Philosophy truely sucks.

[pgrmdave]

As yet, nobody has used anything that one learns in the 2 terms of logic classes in Philosophy at Oxford.

 

Do you have a syllabus that we could use, so that we know as well as you do what one learns in the two terms of logic classes in Philosophy at Oxford? I don't know exactly what they learn, so I'm not sure that I'm on equal footing with you in terms of basic knowledge.

[Tormod]

I find it strange to believe that before the advent of philosphy by the greeks (or perhaps before), people did not live together in organised groups run by political systems of government.

 

So...I guess this means that there was no such thing as thought before the term "thought" was coined, either?

 

It is a simple matter of observation that human rights were not as important in 1942 as they were in 1945-8 regarding the construction of systems of governance.

 

I think you are on extremely thin ice here. What observations are you basing this upon?

 

I think this topic is important because we are asking the question of whether philosophical thought and study is necessary for the construction of systems of governance rather than simple practical observations combined with trial and error. If so, then it does suggest a practical use of philosophy.

 

I think this topic is not so important as it is interesting, because it shows how one can post a ridiculous statement in a science forum and stir up a lot of debate, and then pretend to spread intelligence with a string of posts with a stunning, condescending holier-than-thou attitude.

 

Your behaviour in this thread reminds me of a creature from many Norwegian fairy tales (no, not the princess).

[sebbysteiny]

Assertion: "philosophy undermines knowledge" is FALSE. You cannot show a single instance of this.

 

I'll double ya.

Like, for example, why should one need to 'think therefore I am' to prove that the thinker exists in an attempt to challenge or overcome the pretty obvious assumption that we are not being tricked by a devil into thinking we exist when we don't?

 

From a specific angle I agree with Sebby on this. I find it ultimately frustrating when trying to debate an issue that has a foundation in physical measureable repeatable facts when someone comes in and tries undermining it on the basis of reality being just a perception, and we have no way of knowing that anything is truely real.

 

AAAAAA!!!!!! If I had any hair left I would rip it out!

 

Assertion: "philosophy doesn't contribute to knowledge" is FALSE. Your denial of the historical record may reflect an ignorance of history. That would be the kindest interpretation.

 

firstly, that assertion is wrong. More correct is

Assertion: "philosphy doesn't contribute to any USEFUL knowledge".

 

I can't prove a negative. It's up to you to show an example of the utilitiy of either philosophy or the philosophical method.

 

Thus far, the best attacks have come from Kriminal99 whose posts may have been longwinded but contained gems. All he needs to do is to show that my 'practical observations' are nevertheless philosophy. The jury is still out on that.

 

Your attack saying that it was the philsophical method and not necessarily the philosophy itself that was useful. But again, you need to show a use of it, and the jury is still out there too.

 

Other than that, all we've had is a discussion about 'when a box is a box' which is of no practical benefit to anybody :) and a discussion about how some git in an armchair debating the meaning of the phrase 'the meaning of' should take credit for the tremendous and worthy work of accademics in other fields all of which serve to improve the lives of us all.

 

Assertion: "the reason I say 'philosophy sucks' is because..." is also FALSE. You have a reason I'm sure, for hosting this thread, but the given reasons aren't it. It would appear that you are dissembling.

 

So, I have several straight questions for you:

 

What personal experience have you had with philosophy?

Did you ever take a course in it?

Did you flunk out?

Or is your attitude toward philosophy second-hand?

 

Okay, I confess, sniff. My philsophy teacher used to beat me over the head with a heavy philosophy text book when I was younger. He then locked me in a philosophy cupboard with mice and rats and asked me to contimplate 'why I was in the cupboard'. He then abused me, sniff sniff, giving me a deep founded grudge against philosophy.

 

Or, in the alternative, I am simply finding the practical utility of philsophy difficult to understand. Why are we here? Who cares now give us a snog. Is there any such thing as truth? Erm, yes. How do we know? Bee cause we do. When does a box that is continually repaired stop becoming the same box? It's still just a box.

[sanctus]

Now just a short question sebbysteiny, which comes from the philosophical logic and not the maths:

Your premise (or for you it may not be a premise but a fact, but this is not so important here for my point) is that philosophy is useless. I guess we agree that to do something useless is a waste of time. Now comes the point where you might not agree, but it seems to me that we are having a debate here, which is a branch of philosophy.Ergo, why do you waste your time?

 

Now, don't take it as an insult (and it really isn't meant to be one), it is just logical deduction. I'm just curious where you disagree because if you agree you have to admit that you waste your time and then I would be even more curious.

 

About philosophy turning into equations, this is easy, here one example: our old friend albert didn't like QM because he had the philosophy of a deterministic world (the famous saying:God doesn't play dice) and then he looked with some other old friends (Podolski and Rosen) and made up the EPR paradox and the theory of hidden variables.So from a philosophical viewpoint a theory came out.

 

Ok I agree this theory was proven wrong by Bell, but it was a theory on mathematical logics coming from philosophy, as you asked.

[pgrmdave]

I think this topic is not so important as it is interesting, because it shows how one can post a ridiculous statement in a science forum and stir up a lot of debate, and then pretend to spread intelligence with a string of posts with a stunning, condescending holier-than-thou attitude.

 

I disagree - I think that this topic is important because it poses a philosophical question - why do we study philosophy? Now, whether or not you agree with Sebby doesn't matter too much, I think that it is simply important that we think about this, reason it out, and come to a good conclusion for ourselves. This thread forces me to really consider how philosophy is used in everyday life. I think that revisiting fundamental ideas and beliefs every now and again is a useful thing to do, it prevents your knowledge from becoming stagnant. It is similar to when I have had debates with Intelligent Design proponents - I know that they are wrong, but having to overcome their logic sharpens my own, and teaches me more about evolution.

 

As for Sebby's tone, I find that he gives less than he receives (at least in this thread :) )

[sebbysteiny]

Your behaviour in this thread reminds me of a creature from many Norwegian fairy tales (no, not the princess).

 

Thanks. Since Norway appears to be the world's favourite country as shown in another thread, that can't really be that bad :naughty:.

 

I think this topic is not so important as it is interesting, because it shows how one can post a ridiculous statement in a science forum and stir up a lot of debate

 

The purpose of this thread is to examin the practical utility of philosophy. I make no appoligises for giving it an interesting title.

 

But seeing as you, who I have to say deserves a lot of respect for founding this fine forum, which is possibly one of the best I've seen on the net, have made this observation about debate, I wish to make my own interpretation on your observation.

 

Every culture has a set of fundamental beliefs and values. The accademic community is no different. Reasonably frequenlty, somebody comes up with crack pot ideas that can be easily dismissed. But every now and then, somebody comes up with an idea that challenges the basic values. But this idea does not go away. So he presents it sending shock waves through the community. That person is often attacked in the most vile way with his name being the butt of jokes and sometimes even to the point of being personally threatened.

 

Centries later, that person is regarded as a genious.

 

How many people engaged in very heated debate during the early days of Quantum Mechanics. And what about Sir Isaac Newton's early days in disgrace after he put forward his mathatical laws of motion?

 

Now obviously, I'm no genius. But it seems to me that somebody cannot actually make fundamental accademic progress challenging base assumptions without causing some kind of offence.

 

For some reason, people have had a debate on Intelligent Design which has been respectfully debated despite that it flys in the face of everything scientific. But here, some people seem to me to be getting seriously pissed off simply for having the guts to ask a question. I think the thing that seems to be getting to everybody is that, 11 pages later, I'm still surviving and in some cases actually gaining support, or should I say, respect, for my position.

 

It's as if it's okay to challenge something fundamental as long as there is a simple easy answer. If it actually challenges a consensus without easy reply then it stops being a quirky member of the academic community and starts becoming a threat.

 

I'm going to admit to you guys. When I started this thread, yes I expected a strong reply in which I was outnumbered, but I never expected to be able to survive this long without the position becoming untenable. Yet, 11 pages later, I'm still here, and my question has not received a definate and clear answer to the question, what is the practical utility of philosophy?

 

Now just a short question sebbysteiny, which comes from the philosophical logic and not the maths:

Your premise (or for you it may not be a premise but a fact, but this is not so important here for my point) is that philosophy is useless. I guess we agree that to do something useless is a waste of time. Now comes the point where you might not agree, but it seems to me that we are having a debate here, which is a branch of philosophy.Ergo, why do you waste your time?

 

Erm. Good one. Not sure I have a good answer to that. I think the quick answer is that I'm irrational. The not so quick answer is that I believed there was an important debate to be had here.

 

But you raise a good question. A number of people here have been questioning my 'motives' for this unpresidented attack on philosophy.

 

 

So why did I pose the question in the first place?

 

When I was at Uni, I regularly argued philsophical stuff with people. I still do that from time to time. But as I started moving from physics to debating through political activism in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and eventually to law, I had to start arguing with words rather than numbers.

 

One thing I noticed was that many people's positions that seemed to me to be instinctively bizaar could not easily be answered. Infact, it seemed to me to be impossible to say either way. It was even physically impossible to prove it.

 

Sure enough, I soon realised that this was because the speaker had strayed away from the political discussion into philsophical grounds, which were often used to justify that which could not otherwise be justified.

 

But that didn't stop me thinking about it. Eventually, I discovered a way of thinking that bypassed those particular philsophical questions enabling me to show as far as I could possibly show that the argument itself was wrong by reducing it to practical questions.

 

Example. The question 'does killing one terrorist leader only serve to create 10 more?' This is actually philosophical with no answer either way since there is no conceivable scientific measurment that could be used to prove this either way.

 

However, if you rephrase it slightly to, is it right to kill terrorists, or even, is it possible to actually defend yourself from terror successfully including the factor of extra recruitment, the answer is clearly yes. People have found effective techniques against terror that have involved military force. So to get past the philsophical argument, I had to go around it and find truth despite philosophy not because of it.

 

Then, as I started getting more used to arguing, I noticed that one can create an unanswerable and therefore phylosophical question from almost anything and I then made the disturbing leap that they can be used to justify even the most disturbing and perverse views.

 

How do you know that the world is not controlled by Jews who meet regularly and have protocols as evidence? Well, the books were forgery by the Russian secret service as is the unanimous conclusion of all accademics. Yes, but this is only because Jews control accademia.

 

Now if you think about it, the only reason this stands up to enough scrutany to allow this disgusting argument to be believed is because it is now a philosophical question that cannot be proven either way. It's no different to 'how do you know a devel is not tricking you into thinking your friend exists when he does not?' Instead, it's 'how do you know Jews are not manipulating reality so that they control the strings whilst covering their tracks?'

 

And it occured to me that the way philosophical questions are being used and, admittidly, abused is profoundly dangerous and acts as an obsticle to knowledge rather than a contribution.

 

As I have thought more on this, I have developed what I consider (though many of you may disagree) a knack for getting around the philosophical questions and reducing it to tangible real life questions with real life answers. All that is required is a bit of thought, though sometimes this can take over 20 minutes.

 

I have yet to find a question to a real issues that I have not been able to get around with a bit more thought. This leads me to believe, perhaps, that every philsophical question can be avoided.

 

To propose a mathematical analogy, if your analysis comes up with a philosophical / unanswerable question, then, somewhere, you have done the argumentative equivilient of dividing by zero.

 

But about a week ago, I asked myself why I go to such an effort to get away from philsophical questions. Are they really that useless? What exactly has philosophy ever done for us??

 

And with that, a new hypography thread was born.

[sebbysteiny]

With all the personal rubbish hopefully out the way, lets get back to business.

 

Do you have a syllabus that we could use, so that we know as well as you do what one learns in the two terms of logic classes in Philosophy at Oxford? I don't know exactly what they learn, so I'm not sure that I'm on equal footing with you in terms of basic knowledge.

 

I'm afraid I don't. The logic I am talking about is I think standard in most philosophy courses. I think it's called 'formal logic'.

 

Basically, it involves the translation of arguments into mathematical type symbols and then the manipulation of those symbols.

 

This is a good link.

As is this and maybe this.

 

I make no pretence to understand it. But all I know is that it is NOT this which, combined with deduction and induction, is what I am arguing is all one really needs to determine if an argument is logical in the real world.

 

 

This thread forces me to really consider how philosophy is used in everyday life. I think that revisiting fundamental ideas and beliefs every now and again is a useful thing to do, it prevents your knowledge from becoming stagnant. It is similar to when I have had debates with Intelligent Design proponents - I know that they are wrong, but having to overcome their logic sharpens my own, and teaches me more about evolution.

 

Thanks pgrmdave for your thoughts. I agree completely, but I woud add ...

or, in the alternative, you are not able to find a flaw and are forced to conclude that there might be a good point after all.

 

I don't know which way thread will end up, but either way, the cause for knowledge and truth is advanced :naughty:.

 

About philosophy turning into equations, this is easy, here one example: our old friend albert didn't like QM because he had the philosophy of a deterministic world (the famous saying:God doesn't play dice) and then he looked with some other old friends (Podolski and Rosen) and made up the EPR paradox and the theory of hidden variables.So from a philosophical viewpoint a theory came out.

 

Ok I agree this theory was proven wrong by Bell, but it was a theory on mathematical logics coming from philosophy, as you asked.

 

Hmm, nice post. I'll give a QP no matter what we conclude. I agree that it makes no difference if the theory was proven wrong as long as it was a potential candidate for acceptance at one time.

 

I obviously don't know enough about this particular issue so I need to establish some facts first.

 

Was formal logic, the type one only sees in philosophy, used and necessary for Einstein's theory. Or was it simply the philosophical vision that inspired Einstein into making an assumption and seeing what theories resulted?

 

If it was not formal logic and just the philosophical vision that inspired Einstein, then alas you have not proven a use for formal logic. Equally, if formal logic had any hand at all to play in actually creating the theories, then I have been proven wrong.

 

But there is a second chance of proving me wrong if the philosophical vision was so intertwined amongst the physics as to be almost unseperable. If arguments of Plato were somehow directly translated into numbers in Einstein's attempted theory, then again you have proven me wrong.

 

The last chance is that the philsophical vision was used not as part of the theory but as inspiration for the theory then Philosophy could be said to have a use but only indirectly

 

as a form of exercise. Nothing more than taking your brain for a walk.

 

The problem with the last attempt is that it becomes highly debatable as to whether it really counts as a practical use. So it would be easiest to show one of the first two methods of proving me wrong.

 

Also a QP to Spiked Blood for a great metaphor which I think nearly went unnoticed.

[ughaibu]

Sebbysteiny: Here's a good introduction to symbolic logic and it's uses: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/log/loghome.htm

[TheFaithfulStone]

The not so quick answer is that I believed there was an important debate to be had here.

 

Ahhh.... :D

 

Why is this debate important? Do you expect to settle the issue? Perhaps other debates can be important without the issue being settled?

 

TFS

[IDMclean]

I'm just curious where you disagree because if you agree you have to admit that you waste your time and then I would be even more curious.

 

Achilles and the Tortoise come to mind in this statement here.

 

With all the personal rubbish hopefully out the way, lets get back to business.

 

I don't think this is accurate, as I gained more insight into what the purpose of this thread is in reading all of that, then anywhere else in this thread.

 

One thing I noticed was that many people's positions that seemed to me to be instinctively bizaar could not easily be answered. Infact, it seemed to me to be impossible to say either way. It was even physically impossible to prove it.

 

This is called the Loaded Question. Also known as the Fallacy of Many Questions. It is my counter-arguement to the proposition of a trancendent and immanent anthropomorphic entity we might call god. Or simply my negation of the question of "Is there a god?". It is of the same class of propositions as "have you stopped beating your wife yet?", "What is the sound of one hand clapping" and "Does your mom know you are gay?".

 

These types of propositions, and even arguements built on them or the same premise, are very akward when encountered as the inastute philosopher, lawyer, scientist, or theologist (same or similar form, different content/title) might not even perceive the exact cause of their failure to negotiate the proposition. They present a seemingly innocent paradox and cause for huge confusion and many a heated debate (such as this one, for instance).

 

The English language, technically has no answer to these types of arguements. There is yes and no, true and false, right and wrong. However none of these are applicable because they all implicitly affirm the proposition. Feed it, when it really has no ground or merit.

 

By answering either in the affirmitive or the negative you assert, implicitly, that the question and the presuppositions it is built on are correct. You consent, to the use of a obfuscated axiom that then maybe built upon for the purposes future theorems.

 

Sebby, I thank you. Keep up your research. This is a beautiful example of philosophical inquiry.

 

Oh and the proper answer to the loaded question is, neutral, or the Non-answer.

 

A class of these questions is the Kaon. The purpose of which is often to get the student, to think in a different way. It forces one to the meta-level, where one begins questioning the rules of the system, because the answers one arrives at are clearly wrong. Therefore a basic assumption (that is the presuppositions or simply the question itself) must be wrong.

[sebbysteiny]

Sebbysteiny: Here's a good introduction to symbolic logic and it's uses: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/courses/log/loghome.htm

 

Excellent research. Quite simply excellent. QP well earned. This is EXACTLY the stuff taught in Philosophy classes around the world.

 

The only problem is that you have not yet find a real life practical use for this stuff as I'll explain.

 

The first two topics 'Truth and Validity' and 'Basic Terms of logic' consist of the introductiary knowledge necessary to proceed. These are not unique to philosophy. Infact, I learnt about them for essay subjects in an English language book. I am saying that, within those two chapters, which basically amounts to knowledge of simple deduction [if a = c and b = a, therefore b = c], induction , and logical fallacies

 

But from the third topic onwards, things seem to me to get EXTREMELY complicated. One even ends up with some kind of table.

 

So the challenge is to find some kind of practical use for everything after chapter 3. Ie, some argument that can be shown false where simple knowledge of deduction, induction and logical fallacies is not enough to expose it.

 

If, for example, you could expose a post here as being logically invalid only by resorting to the formal logic taught in Philsophy, that would be enough.

 

 

The not so quick answer is that I believed there was an important debate to be had here.

 

Ahhh....

 

Why is this debate important? Do you expect to settle the issue? Perhaps other debates can be important without the issue being settled?

 

It's important because it exposes 1) the purpose of thought, and 2) the consequences of it. What are we trying to do by taking seriously the possibility of everything we have ever observed being wrong? And are we aware that the far right will use exactly this type of reasoning to push forward their policies of rounding up minorities into death camps, with great success?

 

And, now that this debate is sparked, I am curious to know why philosophy departments get funded; exactly how and why my tax dollers are being spent.

 

I do expect some kind of resolution.

 

And can a debate be important without an issue being settled?

 

One thing I noticed was that many people's positions that seemed to me to be instinctively bizaar could not easily be answered. Infact, it seemed to me to be impossible to say either way. It was even physically impossible to prove it.

 

 

This is called the Loaded Question. Also known as the Fallacy of Many Questions.

 

...

 

It is of the same class of propositions as "have you stopped beating your wife yet?", "What is the sound of one hand clapping" and "Does your mom know you are gay?".

 

 

I can see you have become a lot more philosophical since we last argued. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just a change I've noticed.

 

I would also like to point out that this argument is not strictly necessary to the thread, though it is a possible tangent. It is an important tangent, since it points out a problem with the use of philsophy, but I was just pointing out my motivation.

 

And with respect, it is not.

 

"have you stopped beating your wife yet" is the fallacy of many questions as it ASSUMES that the answer to the question "have you in the past beat your wife" is yes.

 

However, the question, "have you in the past beat your wife" is logically sound.

 

With more respect, it is not difficult to locate assumptions made in the verbage of sentances. In the days when I was politically active, I was confronted by it on a daily basis. I came into constant contact with speeches completely loaded with this type of pursasion tactics

 

So now let's go to my ones which I say are quite simply philosophical questions with no answers.

 

"when you kill a terrorist, you create more terrorists than you kill".

 

This is a root argument that Palestinian sympathisers assume to be obviously true. And from this, an argument that I view is so slanderous it verges on the criminal demonisation flows. At first sight, the only way to challenge the argument is to challenge the premise.

 

But the premise in question form "when you shoot a terrorist, do you create more terrorists than you kill?" is not a fallacy of many questions. There is no other question.

 

A question flawed by the fallacy of many questions cannot be answered because the question is flawed. A philosophical question cannot be answered because there is no clear answer. This, is a philsophical question.

 

This argument used by Palestinians desigined to stop Israeli sympathers from saying "he was shooting at us, we have a right to shoot back".

 

The assumptions in this statement is that the means Israel uses are inneffective and therefore, since Israeli is all knowing and since it is 'so obviously true', cannot possibly be the reason behind their attacks. Instead, they argue, the only possible reason is to simply humiliate and kill Palestinians for fun like evil monsters.

 

The way I see it, this results in demonising Israel by simply denying Israel the right of self defence claiming instead that the motives of security that Israelis call for from their government every day are not the 'real' motives. And this rather sick and perverse argument all has it's roots in a premise that cannot be challenged because it amounts to a philosophical question.

 

Other questions I gave that have been used as the basic premise for other sick and distubing arguments, or at the very least, intellectually perverse include:

 

"The world is run by Jews who meat regularly in an attempt to control the world. They control the media, the accademic community and the governments so nobody can ever know the truth". Note the similarities with Descartes Devil.

 

And a host of others.

 

With all the personal rubbish hopefully out the way, lets get back to business.

 

I don't think this is accurate, as I gained more insight into what the purpose of this thread is in reading all of that, then anywhere else in this thread.

 

That's incidental. Hopefully, all those flamers who should really know better will stop using ad homenim arguments by attacking me personally as if I have some hidden grudge and motives.

 

Sebby, I thank you. Keep up your research. This is a beautiful example of philosophical inquiry.

 

Grrrrrrrrr, wooof wooof bark, scratch, bite. Was that your balls? Oh terribly sorry, grrrrrrrrcrunch. :doh:

[TheFaithfulStone]

It's important because it exposes 1) the purpose of thought, and 2) the consequences of it.

 

Much like epistemology, no?

 

Grrrrrrrrr, wooof wooof bark, scratch, bite. Was that your balls? Oh terribly sorry, grrrrrrrrcrunc

 

Huh?

 

TFS

[sanctus]

 

Example. The question 'does killing one terrorist leader only serve to create 10 more?' This is actually philosophical with no answer either way since there is no conceivable scientific measurment that could be used to prove this either way.

 

However, if you rephrase it slightly to, is it right to kill terrorists, or even, is it possible to actually defend yourself from terror successfully including the factor of extra recruitment, the answer is clearly yes.

 

Well then why do I believe that the answer is clearly NO to both the original and the rephrased question. And there are pseudo-proofs to my statement:

1)original question: did number of terrorists increase or decrease since the invasion of afghanistan? It increased. I agree that is a pseudo proof as it does not prove that otherwise it would not have increased.

2)rephrased question: does it work in Israel?No.

 

That much about your bad chosen example...

 

About Einstein, I think there was no formal logic in play, just a vision then translated into mathematics, but isn't that what you were looking for a a physical theory as a direct consequence of a philosophical reasonment? Even if this vision had nothing formal it is still thanks to her that he came up with the theory, do you agree and do you have to admit that philosophy can be useful?

[sebbysteiny]

It's important because it exposes 1) the purpose of thought, and 2) the consequences of it.

 

 

Much like epistemology, no?

 

Nope. Sorry.

 

1) Purpose, 2) consequences

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of Western philosophy that studies [1] the nature and [2] scope of knowledge.

 

Well then why do I believe that the answer is clearly NO to both the original and the rephrased question. And there are pseudo-proofs to my statement:

1)original question: did number of terrorists increase or decrease since the invasion of afghanistan? It increased. I agree that is a pseudo proof as it does not prove that otherwise it would not have increased.

2)rephrased question: does it work in Israel?No.

 

Hmm, I had a feeling this might stray into the Israeli Palestinian debate. I'm afraid I'll cut that short.

 

But I will keep to the issue of unaswerable questions.

 

1) That wasn't the question. I'm not really going to talk about that the effect you are talking about was after Iraq, not Afghanistan. Instead I'll point out the original question.

when you shoot a terrorist, do you create more terrorists than you kill?"

 

It says nothign about an invasion. It says nothing about Israel or Afghanistan. All it says is there is a terrorist and you shoot him. Do you create more terrorists than you kill? If you say yes, perhaps you can provide some kind of indisputable / solid / clear cut reasoning or evidence? I put $10 on your search for realistic evidence coming up short. Nothing personal. I just don't think you will succeed in mission genuinely impossible.

 

2) This is really entirely about the details of Israel - Palestine. Best to create a new thread. But you might be interested in looking up the figures on the number of attacks on innocent Israelis before and after Israel's apparent useless and brutal self defence measures. You might be surprised by the shear scale of the, well... I'll leave it to you to find out. The IDF website is a good source, but you can get it from other sources too.

 

About Einstein, I think there was no formal logic in play, just a vision then translated into mathematics, but isn't that what you were looking for a a physical theory as a direct consequence of a philosophical reasonment? Even if this vision had nothing formal it is still thanks to her that he came up with the theory, do you agree and do you have to admit that philosophy can be useful?

 

But there is a second chance of proving me wrong if the philosophical vision was so intertwined amongst the physics as to be almost unseperable. If arguments of Plato were somehow directly translated into numbers in Einstein's attempted theory, then again you have proven me wrong.

 

The last chance is that the philsophical vision was used not as part of the theory but as inspiration for the theory then Philosophy could be said to have a use but only indirectly

 

[quote name=Spiked Blood

]as a form of exercise. Nothing more than taking your brain for a walk.

 

I think you are taking the last chance.

 

The problem with the last attempt is that it becomes highly debatable as to whether it really counts as a practical use. So it would be easiest to show one of the first two methods of proving me wrong.

 

But if you are happy to try, cool. We'll continue tomorrow.

[Kriminal99]

@ Sebby

 

Regarding proof or cold hard facts

 

The terms "proof" and "facts" imply objective truth. My statement as to the non-existence of proof or facts is meant to imply there is no such thing as something Person A can give Person B to force them to accept Proposition Z or be considered completely irrational.

 

Knowledge being the abscence of that which contradicts what you believe means that given all evidence you could possibly obtain and having objectively considered any alternate explanations you can think of or find, you conclude that a proposition is considered knowledge simply because it is the best answer you can find.

 

The purpose of skepticism is not to drive a single person to refrain from having any beliefs because they might be false. Rather it's two purposes are to

 

A) Motivate a person to always look objectively and carefully at opposing beliefs and information in case it undermines what they previously thought to be true.

 

:) Show that other people should not be forced to accept, act on, or be acted upon according to one's own beliefs and ideas. Rather those people must carefully examine the evidence and come to their own best answer. If one chooses to accept someone else's views or judgement, then hopefully it is because they know that person's motives and believe this other person's best answer is likely to be as good as one's own.

 

Of course if someone has already tried to force you to accept their views or act upon or has acted upon you according to their views, then you might have to do the same (use force) to defend yourself and your beliefs. But both sides should instead make every effort to resolve the difference of opinion through debate as opposed to physical force.

 

Real life example - Skepticism at the bank

 

For a short time I worked as a bank teller, and I was surprised by how advanced their views on the subject were. Every bank teller was responsible for monitoring their own transactions to prevent loss. One bank teller that may have been there for 30 years would ignore all sorts of problems with checks. If a customer presented a check that was not made out to someone, then she would allow the presenter to fill in their own name. This was against bank policy, but bank policy was subject to our interpretation as tellers. Only if a bank loss resulted from deviation from policy would we be in trouble. When I recieved such an altered check, I reasoned that the relationship with the presenting customer was irrelevant. The check maker could claim he made no such check to the check presenter after becoming angry with the check presenter (or maybe he is just a con artist). In this case the bank and I could be held liable for accepting a check we knew or had evidence to believe was altered.

 

My coworker reasoned she had been accepting checks such as this for 30 years and no loss (that she knew of) has occured. I reasoned that the potential problem was a high variance possibility and that because of this and the fact that the bank operated many branches with many customers that it was entirely possible that she had not cause a loss accepting such checks during her career yet it still made a signifigant difference for the bank.

 

There was motivation to reconcile our views because it meant the customer would recieve different service depending on whether or not my coworker was there. However the final rule regarding such issues was that each teller had to decide for themselves. Maybe she thought her past experience was "proof" it was ok. Maybe I thought I had a logical "proof" that she was wrong. Maybe I thought she just had not thought of what I had to say and was just too old and stubborn to consider it. Or maybe there was more to her argument that she was just not able to put into words. In any case practically speaking there was no proof because nothing one of us said convinced the other when we were not forced to accept either view by an outside force.

 

Most Generalizations are not based on logic

 

The only way to make a generalization logical is in the case where the general case is like the specific case you are generalizing from in every way necessary to give the same result in the general case - then it just becomes deductive reasoning. Otherwise it is not logic that allows someone to act on past experiences. Logic clearly shows there is no reason to think that the past will model the future. Rather we trust in induction only because there is nothing else to do.

 

I did not say that skepticism does not address hasty generalizations. It does that, and much more. Hasty generalization does not address all the limits of induction.

 

It is entirely possible that someone make a unhasty generalization, but still be wrong. In this case the limits of induction would have us look for any indication that this would occur, whereas hasty generalization only requires us to make the generalization from more than a few observations perhaps even purposely ignoring dissenting informations and opinions.

 

Hasty generalization is a proper subset of limitations of induction

 

Again regarding media propoganda, hasty generalization does not cover all the limits of induction. Sampling bias is another way that the limits of induction are realized in statistics or experimental design. You might have a million samples, but they all share something in common that the target of your generalizations does not.

 

Perhaps high level nazi officers were involved in the shredding of documents. What exactly are you claiming here? That every single citizen of nazi germany independently decided that mass murder was the best course of action not because of social pressures (that skepticism would allow them to shrug off) but because of what? Genes? I don't think so. Many of their pow's just ended up living in the US after seeing another way of life.

 

One must use various forms of reasoning to determine if there might be any more information that undermines information you have already found. Someone has to make a guess as to what to test for before you can test for something. If someone disagrees with your theory they probably know something they can test for that would disprove yours. The only way to save effort is to carefully consider everything before you begin testing.

 

IM NOT LISTENING!!! LA LA

 

And no it is not a squirrel. Everybody, if asked the question "do you reason carefully and consider all views before coming to a conclusion" would answer yes. However, most people when subjected to alternate viewpoints close their ears and open their mouth to voice their opinions over whatever you have to say as if they already know everything you could possibly say. Unfortunately this does not qualify as an understanding of the limits of induction.

 

Coherentism take 3

The signifigance of coherentism has to do with ability to communicate complex ideas. The better understanding of it you have the more you will be able to understand other people's view points, the less often you will argue with people when you are both saying the same thing in your own language, and the more you will be able to communicate complex ideas to others using their own way of thinking.

 

Your ideas are no less philosophy and more science then those of your opponent

 

Regarding dirty philosopher, I was referring to the fact that you were philosophising in a thread you made called philosophy sucks. No maximizing human rights is not a universal purpose of government. Many governments do no such thing. Also I see that as a completely arbitrary thing to make a government focus on.

 

Reducing suffering when you see it is a function of compassion, something that not everyone has. If reducing suffering was a universal goal there would be no crime. Rather, only people who have learned that compassion for others is a good way to gain respect and admiration value the reduction of suffering. People start out as children with the goal to maximize their own happiness and only learn values like compassion and not to hurt others through experiences that teach them this is the best way to maximize their own happiness. (and not everyone's experiences teach them that)

 

The other forum was just a suggestion

 

I doubt anyone will ban you here, or I would probably already have been banned. I was simply stating that if you like a discussion enviornment where anyone who thinks like a philospher or questions things gets arbitrarily banned, you might like scienceforums.net

 

Summary

 

In summary, many of the things you are arguing for in place of philosophy are the same thing as issues in philosophy, which by the way predate the same issues in more specific disciplines. Many advances in various disciplines can be seen to be direct applications of philisophical principles and arguments (russel paradox is a good example) A good understanding of plurality of coherentism would prevent you from criticizing philosophy as useless while citing its results under the banner of proper subset disciplines of philosophy.

 

However there are some differences in that philosophy is the general case for all human efforts, and the ideas you cite from specific disciplines lack the ability to deal with all of the issues and situations that the corresponding philisophical arguments can.

[Dyothelite]

I've always felt that the academic study of philosophy only exists because there has been no definitive answer. All you do is study different viewpoints that all end up being studied on a comparative level because all end up being inconclusive.

 

But then I realized.... that's what all fields of study are.

[ughaibu]

Sebbysteiny: If you're suggesting that the exclusion, in everyday behaviour, of symbolic logic or various questions of concern to philosophers, renders philosophy worthless, your argument has no basis, as the vast majority of research and results in all academic fields can be similarly criticised. Would you equally say that archeology, cosmology, mathematics or palaeontology are worthless?

Bearing in mind the increasing delegation of responsibility to computers, I would say that philosophers presently have an important social role.