They seem to have gone for the rortyan view that scientificism is a flawed form of redemption typical of modern times, unable to replace spirituality as renewed kind of faith. There might even be a solid point there but, as usual, they botched the argumentation pretty badly.
Iatv seems to be investing heavily on philosphy, also posting a lot here on reddit, but it should not be done like this. This is a borderline 'fake-news' style of doing philosphy, imho.
shaim2 t1_itvzkw9 wrote
> As for scientific method revealing the ultimate state of reality, wouldn't that actually be beyond the scope?
Yes. Science is concerned with iteratively approximating / revealing reality. This is an asymptomatic process. There is no expectation of ever reaching "ultimate" reality.
AlwaysGoToTheTruck t1_ity1ach wrote
First, the title of this post made me cringe because it’s exactly the kind of philosophy that makes me cringe.
Second, I completely agree with your assessment of the scientific method. It creates a map, but is not the territory.
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