Reformed Epistemology

[vulcanlogician]

Here is where the problem lies for James, and in my opinion, most of Philosophy. Both exhibit a very strong anthropocentrism. Since the classical Greeks there has been this intellectual understanding that gaining true knowledge is preferable over false knowledge or ignorance. However, once facts start to challenge the Philosophers anthropocentrism, psycho-social worldview, or the reliability and merits of that philosophers innate intuition, they develop rationalizations with which to defend and preserve their anthropomorphism, psycho-social worldview, and innate intuition.

Oddly enough, even academic-sounding words like "anthropocentrism" can have a vague meaning sometimes. "Human-centered" is the brute translation from Greek. I say that thinking about things in a "human-centered" way isn't necessarily bad. But you are right to say philosophers do this. Philosophers are very "human-centered" in most of their pursuits... they are very prone to consider questions about human knowledge, human perception, human society, and human meanings. They can, and sometimes do, abstract beyond human-centeredness, but many, many, many of the questions philosophers ask are of importance only to human beings who are living through the human experience. But that's not a bad thing, IMO.

What IS bad though would be some kind of a bias where you can't step back and see that there is more to reality than the human experience. I don't think many philosophers are guilty of such a bias. They perfectly understand that there are many brute facts of nature that are indifferent to what humans deem to be important. Science is a collection of disciplines that study and understand empirical data. Philosophy is a field that asks questions about life and reality. Just because you ask "human questions" doesn't mean you have a "human bias" or expect nature itself to supply you with "human answers."

"What should I consider knowledge?" or "What ought I believe?" are human-centered questions. When we ask those questions, we shouldn't assume there is an empirical answer out there in nature. It would really be dumb to assume there was... and that would definitely be anthropocentrism as a bias if someone assumed that the whole of reality was about human concerns.

But I see no problem with anthropocentrism as a focus. As a focus, it's fine. And philosophy is fine for focusing on human questions.
And don't try to tell me "What ought I believe?" is not a question we should ask. We should ask that question.

If a teenager with a creationist family asked you, "Who ought I believe, my biology professor or my family and church, when it comes to evolution?" I'm sure you would have an answer for him. My guess is that you would point out the merits of evolutionary theory, explain why we think it's reliable. Or you might point out weaknesses in the scriptural account-- how it's demonstrably false. That's you the philosopher talking, because a pure empiricist would not know or care what to tell the kid. Facts about nature, that'd be all that a pure empiricist would feel comfortable talking about. What the kid should think about, consider, or believe... who knows?

 

[MikeF]

Oddly enough, even academic-sounding words like "anthropocentrism" can have a vague meaning sometimes. "Human-centered" is the brute translation from Greek. I say that thinking about things in a "human-centered" way isn't necessarily bad. But you are right to say philosophers do this. Philosophers are very "human-centered" in most of their pursuits... they are very prone to consider questions about human knowledge, human perception, human society, and human meanings. They can, and sometimes do, abstract beyond human-centeredness, but many, many, many of the questions philosophers ask are of importance only to human beings who are living through the human experience. But that's not a bad thing, IMO.

What IS bad though would be some kind of a bias where you can't step back and see that there is more to reality than the human experience. I don't think many philosophers are guilty of such a bias. They perfectly understand that there are many brute facts of nature that are indifferent to what humans deem to be important. Science is a collection of disciplines that study and understand empirical data. Philosophy is a field that asks questions about life and reality. Just because you ask "human questions" doesn't mean you have a "human bias" or expect nature itself to supply you with "human answers."

"What should I consider knowledge?" or "What ought I believe?" are human-centered questions. When we ask those questions, we shouldn't assume there is an empirical answer out there in nature. It would really be dumb to assume there was... and that would definitely be anthropocentrism as a bias if someone assumed that the whole of reality was about human concerns.

But I see no problem with anthropocentrism as a focus. As a focus, it's fine. And philosophy is fine for focusing on human questions.
And don't try to tell me "What ought I believe?" is not a question we should ask. We should ask that question.

If a teenager with a creationist family asked you, "Who ought I believe, my biology professor or my family and church, when it comes to evolution?" I'm sure you would have an answer for him. My guess is that you would point out the merits of evolutionary theory, explain why we think it's reliable. Or you might point out weaknesses in the scriptural account-- how it's demonstrably false. That's you the philosopher talking, because a pure empiricist would not know or care what to tell the kid. Facts about nature, that'd be all that a pure empiricist would feel comfortable talking about. What the kid should think about, consider, or believe... who knows?

I read your post and the phrase "Them thar are fight'n words!" came to mind. Or perhaps I should just imagine that I have been slapped across the cheek with a glove for having disparaged the reputation of Philosophy.

I exaggerate in jest of course. It is apparent that I have prompted a defense for Philosophy on your part, and we are setting James aside.
You seem to have focused your defense around my use of the word 'anthropocentric'. My intention was to use it in a three part criticism, namely that Philosophy has a preponderance for anthropocentrism, psycho-social bias, and its use of innate intuition. I note that you only address the first, anthropocentrism, of the three part criticism.

I do not disagree that in our pursuit of knowledge and understanding, we can categorize our efforts by subject or focus. Does that mean that Philosophy, in general, is a subcategory of all knowledge pursuits, that it is those knowledge pursuits with a human focus? Traditionally, certainly before The Age of Enlightenment lets say, Philosophy (love of wisdom) was the main umbrella term for all knowledge pursuits. Philosophy addressed all general and fundamental questions. Is this no longer the case, in your opinion? If Philosophy is no longer the umbrella term for all knowledge pursuits, is there a replacement term? Additionally, in terms of forming a hierarchal system of categories, it would seem to me that human-focused inquiries would logically be a subcategory of natural philosophy, as human beings exist in, and are dependent upon, the natural world. Might the current hierarchy reflect an anthropocentric bias?

I am also interested in your distinctions between philosophy and science. Traditionally, what is considered science today was considered the subcategory natural philosophy and within the scope of philosophy overall. In your opinion, what has changed? Is science still philosophy, simply a different label to the same subcategory of philosophy? Is the process of knowledge acquisition in science markedly different such that it is to be considered distinct and separate from philosophy, while all other subcategories of philosophy still conform to the same process of philosophical knowledge acquisition? Is it simply that the rest of philosophy is human focused and science is not? There certainly are subcategories of science that are or can be human focused, for example psychology, developmental and general human behavior, sociology, anthropology, human physiology, medicine. Do the sets of human-focused questions asked in both philosophy and science overlap in any way? To what extent? Are some question only answerable or addressable in either science or philosophy? Why? In areas of overlap, is one discipline better than the other in answering human-focused questions? In all instances it is human investigators asking questions and seeking answers.

For example, your last paragraph introduces the concept of the "pure empiricist". You seem to imply that a "pure empiricist" can only be authoritative in reciting specific facts and data points and somehow does not, or is not qualified to reason upon those facts and draw conclusions about how varied sets of facts relate. If "pure empiricist" is synonymous with "pure scientist", then I would consider that a gross misrepresentation of empiricism and science. Science is all about drawing reasoned conclusion from the observations that are made. Evaluating the merits or weakness of the theory of evolution or whether or not a spiritual account is demonstrably false seems well within the scope and mandate of science to my mind. As a matter of fact, all the human-focused sciences that I listed above would seem to leave the empiricist well equipped to provide advice to the teenager. Once provided with our current understanding on the matters, it would be up to the teenager to then decide. I would be curious to know what element the philosopher would bring to the discussion that is not available to the scientist.

I certainly agree that "What ought I believe?" is a question we should ask. Hopefully the resulting decision will be as fully informed as possible.

**Edit: I should put a caveat on my agreement about questioning what ought one believe. For things that have no true/false or right or wrong answer, say personal preference about Aesthetics (favorite color, favorite music, things of this sort), I do not think it matters one bit what anyone thinks and they can hold whatever opinion they choose.

 

[vulcanlogician]

I read your post and the phrase "Them thar are fight'n words!" came to mind. Or perhaps I should just imagine that I have been slapped across the cheek with a glove for having disparaged the reputation of Philosophy.

It's a debate I love. I think that critics of philosophy usually make excellent points. (So I ain't mad.) And when I sit back and listen to their criticisms, I don't say to myself "philosophy is better than this person thinks it is." I rather think, "They are making a solid point. And philosophy may indeed deserve their particular criticism sometimes. But--in the final analysis-- philosophy is redeemed by x." And then I like to talk about what x is.

I am also interested in your distinctions between philosophy and science.

Western philosophy was kicked of by Thales who made several claims about nature. His most famous being "everything is water." But he also furnished us with the first recorded prediction of a solar eclipse. The fact that he was able to predict the eclipse tells us that he spent some time observing the motions of the moon. But not in a kind of astrological sense. More as if the moon were some physical object which moved through the heavens with a kind of discernible regularity. That's what separated Thales from the astrologers of his time who scanning the heavens for signs and symbols. Thales said to himself, "What is this thing that moves through the sky and how does it move in relation to the sun?"

Thales was followed by several pre-Socratic thinkers who were also chiefly concerned with observable nature (what we might call proto-scientists). Heraclitus followed in this tradition, but he also began considering values, and weighing one value against another (something philosophy would become highly involved with). Then you have Parmenides and Zeno who started asking questions about space and time. A lot of this sounds like proto-science.

Then along came Socrates. Socrates cared not only about cosmology and nature, he also cared about justice, reasonableness, goodness, and a whole host of other "anthropocentric" pursuits. What is most important about Socrates (and why he is one of the greatest philosophers of all time) is that he was troubled by human bias (just like you!). Socrates recognized that we acquire genuine knowledge throughout life. But not ONLY genuine knowledge. We also acquire prejudices. But, what concerned Socrates was, "How can we tell our genuine knowledge from our acquired prejudices?" So he came up with the Socratic method as a way to purge us of prejudices. Ideally, if we could free ourselves of prejudice, then maybe we could be more sure (post-purging) that what we were left with is genuine knowledge.

It's debatable. But even if you can't acquire genuine knowledge from the Socratic method (henceforth, the dialectic) you can at least be sure to challenge shaky or weak knowledge or bolster strong claims with it.

Plato ran with the dialectic. He asked a ton of questions and put each of those questions through the gauntlet of the dialectic. The dialectical core of the philosophy of Plato's age is what most survives in modern science (philosophy's major contribution to science). It's propensity to scrutinize an idea, to consider alternatives, and (of course) to subject it to skepticism. The dialectical way... the submitting of queries to the intellectual marketplace for revision, correction, or dismissal... these things are alive and well today in science... it's what scientific journals are for. We take care of a great deal of that in peer review.

The work of other "natural philosophers" (including Aristotle) served a purpose for a while, but natural philosophy didn't evolve into something greater (ie. science) until Galileo, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton made their particular contributions. These figures were instrumental in putting empirical observation and scientific method to the forefront. So Newton was the last great natural philosopher... and the first great physicist.

I don't really think a comparison could be made between natural philosophy and physics. Physics (or modern science) is just plain better at determining truths about how physical objects behave than philosophy. But knowing how physical objects behave isn't all there is to know (as you seem to agree). So philosophy remains important to consider those questions that fall out of science's purview.

There certainly are subcategories of science that are or can be human focused, for example psychology, developmental and general human behavior, sociology, anthropology, human physiology, medicine. Do the sets of human-focused questions asked in both philosophy and science overlap in any way? To what extent? Are some question only answerable or addressable in either science or philosophy? Why? In areas of overlap, is one discipline better than the other in answering human-focused questions? In all instances it is human investigators asking questions and seeking answers.

There is certainly overlap in those disciplines and philosophy. Philosophers used to do all the sociology. Then some important figures started formulating specific theories, and then boom! You have sociology.

As Bertrand Russell said, " If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences ... this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science."

Philosophers are bored with "answered questions." If it were possible to answer the question of free will (ie. determine that there is free will), you'd never hear a philosopher make another peep about it again. How free will works would become "Volition Sciences" or something. And with that science you'd probably have overlap with psychology and biology or something. Overlap happens when two different people from different disciplines are concerned with knowing the same thing. Happens all the time. Of course such a discovery would revolutionize philosophy because entire theories are predicated upon there being (or not being) free will. But once a question is answered, philosophers are pretty much done with it.

For example, your last paragraph introduces the concept of the "pure empiricist". You seem to imply that a "pure empiricist" can only be authoritative in reciting specific facts and data points and somehow does not, or is not qualified to reason upon those facts and draw conclusions about how varied sets of facts relate. If "pure empiricist" is synonymous with "pure scientist", then I would consider that a gross misrepresentation of empiricism and science.

"Pure empiricist" isn't meant to describe a scientist or any other actual person. It is more of an object for a thought experiment, because we all know that your typical scientist is a fairly well-qualified philosopher. That is, able to think about things critically. Anyone who is instructed in critical thinking (physicists, chemists, psychologists, sociologists... pretty much every academic discipline) can do philosophy pretty well. And, likewise, if philosophers can be said to be "experts" in anything, it might be critical thinking. I've always felt that taking courses in logic helped me better understand psychology, biology, and other courses where critical thinking was required.

I'm not trying to misrepresent science or scientists. But when you start asking metaphysical or ethical questions, empirical observation will only get you so far. Then you have to trust your own noggin if you want to proceed any further. There are plenty of logical frameworks present in philosophy to help keep your noggin on course. Philosophy is all about distinguishing truth from non-truth. Philosophy isn't a discipline about advancing claims. It is a discipline --first and foremost-- about questioning claims. Claims get advanced, sure. But what matters to philosophers is if those claims can withstand logical interrogation.

 

[vulcanlogician]

I have quite a few issues with mysticism in general. I would say that I do not reject the notion of mysticism altogether, but the issues I have seem to be wide-sweeping enough to apply to almost every mystical system.

I think that when mysticism turns out to be genuinely useful we call it psychology.


I do not find any religious ideas compelling anymore, as far as organized religion goes. I am also not a mystic anymore.


I do find some religious traditions and cultural philosophies interesting and insightful due to their unique perspectives, although this is mostly relegated to naturalistic religion. I think if your philosophy needs to posit the existence of some unproven substance, be it God or karma or chi, in order to ground itself, then that philosophy is usually not going to be very useful. There are exceptions to this, but it is something I generally try to avoid as much as possible.

I'm pretty much in total agreement with you. Generally speaking, I'm disillusioned with religious ideas. But I'm also pretty bored and dissatisfied with logical positivism. I think it's worth exploring man's religious capacities. If anything just to prove, once and for all, that there's nothing there to be found knowledge-wise.

I remain pretty interested in naturalistic religious ideas... what they do and don't have in common with traditional religious ideas. Where exactly the distinctions lie is interesting to me.


Interesting that you say "when mysticism turns out to be genuinely useful we call it psychology." I think it's worth exploring the question "Is mysticism useful?" Because if it is, then we have every reason to employ it as a tool in our toolbox as something that benefits our lives.

Spoiler

As James writes: " We shall see how infinitely passionate a thing religion at its highest flights can be. Like love, like wrath, like hope, ambition, jealousy, like every other instinctive eagerness and impulse, it adds to life an enchantment which is not rationally or logically deducible from anything else. This enchantment, coming as a gift when it does come,—a gift of our organism, the physiologists will tell us, a gift of God's grace, the theologians say,—is either there or not there for us, and there are persons who can no more become possessed by it than they can fall in love with a given woman by mere word of command. Religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to the Subject's range of life. It gives him a new sphere of power. When the outward battle is lost, and the outer world disowns him, it redeems and vivifies an interior world which otherwise would be an empty waste."
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

Why not employ mysticism where we can? Especially if it does not contradict fact?

I once saw an interview conducted by a Theosophist with a professor of ancient Greek philosophy. It was quite normal until the professor mentioned Plato, prompting the Theosophist to ask questions about Plotinus, to which the professor sighed and gave a look of immense disappointment.

I've actually never read Plotinus. An English professor at my school had a sign above his door "The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited". --Plotinus-- and I've always loved that quote. It's a very Platonic quote. The problem I have with the Neoplatonists is that they crystallized Plato's thinking into a system that Plato never proposed. It's one way of interpreting (and elaborating upon) Plato. But Plato still brought up some perennial concerns about ontology and metaphysics that stick with us today. This is less true of Neoplatonism.

Perhaps, however, I wonder what the utility of doing this really is. You can call the universe "God" if you want, but why bother? The universe isn't a god. It has no agency or mind of its own. It isn't some discrete, concrete entity, but it is a collection of many things.

I think the more interesting question is: "Why call the Israelite god 'God'?" What does he have that the godless universe doesn't?

Is there nothing to pronounce holy in a godless universe?

The godless universe has creative power. It is the source of all the people we love, all our experiences, all things that have touched our hearts, moved us, all our joys, sorrows, and ecstasies. Stood one beside the other the godless universe might even be a greater god than the tribal god of the Israelites. So why not say so?

Now, I don't think someone should go around insisting that others call the universe "God" or "holy." That's not it. But at the same time, I feel it's reasonable if a person sees the universe that way. Not in a "that's their preference" kind of way. There are genuine, objective reasons to see things that way.

 

[MikeF]

It's a debate I love. I think that critics of philosophy usually make excellent points. (So I ain't mad.) And when I sit back and listen to their criticisms, I don't say to myself "philosophy is better than this person thinks it is." I rather think, "They are making a solid point. And philosophy may indeed deserve their particular criticism sometimes. But--in the final analysis-- philosophy is redeemed by x." And then I like to talk about what x is.

Excellent. Hopefully it will be less of a debate and more of a discussion.

I think my goal in discussing ideas is to work through issues to hopefully form some sort of consensus about a topic. Granted, it is only a goal with no expectation or requirement that anyone is going to change their mind in anyway.

Western philosophy was kicked of by Thales who made several claims about nature.

Right off the bat, we have this phrase, "Western philosophy", that clashes with my sensibilities. If Philosophy, in general, is about understanding fundamental questions, why on earth would it be culturally specific? Certainly from a historical perspective, we can compare and contrast the development of ideas and how they are influenced by culture. But if the purpose of philosophy is to find and describe universal truths, why would such endeavors be siloed by culture or geographic region? Might we see this as an example of psycho-social bias being expressed in philosophy?

Western philosophy was kicked of by Thales who made several claims about nature. His most famous being "everything is water." But he also furnished us with the first recorded prediction of a solar eclipse. ...
That's what separated Thales from the astrologers of his time who scanning the heavens for signs and symbols. Thales said to himself, "What is this thing that moves through the sky and how does it move in relation to the sun?"
...
The work of other "natural philosophers" (including Aristotle) served a purpose for a while, but natural philosophy didn't evolve into something greater (ie. science) until Galileo, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton made their particular contributions. These figures were instrumental in putting empirical observation and scientific method to the forefront. So Newton was the last great natural philosopher... and the first great physicist.
I don't really think a comparison could be made between natural philosophy and physics. Physics (or modern science) is just plain better at determining truths about how physical objects behave than philosophy.

Correct me if I am wrong, but we seem to be in agreement here. Philosophy since the pre-Socratics has been an umbrella term that covered all knowledge pursuits up until fairly recently. The emergence of science as separate from philosophy seems to have occurred relatively recently, say starting in the mid 16th century through to the end of the 18th century.

But knowing how physical objects behave isn't all there is to know (as you seem to agree). So philosophy remains important to consider those questions that fall out of science's purview.

And here we come to the crux of the matter. What is the purview of science and what exactly is left over for philosophy.

There is certainly overlap in those disciplines and philosophy. Philosophers used to do all the sociology. Then some important figures started formulating specific theories, and then boom! You have sociology.
As Bertrand Russell said, " If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen. But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences ... this is partly accounted for by the fact that, as soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science."
... Anyone who is instructed in critical thinking (physicists, chemists, psychologists, sociologists... pretty much every academic discipline) can do philosophy pretty well. And, likewise, if philosophers can be said to be "experts" in anything, it might be critical thinking. I've always felt that taking courses in logic helped me better understand psychology, biology, and other courses where critical thinking was required..

Your demarcation between science and philosophy appears to fall along this line: Inquiry into that which is physically existent falls under the purview of science, and philosophy is about critical thinking. Would it be safe to expand the concept of "critical thinking" to the idea that philosophy covers the abstractions we create in order to communicate and reason upon the things we think about? Would it be fair to say philosophy would include a focus upon logic, language (in the technical sense), and mathematics? I think you would also include other abstract systems and concepts such as Ethics and Aesthetics under the purview of philosophy. I disagree with adding these last two to philosophy under this demarcation scheme as I will explain.

I have started reading Karl Popper's book "The Logic of Scientific Discovery". My take so far is that Popper's criteria for demarcation is the criteria of falsifiability. Popper is demarcating between what he terms Empirical and Metaphysical, with Science corresponding to Empirical and Philosophy seeming to correspond to Metaphysical. This criteria of falsifiability is used to determine whether a hypothesis or theory is empirical in nature, i.e. that it must be synthetic, that it must represent our world of experience, and consequently, ideas that fall outside of this criteria are to be considered metaphysical.

I think this problem of demarcation is critical, for the realm of abstraction is unbounded; it is infinite. Technically, it is limited, but only in the sense that it is limited by our capacity to imagine. What cannot be imagined or conceived becomes the initial, but not fixed, boundary of abstraction. We can obviously create systems of abstraction within the realm of abstraction by declaring boundaries, properties, and rules of relationship for an abstract system. We need abstraction to be able to think about things, and to that end, to think empirically, we must create boundaries for any abstract system we use empirically with the requirement that it comply with our method of demarcation and represent our world of experience.

If we are in agreement with this scheme of demarcation between what is to be investigated empirically, it follows that:

All that is real and existent is to be investigated empirically. As a result, since human beings are real and existent, human beings are to be investigated empirically.​

If problems related to human beings are to be considered empirically, this leads to consideration of the abstractions ethics, emotion, aesthetics, consciousness, etc. To me, all of these are properties of, and expressions of, human beings. All the factors that influence and affect our behavior, how we act independently or in groups, is a direct result of our physical reality. In addition, any questions concerning consciousness or the mind must first start with an understanding of the physical central nervous system and any abstraction created in regards to associated phenomena must synthetically relate to the actual physical structures involved.

For the area of aesthetics such as art, music, and concepts of beauty etc, subjective individual values regarding these topics can be documented and even explained empirically, but there is no true/false or right/wrong involved here. The adage "[value] is in the eye of the beholder" applies. If utilized as an abstract form of communication, these would be treated the same as literary fiction (see below).

So where does this leave Philosophy. If Philosophy's mandate is to create abstract systems that facilitate critical thinking, that allow us to describe, reason upon, and communicate ideas, then I see two broad categories: one being abstractions synthetically bound to physical reality, and the other being abstractions that are not synthetically bound. The former, in my mind, can be seen as a subset of science, but it does not have to be. The latter is unbounded imagination, which I realistically would include literary fiction and art.

Would it be fair to say Philosophy is now the technical subspecialty of the development and use of abstraction in clear and accurate communication? I don't think your are going to take to that idea, but perhaps as a subcategory.

The other subcategory, then, is to dream, imagine, and speculate, unbounded by convention or reality. Here we can include literary fiction and art.

What do you think?

If it were possible to answer the question of free will (ie. determine that there is free will), you'd never hear a philosopher make another peep about it again.

If the question of free will were tackled strictly empirically, do you imagine progress could be made in answering this question.

 

[vulcanlogician]

Right off the bat, we have this phrase, "Western philosophy", that clashes with my sensibilities. If Philosophy, in general, is about understanding fundamental questions, why on earth would it be culturally specific? Certainly from a historical perspective, we can compare and contrast the development of ideas and how they are influenced by culture. But if the purpose of philosophy is to find and describe universal truths, why would such endeavors be siloed by culture or geographic region? Might we see this as an example of psycho-social bias being expressed in philosophy?

Eastern philosophy is also a thing. Even (lesser known) African and Native American philosophy. It would be incorrect to see them all as necessarily biased by their own cultural parameters. Sure, philosophy can contain cultural biases, but often it challenges cultural biases. And whatever biases it does have can be dispensed with through philosophizing (that's the beauty of it).

I would be remiss not to say "Western philosophy" when talking about the pre-Socratics. I'm talking about the lineage of ideas within the Western tradition. Eastern thinkers have their own lineage of ideas. Sometimes the exact same ideas are examined, but within a different epoch or culture, with a slightly (or vastly) different methodology.

I use the word "Western" to be precise. Even today we have terms like "continental" philosophy. The word "continental" refers to the propensity of thinkers in Germany and France (ie. the "continent" of Europe) to explore a certain strain of ideas that differs from those that were (a century ago) studied on the British Isles. But there is no real cultural distinction going on there. You can have French analytic philosophers. And you have scholars of continental philosophy who live on the British Isles. In America there are a plentitude of both analytic and continental thinkers. The names describe the origins and lineages of the ideas. They aren't necessarily chained to a given culture or set of biases.

Postmodern thinkers would disagree with me there. They'd say that biases play a stronger role than I put on. But, by the same token, they're all continental thinkers. So what do we make of that? I say, the continental-ness of their thinking doesn't come to bear on the truth of what they're saying. They either have a point or they don't. We mark their tradition for reasons of precision and full disclosure. If you go back far enough, "continental" thinkers were influenced by thinkers from the Isles (and vice versa).

Your demarcation between science and philosophy appears to fall along this line: Inquiry into that which is physically existent falls under the purview of science, and philosophy is about critical thinking. Would it be safe to expand the concept of "critical thinking" to the idea that philosophy covers the abstractions we create in order to communicate and reason upon the things we think about? Would it be fair to say philosophy would include a focus upon logic, language (in the technical sense), and mathematics? I think you would also include other abstract systems and concepts such as Ethics and Aesthetics under the purview of philosophy. I disagree with adding these last two to philosophy under this demarcation scheme as I will explain.

I like framing critical thinking as asking these essential questions:

What am I being asked to believe or accept?
Is there evidence to support the claim?
Can that evidence be interpreted another way?
What evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
What conclusions are most reasonable?

Philosophers AND scientists are both very much concerned with critical thinking. It's just that philosophers engage in what I call "VERY critical thinking." Critical thinking isn't something philosophers do that scientists don't. Scientists do it too. But it only goes so far in science. You would rather replicate an experiment or try to make more accurate observations than increase the amount of critical thinking you do. That's usually the best way scientists gain knowledge.

Philosophers? All we have is critical thinking. And we dial it up to the max. And we never get a solid determination--like the scientists-- so the last question (What conclusions are most reasonable?) is of the utmost importance. BTW, I got those questions from my favorite psychology professor. They aren't really associated with philosophy. But I thought they captured critical thinking pretty well, so I argue that they work as a good definition of it.

Abstraction is something philosophers do because they are concerned with general (rather than specific) knowledge. It isn't their job. Neither is it their wheelhouse. It's something they do (almost reflexively) to get that nugget of general knowledge from whatever specific knowledge is being discussed.

I'd say logic is key to philosophy. Mathematics maybe. Some people say that math is pure logic ultimately. If they are right, then, math is key to philosophy. Plato thought that mathematics was central -- and indispensable-- to philosophy. But plenty of philosophers disagree with him. Language is something philosophers analyze. To call it a primary focus? I'm not sure. I'd want to hear more about what you mean by that.

Philosophy is all about questions. Questions are (almost) more important to a philosopher than answers. Rene Descartes is not a great philosopher because of the answer he provided to the mind/body problem. (People have utterly destroyed him on that.) He is a great philosopher because of the questions he asked.

I have started reading Karl Popper's book "The Logic of Scientific Discovery".

Feel free to post passages that you want to work through or use to argue your ideas. I haven't read that particular book, but I trust that Popper has done some good thinking about demarcation whatever the case.

I do want to say (concerning demarcation) that there is no place that "science ends and philosophy begins." Things aren't that tidy. As I mentioned before, there is overlap between disciplines. Demarcation is about the limits of a discipline. "Where physics ends," as far as what it can explain. "Where biology ends as far as what it can explain." There is overlap between chemistry and biology. No clear "demarcation line" separates biology from chemistry. But there is a line where biology ends. There is a line where chemistry ends. Where is that line?

This criteria of falsifiability is used to determine whether a hypothesis or theory is empirical in nature, i.e. that it must be synthetic, that it must represent our world of experience, and consequently, ideas that fall outside of this criteria are to be considered metaphysical.

I think I agree with this. But I welcome lengthy Popper quotes and further discussion. I don't think this determination is the nail in the coffin for metaphysics or anything. Synthetic knowledge is only one kind of knowledge, after all.

So where does this leave Philosophy. If Philosophy's mandate is to create abstract systems that facilitate critical thinking,

I don't like that definition of philosophy. I would argue that philosophy's mandate is to ask (and attempt to answer) important or fundamental questions. I'm not saying my definition is better. But I have problems with this one.

The other subcategory, then, is to dream, imagine, and speculate, unbounded by convention or reality. Here we can include literary fiction and art.

We can also include physics. Google "Einstein on imagination" and see what he has to say about the matter. We need imagination, even unbridled imagination sometimes, to break out of an existing paradigm.

If the question of free will were tackled strictly empirically, do you imagine progress could be made in answering this question.

It has been tackled empirically. And I think a few significant discoveries have been made in neuroscience. Working from memory, a neuroscientist determined that "choice" is made (according to neural scans) a few seconds before we become conscious that we've made that choice. It far from settles the issue, but it is a genuine piece of information that seems to favor determinism. We can delve into that one if you want as well.

 

[MikeF]

Eastern philosophy is also a thing. Even (lesser known) African and Native American philosophy. It would be incorrect to see them all as necessarily biased by their own cultural parameters. Sure, philosophy can contain cultural biases, but often it challenges cultural biases. And whatever biases it does have can be dispensed with through philosophizing (that's the beauty of it).
I would be remiss not to say "Western philosophy" when talking about the pre-Socratics. I'm talking about the lineage of ideas within the Western tradition. Eastern thinkers have their own lineage of ideas. Sometimes the exact same ideas are examined, but within a different epoch or culture, with a slightly (or vastly) different methodology.
I use the word "Western" to be precise. Even today we have terms like "continental" philosophy. The word "continental" refers to the propensity of thinkers in Germany and France (ie. the "continent" of Europe) to explore a certain strain of ideas that differs from those that were (a century ago) studied on the British Isles. But there is no real cultural distinction going on there. You can have French analytic philosophers. And you have scholars of continental philosophy who live on the British Isles. In America there are a plentitude of both analytic and continental thinkers. The names describe the origins and lineages of the ideas. They aren't necessarily chained to a given culture or set of biases.
Postmodern thinkers would disagree with me there. They'd say that biases play a stronger role than I put on. But, by the same token, they're all continental thinkers. So what do we make of that? I say, the continental-ness of their thinking doesn't come to bear on the truth of what they're saying. They either have a point or they don't. We mark their tradition for reasons of precision and full disclosure. If you go back far enough, "continental" thinkers were influenced by thinkers from the Isles (and vice versa).

I get what you are saying in terms of specifying a lineage of thought. My response is still, "Why is it different?" Why do these schools of thought persist? If all schools are working on the same question, as you admit above, where is the consensus, the consolidation, the setting aside of ideas that don't work and moving ahead with what does?

We have (just in Western philosophy) Monism, Dualism, Platonism, Neoplatonism, Rationalism, Idealism (German and British), Existentialism, Continental, Pragmatism, etc., and each generation still seems to see support for all of it. I know I am speaking in sweeping generalizations, but still, you can go on a Philosophy forum and find people arguing the ideas of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche etc without any 21st century perspective and criticism.

To my mind, Philosophy is like religion, you find the one that fits your personality and you run with it. Just say'n.

I like framing critical thinking as asking these essential questions:
What am I being asked to believe or accept?
Is there evidence to support the claim?
Can that evidence be interpreted another way?
What evidence would help to evaluate the alternatives?
What conclusions are most reasonable?
Philosophers AND scientists are both very much concerned with critical thinking. It's just that philosophers engage in what I call "VERY critical thinking." Critical thinking isn't something philosophers do that scientists don't. Scientists do it too. But it only goes so far in science. You would rather replicate an experiment or try to make more accurate observations than increase the amount of critical thinking you do. That's usually the best way scientists gain knowledge.
Philosophers? All we have is critical thinking. And we dial it up to the max. And we never get a solid determination--like the scientists-- so the last question (What conclusions are most reasonable?) is of the utmost importance. BTW, I got those questions from my favorite psychology professor. They aren't really associated with philosophy. But I thought they captured critical thinking pretty well, so I argue that they work as a good definition of it.
Abstraction is something philosophers do because they are concerned with general (rather than specific) knowledge. It isn't their job. Neither is it their wheelhouse. It's something they do (almost reflexively) to get that nugget of general knowledge from whatever specific knowledge is being discussed.
I'd say logic is key to philosophy. Mathematics maybe. Some people say that math is pure logic ultimately. If they are right, then, math is key to philosophy. Plato thought that mathematics was central -- and indispensable-- to philosophy. But plenty of philosophers disagree with him. Language is something philosophers analyze. To call it a primary focus? I'm not sure. I'd want to hear more about what you mean by that.
Philosophy is all about questions. Questions are (almost) more important to a philosopher than answers. Rene Descartes is not a great philosopher because of the answer he provided to the mind/body problem. (People have utterly destroyed him on that.) He is a great philosopher because of the questions he asked.

I think that we are in basic agreement here. My main premise is that Philosophy and Science are all the same thing. Human beings asking fundamental questions about anything and everything. I see science in very basic terms. To me science is asking and trying to answer these questions while actively attempting to mitigate human fallibility in the investigative process. I do not see the same type of mitigation requirement in traditional Philosophy. There is heavy reliance and confidence in innate intuition which is anathema to trying to mitigate human fallibility.

I do see a need for specialization in critical thinking and the abstract systems of thought necessary to carry that out. I think this role is filled by modern philosophy. I just wish traditional philosophy could fall by the wayside and be treated in a historical perspective instead of an actively viable knowledge pursuit. You may (vigorously?) disagree.

I don't have a problem with folks specializing in asking questions, but I do expect someone to try and actually answer them, otherwise, what is the point. Things need to be resolved and answered, or we are just hamsters running frantically in a hamster wheel and getting nowhere.

I do want to say (concerning demarcation) that there is no place that "science ends and philosophy begins." Things aren't that tidy. As I mentioned before, there is overlap between disciplines. Demarcation is about the limits of a discipline. "Where physics ends," as far as what it can explain. "Where biology ends as far as what it can explain." There is overlap between chemistry and biology. No clear "demarcation line" separates biology from chemistry. But there is a line where biology ends. There is a line where chemistry ends. Where is that line?

Exactly. This is what I am saying. It is all the same thing. Human beings trying learn about and understand everything. What is critical is understanding our fallibility and taking that into account. Without that, the needs, wants, and desires of the investigator cloud impartiality, which impairs objectivity, which ultimately impedes progress in actually answering the questions we are asking.

Our categorization of the world is an abstraction that is useful to us in looking at the world in small chunks at a time, but in the end, it all has to come back together in a coherent functioning whole.

I think I agree with this. But I welcome lengthy Popper quotes and further discussion. I don't think this determination is the nail in the coffin for metaphysics or anything. Synthetic knowledge is only one kind of knowledge, after all.

And here is where the danger lies. We have reality, all that is real and physically existent, and we have our mental processes, which function with abstract systems that contain abstract constructs used to label phenomena, their properties, and the rules of relationship between phenomena. We have the capacity to think and talk about real things, bounded by the rules of nature, but we also have the infinite ability to mix and match properties, mentally experiment, and create constructs that do not exist and constructs that are impossible to exist in reality. This is what demarcation provides. It allows us to keep track of when we are in the bounds of reality and when we are outside of it, in pure thought or imagination that no longer maps to reality. We need to keep track or we are lost. Just because we can think it does not make it true.
You are right to say that synthetic knowledge is not the only type, but we must remain aware when our abstractions no longer speak of reality.

I don't like that definition of philosophy. I would argue that philosophy's mandate is to ask (and attempt to answer) important or fundamental questions. I'm not saying my definition is better. But I have problems with this one.

I knew you wouldn't.

As I have said, its all the same to me. If Philosophy is to ask and answer important or fundamental questions, that is fine as long as it adheres to principles and standards that mitigate the fallibility of the human investigator. Would you agree with that?

We can also include physics. Google "Einstein on imagination" and see what he has to say about the matter. We need imagination, even unbridled imagination sometimes, to break out of an existing paradigm.

I agree whole-heartedly that imagination is critical to all knowledge pursuits. To my mind, our exploration is not only about discovering what is in the world and its properties and rules of relationship, but also the discovery of what is possible once we have developed that understanding. That mental imagining of mixing and matching our constructs to see what might be possible and attempt to make it a reality. But it remains imagination, speculation, or hypothesis until such time as it is demonstrated, until it has been tested.

It has been tackled empirically. And I think a few significant discoveries have been made in neuroscience. Working from memory, a neuroscientist determined that "choice" is made (according to neural scans) a few seconds before we become conscious that we've made that choice. It far from settles the issue, but it is a genuine piece of information that seems to favor determinism. We can delve into that one if you want as well.

To be honest, I haven't given free will much thought. I am increasingly of the opinion that we underestimate the overall influence our instinctual behaviors play in our every day actions and in the expression of our personalities. Whoever we are, we are the expression of our unique pattern of interlinked neurons and the summation of our experiences.

Feel free to post passages that you want to work through or use to argue your ideas. I haven't read that particular book, but I trust that Popper has done some good thinking about demarcation whatever the case.

That is a very kind offer. Thank you.

As with every discipline, there are technical terms and concepts used specific to the discipline, and unless one has come up through the discipline, there is some extra work involved for the novice (myself) learning the discipline specific meaning and standard usage of those words, or if the author is using them in a slightly different sense, how it is different from the disciplines traditional usage.

 

[MikeF]

Eastern philosophy is also a thing. Even (lesser known) African and Native American philosophy. ...
It has been tackled empirically. And I think a few significant discoveries have been made in neuroscience. Working from memory, a neuroscientist determined that "choice" is made (according to neural scans) a few seconds before we become conscious that we've made that choice. It far from settles the issue, but it is a genuine piece of information that seems to favor determinism. We can delve into that one if you want as well.

As a follow-on to my post #87, I just had someone use Plato to support their argument for the existence of ideals. Link. "5 Planes of Existence".

I just thought it funny to have an anecdotal example so soon after I made the claim that no philosophy ever dies once it has been created.

 

[vulcanlogician]

We have (just in Western philosophy) Monism, Dualism, Platonism, Neoplatonism, Rationalism, Idealism (German and British), Existentialism, Continental, Pragmatism, etc., and each generation still seems to see support for all of it. I know I am speaking in sweeping generalizations, but still, you can go on a Philosophy forum and find people arguing the ideas of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche etc without any 21st century perspective and criticism.

Let's consider dualism and monism. Most people think that one is right and the other is wrong. The same could be said of theories concerning free will. We have three major ones that contemporary philosophers still wrestle with: Libertarianism (free will exists and we have it). Determinism* (free will cannot exist because the universe is deterministic) -and- compatibilism (free will exists, even in a deterministic universe).

Let's assume from the outset that one of these theories is true, and the other two are false. Pretty safe assumption, methinks, because they are fairly well-developed and comprehensive theories. Now. Do we really need to "come to a consensus" on which one is correct? And more importantly, if we did come to a consensus, does that necessarily indicate that we are right?

Libertarians, determinists, and compatibilists aren't enemies. They are allies in the quest for true determinations. They work together to reveal what's real, and being too involved in one, is one's detriment... as a truth-seeker. One has decided when one shouldn't have decided. These theories compete because it isn't clear what the truth is. These "opposing" theories work together to find something out. And if they weren't opposed, nothing would be different.

* Few philosophers argue determinism in contemporary metaphysics because determinism has been disproven by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Rather, contemporary philosophers argue "hard incompatibilism"-- which does not posit a deterministic universe. A hard incompatibilist maintains that free will cannot exist in our universe because the laws of nature determine everything that happens. So called "choices" are like every other natural event. They are caused by prior states and events.

 

[MikeF]

Let's consider dualism and monism. Most people think that one is right and the other is wrong. The same could be said of theories concerning free will. We have three major ones that contemporary philosophers still wrestle with: Libertarianism (free will exists and we have it). Determinism* (free will cannot exist because the universe is deterministic) -and- compatibilism (free will exists, even in a deterministic universe).

Let's assume from the outset that one of these theories is true, and the other two are false. Pretty safe assumption, methinks, because they are fairly well-developed and comprehensive theories. Now. Do we really need to "come to a consensus" on which one is correct? And more importantly, if we did come to a consensus, does that necessarily indicate that we are right?

Libertarians, determinists, and compatibilists aren't enemies. They are allies in the quest for true determinations. They work together to reveal what's real, and being too involved in one, is one's detriment... as a truth-seeker. One has decided when one shouldn't have decided. These theories compete because it isn't clear what the truth is. These "opposing" theories work together to find something out. And if they weren't opposed, nothing would be different.

* Few philosophers argue determinism in contemporary metaphysics because determinism has been disproven by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Rather, contemporary philosophers argue "hard incompatibilism"-- which does not posit a deterministic universe. A hard incompatibilist maintains that free will cannot exist in our universe because the laws of nature determine everything that happens. So called "choices" are like every other natural event. They are caused by prior states and events.

Do Philosophers ever come to the conclusion "There is simply insufficient information and there is just no way for us to know. It is currently unknown."?

Quick survey of Monism vs Dualism, and it is all simply speculation to my mind. Philosophers coming up with answers based on woefully inadequate information. Based on Physics, Substance Monism seems to have been the best guess.

And indeed, how can one make any claims about the mind-body dualism without a full understanding of how the human body functions, especially the central nervous system. Shouldn't any modern thinker simply defer to the biological sciences and wait until questions of how the CNS functions are actually settled before Philosophizing on the mind? And even if they are keeping abreast of the science, they are no different from the scientists in the field making their own hypotheses and theories, right?

I know. We are not going to just sit around and wait, we are going to speculate, try and anticipate, to imagine how it all comes together. But I feel that all this speculation is taken way too seriously. I know, it my biased perspective.

I think the free will debate suffers from the same problem, we just don't know enough to make a meaningful determination. We don't know enough about the physics of the cosmos and we certainly do not know enough about how we human beings function. Free will is more than what the universe will allow, it is also what is possible or restricted by the biology.

I see all these issues as scientific ones, not philosophical ones. Is there something I am fundamentally missing?

 

[MikeF]

Let's consider dualism and monism. Most people think that one is right and the other is wrong. The same could be said of theories concerning free will. We have three major ones that contemporary philosophers still wrestle with: Libertarianism (free will exists and we have it). Determinism* (free will cannot exist because the universe is deterministic) -and- compatibilism (free will exists, even in a deterministic universe).

Let's assume from the outset that one of these theories is true, and the other two are false. Pretty safe assumption, methinks, because they are fairly well-developed and comprehensive theories. Now. Do we really need to "come to a consensus" on which one is correct? And more importantly, if we did come to a consensus, does that necessarily indicate that we are right?

Libertarians, determinists, and compatibilists aren't enemies. They are allies in the quest for true determinations. They work together to reveal what's real, and being too involved in one, is one's detriment... as a truth-seeker. One has decided when one shouldn't have decided. These theories compete because it isn't clear what the truth is. These "opposing" theories work together to find something out. And if they weren't opposed, nothing would be different.

* Few philosophers argue determinism in contemporary metaphysics because determinism has been disproven by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Rather, contemporary philosophers argue "hard incompatibilism"-- which does not posit a deterministic universe. A hard incompatibilist maintains that free will cannot exist in our universe because the laws of nature determine everything that happens. So called "choices" are like every other natural event. They are caused by prior states and events.

Would it be fair to say much of Western Philosophy has been centered around meeting religious expectations? (after the Greeks, say 1st century CE)

 

[vulcanlogician]

Would it be fair to say much of Western Philosophy has been centered around meeting religious expectations? (after the Greeks, say 1st century CE)

No. That would not be fair. These "expectations" are something often imposed on philosophy from outsiders. Those who enjoy the tidy, reliable answers like science gives us insist that philosophy ought to be able to furnish us with those kind of answers about reality. Philosophy can't do that.

Religious people often have their own "expectations" of philosophy. They either want the sort of pre-packaged "truthisms" from philosophy that their religions provide them... or, in more degenerate cases, they want philosophy to serve the interests of their particular worldview or religious dogma. If philosophers are uncertain of something, that's the religious man's cue to step in and say how God's existence answers that question. Philosophy is not in the business of placating religious sensibilities. Quite the opposite.

The truth is, you shouldn't have any expectations of philosophy. Philosophy isn't there to give you something. Philosophy is there to take something away from you. Namely, your certainty. It is a discipline whereby parties who are uncertain (to some degree) about reality can come together and discuss competing theories. In the Western tradition, we adhere to logic. In Eastern traditions the efficacy of logic is often questioned. (An oversimplification there, since Eastern philosophy can be logical sometimes and even the Western tradition stops to question logic on occasion.)

I always read the pamphlets that Jehovah's Witnesses leave me with when they visit my house. A great deal of them of them purport to provide the reader with an answer to the question: "What is the meaning of life?"

Interesting question, as far as I'm concerned. Nietzsche has some pretty good replies. These JW pamphlets, however, fail to come close to the insight that Nietzsche was able to suss out. I've found these pamphlets to be philosophically bankrupt. More interested in providing a "pet answer" to questions of life's meaning than genuinely exploring the question.

And speaking of Nietzsche:

What goads us into regarding all philosophers with an equal measure of
mistrust and mockery is not that we are struck repeatedly by how innocent
they are – how often and easily they err and stray, in short, their childish
childlikeness – but rather that there is not enough genuine honesty about
them: even though they all make a huge, virtuous racket as soon as the
problem of truthfulness is even remotely touched upon. They all act as if
they had discovered and arrived at their genuine convictions through the
self-development of a cold, pure, divinely insouciant dialectic... while what
essentially happens is that they take a conjecture, a whim, an “inspiration” or, more
typically, they take some fervent wish that they have sifted through and
made properly abstract – and they defend it with rationalizations after
the fact. They are all advocates who do not want to be seen as such; for
the most part, in fact, they are sly spokesmen for prejudices that they
christen as “truths” – and very far indeed from the courage of conscience
that confesses to this fact, this very fact; and very far from having the good
taste of courage that also lets this be known, perhaps to warn a friend or
foe, or out of a high-spirited attempt at self-satire

This quote echos your concerns about philosophy, that philosophy has both moral and religion-like prejudices. I think this criticism should be taken seriously. Because our prejudices (just as often as our truths) can prompt us to stand on a soapbox and start speaking. Philosophers often criticize and question the usefulness of philosophy. But (just between you and me) the fact that they do this makes me trust them even more. It's not like Nietzsche's criticisms are weaksauce. IMO, he doesn't pull any punches in the above excerpt. "Philosophers are confused, covetous people with agendas." It's even something that I might count as downright slander were there not a kernel of truth to the matter. But I've always found philosophers were better at calling that kernel of truth out to trial, than scientists, dogmatists, and other non-philosophers.

Another great thinker (and critic of philosophy) Karl Marx once said, "Philosophers have hitherto interpreted the world. The point is to change it." Especially in my youth, this quote struck me as right on point. But there's an issue. How do I know HOW to change the world without having accurately interpreted it in the first place? And, furthermore, I'd argue that Marx himself was a full-on philosopher who spent 80% of his texts analyzing and critiquing (aka interpreting) the realities of the economic world. He's right to point out that the ultimate goal is to positively change the world. He's wrong in thinking this goal is antipodal to interpretation of the world. It's plain to see that philosophers (Plato is a great example) have always been interested in changing the world for the better. They just prioritized a correct interpretation of the world before resolving plans to change it.

John Locke's philosophy has certainly "changed the world".... but "correct interpretation of the world" was his first goal, and "changing the world for the better" was a secondary goal. Marx has a lot of great ideas, and (as far as I can tell) correct interpretations of the world. Where I disagree with Marx is that changing the world is somehow a greater imperative than interpreting it. You need to understand first... then change it.

Do Philosophers ever come to the conclusion "There is simply insufficient information and there is just no way for us to know. It is currently unknown."?

YES! That's what they do best.

"The only thing I know is that I do not know." --Socrates.

Saying "I do not know x" is the primary business of philosophers. Explaining how we don't know something is emphasized more than advancing claims of what we do know in most philosophy.

 

[MikeF]

No. That would not be fair. These "expectations" are something often imposed on philosophy from outsiders. Those who enjoy the tidy, reliable answers like science gives us insist that philosophy ought to be able to furnish us with those kind of answers about reality. Philosophy can't do that.

Religious people often have their own "expectations" of philosophy. They either want the sort of pre-packaged "truthisms" from philosophy that their religions provide them... or, in more degenerate cases, they want philosophy to serve the interests of their particular worldview or religious dogma. If philosophers are uncertain of something, that's the religious man's cue to step in and say how God's existence answers that question. Philosophy is not in the business of placating religious sensibilities. Quite the opposite.

The truth is, you shouldn't have any expectations of philosophy. Philosophy isn't there to give you something. Philosophy is there to take something away from you. Namely, your certainty. It is a discipline whereby parties who are uncertain (to some degree) about reality can come together and discuss competing theories. In the Western tradition, we adhere to logic. In Eastern traditions the efficacy of logic is often questioned. (An oversimplification there, since Eastern philosophy can be logical sometimes and even the Western tradition stops to question logic on occasion.)

I always read the pamphlets that Jehovah's Witnesses leave me with when they visit my house. A great deal of them of them purport to provide the reader with an answer to the question: "What is the meaning of life?"

Interesting question, as far as I'm concerned. Nietzsche has some pretty good replies. These JW pamphlets, however, fail to come close to the insight that Nietzsche was able to suss out. I've found these pamphlets to be philosophically bankrupt. More interested in providing a "pet answer" to questions of life's meaning than genuinely exploring the question.

And speaking of Nietzsche:

What goads us into regarding all philosophers with an equal measure of
mistrust and mockery is not that we are struck repeatedly by how innocent
they are – how often and easily they err and stray, in short, their childish
childlikeness – but rather that there is not enough genuine honesty about
them: even though they all make a huge, virtuous racket as soon as the
problem of truthfulness is even remotely touched upon. They all act as if
they had discovered and arrived at their genuine convictions through the
self-development of a cold, pure, divinely insouciant dialectic... while what
essentially happens is that they take a conjecture, a whim, an “inspiration” or, more
typically, they take some fervent wish that they have sifted through and
made properly abstract – and they defend it with rationalizations after
the fact. They are all advocates who do not want to be seen as such; for
the most part, in fact, they are sly spokesmen for prejudices that they
christen as “truths” – and very far indeed from the courage of conscience
that confesses to this fact, this very fact; and very far from having the good
taste of courage that also lets this be known, perhaps to warn a friend or
foe, or out of a high-spirited attempt at self-satire

This quote echos your concerns about philosophy, that philosophy has both moral and religion-like prejudices. I think this criticism should be taken seriously. Because our prejudices (just as often as our truths) can prompt us to stand on a soapbox and start speaking. Philosophers often criticize and question the usefulness of philosophy. But (just between you and me) the fact that they do this makes me trust them even more. It's not like Nietzsche's criticisms are weaksauce. IMO, he doesn't pull any punches in the above excerpt. "Philosophers are confused, covetous people with agendas." It's even something that I might count as downright slander were there not a kernel of truth to the matter. But I've always found philosophers were better at calling that kernel of truth out to trial, than scientists, dogmatists, and other non-philosophers.

Another great thinker (and critic of philosophy) Karl Marx once said, "Philosophers have hitherto interpreted the world. The point is to change it." Especially in my youth, this quote struck me as right on point. But there's an issue. How do I know HOW to change the world without having accurately interpreted it in the first place? And, furthermore, I'd argue that Marx himself was a full-on philosopher who spent 80% of his texts analyzing and critiquing (aka interpreting) the realities of the economic world. He's right to point out that the ultimate goal is to positively change the world. He's wrong in thinking this goal is antipodal to interpretation of the world. It's plain to see that philosophers (Plato is a great example) have always been interested in changing the world for the better. They just prioritized a correct interpretation of the world before resolving plans to change it.

John Locke's philosophy has certainly "changed the world".... but "correct interpretation of the world" was his first goal, and "changing the world for the better" was a secondary goal. Marx has a lot of great ideas, and (as far as I can tell) correct interpretations of the world. Where I disagree with Marx is that changing the world is somehow a greater imperative than interpreting it. You need to understand first... then change it.



YES! That's what they do best.

"The only thing I know is that I do not know." --Socrates.

Saying "I do not know x" is the primary business of philosophers. Explaining how we don't know something is emphasized more than advancing claims of what we do know in most philosophy.

It is nice to see that I'm in good company in my critique of Philosophy.

You have convinced me that I need to ease up on Philosophy. This divide between science and philosophy has grown organically and both are evolving to continue to meet particular needs. I value imagination and think that it is critical to advancing our understanding of the cosmos. There is a requirement to "thinking outside the box" as the cliché goes, especially in science, but I see the value in exploring what appears impossible. For me, however, we must not treat our speculative musings as actual knowledge until such time as it is confirmed in some way.

Would you consider literary fiction as Philosophy? It seems to me, literary fiction, in many ways, is the creation of thought experiments regarding the human condition. It not only evaluates what *is* in terms of the human condition, but also explores what may be possible. Just a thought.

 

[Ella S.]

I'm pretty much in total agreement with you. Generally speaking, I'm disillusioned with religious ideas. But I'm also pretty bored and dissatisfied with logical positivism. I think it's worth exploring man's religious capacities. If anything just to prove, once and for all, that there's nothing there to be found knowledge-wise.

I remain pretty interested in naturalistic religious ideas... what they do and don't have in common with traditional religious ideas. Where exactly the distinctions lie is interesting to me.

Interesting that you say "when mysticism turns out to be genuinely useful we call it psychology." I think it's worth exploring the question "Is mysticism useful?" Because if it is, then we have every reason to employ it as a tool in our toolbox as something that benefits our lives.

Spoiler

As James writes: " We shall see how infinitely passionate a thing religion at its highest flights can be. Like love, like wrath, like hope, ambition, jealousy, like every other instinctive eagerness and impulse, it adds to life an enchantment which is not rationally or logically deducible from anything else. This enchantment, coming as a gift when it does come,—a gift of our organism, the physiologists will tell us, a gift of God's grace, the theologians say,—is either there or not there for us, and there are persons who can no more become possessed by it than they can fall in love with a given woman by mere word of command. Religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to the Subject's range of life. It gives him a new sphere of power. When the outward battle is lost, and the outer world disowns him, it redeems and vivifies an interior world which otherwise would be an empty waste."
The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

Why not employ mysticism where we can? Especially if it does not contradict fact?

Is there nothing to pronounce holy in a godless universe?

The godless universe has creative power. It is the source of all the people we love, all our experiences, all things that have touched our hearts, moved us, all our joys, sorrows, and ecstasies. Stood one beside the other the godless universe might even be a greater god than the tribal god of the Israelites. So why not say so?

Now, I don't think someone should go around insisting that others call the universe "God" or "holy." That's not it. But at the same time, I feel it's reasonable if a person sees the universe that way. Not in a "that's their preference" kind of way. There are genuine, objective reasons to see things that way.

I think it is possible that one finds meaning in mystical language and in venerating the natural universe itself. As far as I am able to ascertain, meaning seems to mostly be emotional and subjective. Even if I tried to tell someone what they should and shouldn't find meaningful, I am essentially just validating or condemning their feelings at that point.

There's a chance that such a reaction could change their values, but I am not really interested in what other people value, I don't think. In essence, I do not value the values of others. That sometimes wounds their subjective evaluation of me, but this is toothless given the aforementioned statement.

Likewise, even if a philosopher or a handful of philosophers group together to produce convincing rhetorical appeals to emotion about what I should value, I genuinely don't give their opinions any merit, either. I already know what I value and I'm not going to change that just because other people think I should.

I will say that I don't find value in mysticism or pantheism. Other people might. I don't think I need it. For me, it would be extra baggage. I did play around with them for awhile as a Neo-Sethian, but ultimately I realized that they were unnecessary.

Since then, I've just been looking for a better term for my actual values. Utilitarianism? Welfarism? Functionalism? Socratic intellectualism? Stoicism? Perhaps a form of Existentialism, since I have decided to follow my own meaning and construct my own purpose?

I doubt that, because it seems that many Existentialists place limits on the kinds of meanings and purposes one should be allowed to form. Perhaps that makes me a nihilist or at least an ethical non-cognitivist?

I think, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Any label I choose will have its own unique baggage associated with it, none of which actively helps me achieve anything that I want to do. I can see why so many people self-label only as "nonreligious" or "atheist."

 

[MikeF]

IMO

...
Any label ... will have its own unique baggage associated with it.
...

I strongly share this sentiment. It is certainly impossible, in my view, for a single label and its associated definition to take in the full complexity of reality, and will therefore always fall short in some fashion. In addition, as language evolves and ideas evolve, the meaning of a label can change over time, yet can be used with present or historical meanings.

...
I am not really interested in what other people value, I don't think.
...

If I was a hermit an never saw another soul, I would share this view. However, that I interact with many, many people in a large society, I am definitely interested in the rules we develop to regulate or mediate those interactions. I don't think we necessarily consider rules as values, but they can be. What compels interest in the values of others is that those values inform their views and support for group rules that affect everyone in the group. It is in this way that the values of others can be necessarily and directly important to me.

 

[vulcanlogician]

It is nice to see that I'm in good company in my critique of Philosophy.

You have convinced me that I need to ease up on Philosophy....

I thought you were being pretty fair from the outset. Not too far into the debate you proposed classifying science and philosophy as knowledge-seeking enterprises (or something similar). At the end of the day, I pretty much agree with you. I also concede, as do nearly all contemporary philosophers (around 99.9% of them) that science is better than philosophy at making determinations about nature. Natural philosophers did okay for the 24 or so centuries that they tried their hand at understanding nature. But everyone has to admit that logic and debate (without experimentation) is not the best way to understand nature.

Natural philosophers made observations and wrote them down. A lot of sciences (like astronomy) still hold to that model today. Because of the philosophy's history, and my personal love of philosophy, used to go around saying that philosophy "birthed the sciences." But I've since found that to be overstated. The scientific method is more a 16th century invention. Aside from containing elements of the Socratic method, it is a different animal than philosophy.

I value imagination and think that it is critical to advancing our understanding of the cosmos. There is a requirement to "thinking outside the box" as the cliché goes, especially in science, but I see the value in exploring what appears impossible. For me, however, we must not treat our speculative musings as actual knowledge until such time as it is confirmed in some way.

The thing is, I do endorse the idea that everyone should learn some philosophy in high school and/or college. Not studying ancient and modern thinkers (as I like) but rather maybe logic and ethics. On twitter, you have tons of people calling each other out for logical fallacies. Everyone's a philosopher these days. With that being the case, perhaps they should get some proper training. (shrug?)

It couldn't hurt...

Would you consider literary fiction as Philosophy? It seems to me, literary fiction, in many ways, is the creation of thought experiments regarding the human condition. It not only evaluates what *is* in terms of the human condition, but also explores what may be possible. Just a thought.

Literature deals with the human condition, yes. So it has that in common with philosophy. But it doesn't have the same methodology as philosophy. Philosophy is a collection of arguments or truth statements, usually meant to be conveyed in the clearest way possible*. If a philosophy is unclear or not objectively true, these count as strikes against it. Not so in literature. Literature can make it's "point" by being obscure and using appeals to emotion... even complete breaks from logic. Aside from some overlap in subject matter and concerns... they are separate disciplines.

Continental philosophy can be unclear and/or obscure. But many philosophers fault it for that. Generally speaking, philosophers strive to be clear and precise. This is not a trend within "great literature." Think about Ulysses.

 

[MikeF]

With that being the case, perhaps they should get some proper training. (shrug?)

Absolutely agree. I think, given time constraints, many subjects have to be taught in a multi-disciplinary fashion, such that ethics and logic become incorporated into the presentation of other main subject material. In addition, not everyone, my self included, is going to go far in mathematic and logic, for multiple reasons. The hope is that everyone leaves High School with some critical thinking tools and a bit of reasoned skepticism to whatever they are presented.

Literature deals with the human condition, yes. So it has that in common with philosophy. But it doesn't have the same methodology as philosophy. Philosophy is a collection of arguments or truth statements, usually meant to be conveyed in the clearest way possible*. If a philosophy is unclear or not objectively true, these count as strikes against it. Not so in literature. Literature can make it's "point" by being obscure and using appeals to emotion... even complete breaks from logic. Aside from some overlap in subject matter and concerns... they are separate disciplines.

Continental philosophy can be unclear and/or obscure. But many philosophers fault it for that. Generally speaking, philosophers strive to be clear and precise. This is not a trend within "great literature." Think about Ulysses.

Nicely differentiated. Thanks!

 

[vulcanlogician]

I think it is possible that one finds meaning in mystical language and in venerating the natural universe itself. As far as I am able to ascertain, meaning seems to mostly be emotional and subjective. Even if I tried to tell someone what they should and shouldn't find meaningful, I am essentially just validating or condemning their feelings at that point.

For me it depends on what is meant by "veneration." If someone is burning incense and saying prayers to the universe, that seems a little silly to me. But soaking the universe up with the senses, understanding it through math and science, and appreciating the fact that it is there... these seem like reasonable things to do.

I'd never try to sell anyone on the "fact" of pantheism. But I do enjoy to making passionate speeches on its behalf, mostly due to the (somewhat negative) popular perceptions of it. Dawkins calling it "sexed up atheism"... stuff like that. I have a soft spot for underappreciated ideas.

Since then, I've just been looking for a better term for my actual values. Utilitarianism? Welfarism? Functionalism? Socratic intellectualism? Stoicism? Perhaps a form of Existentialism, since I have decided to follow my own meaning and construct my own purpose?

I never got to into Sartre, Heidegger, and the like. But I do enjoy Nietzsche, and Buber. Not sure if it is their existentialism-ness... or some other aspect of their thinking. Do you like Camus at all?

As for welfarism... I'm not overly familiar with it. I'm fairly acquainted with utilitarianism, though. One of my favorite questions to explore is "What is good?" What are some things you find compelling about welfarism? How does it stack up against, say, hedonism? Or desire satisfaction? Anything you find dissatisfying about welfarism(ie. logical weaknesses)?

 

[Ella S.]

For me it depends on what is meant by "veneration." If someone is burning incense and saying prayers to the universe, that seems a little silly to me. But soaking the universe up with the senses, understanding it through math and science, and appreciating the fact that it is there... these seem like reasonable things to do.

I'd never try to sell anyone on the "fact" of pantheism. But I do enjoy to making passionate speeches on its behalf, mostly due to the (somewhat negative) popular perceptions of it. Dawkins calling it "sexed up atheism"... stuff like that. I have a soft spot for underappreciated ideas.

I think that would count as veneration.

Actually, I might even say that I do not find the idea of of burning incense and talking to the universe as if it were conscious to be silly, at least no more silly than some other practices that therapists recommend like writing letters to one's past self or talking to an empty chair as if your ex was sitting in it. I can see reasons why such a practice could be quite positive for some people, but it is simply not one that I feel to compelled towards.

I never got to into Sartre, Heidegger, and the like. But I do enjoy Nietzsche, and Buber. Not sure if it is their existentialism-ness... or some other aspect of their thinking. Do you like Camus at all?

I like some of Camus. In my opinion, "we must imagine Sisyphus happy" is perhaps one of the wisest statements made by mankind, at least out of all of the philosophy and religious literature that I've read. I think it gets to the heart of the human experience in a way nobody else really had before him. Perhaps that's just because it lines up with my human experience, though.

As for welfarism... I'm not overly familiar with it. I'm fairly acquainted with utilitarianism, though. One of my favorite questions to explore is "What is good?" What are some things you find compelling about welfarism? How does it stack up against, say, hedonism? Or desire satisfaction? Anything you find dissatisfying about welfarism(ie. logical weaknesses)?

Utilitarianism is often a form of Welfarism, since Welfarism is the prioritization of well-being. Actually, many people conflate Welfarism with Utilitarianism.

The issue I see with hedonism and desire satisfaction, in comparison, is that I try to ground my ethics in evolution, similar to how Socrates sees the soul as the foundation of our moral intuition or Aristotle sees our natural telos as the foundation of ethics. I actually think that evolution has demonstrated that our moral intuitions really are grounded in the objective, real phenomenon of biological adaptation.

In that sense, while I recognize that we are hard-wired to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, I think this is surface-level. Under that surface, the reason we are hard-wired to pursue pleasure and avoid pain is because it helps us survive and reproduce. In an era where we can experience a variety of pleasures that might even be harmful to us, I don't think it's adaptive to merely pursue pleasure anymore.

Welfarism has the solution of focusing on well-being, but the reason I no longer identify as a Welfarist is because the term is vague. Some Welfarists are Hedonic Utilitarians, for instance, which is precisely what I am trying to avoid with the term to begin with. However, good health increases lifespan and fertility, so perhaps something like Healthism would be more accurate.

The underlying problem is that I see physiological needs as important, but I see personal wants and pleasure to be wholly unimportant except insofar as it affects physiological health. Admittedly, being miserable does harm your physical health, but, as Nietzsche himself points out, suffering is often healthy and a part of growth, too.

At the end of the day, however, there is one fundamental problem with evolutionary ethics: the is-ought gap. Just because I can describe what is good according to evolution, and how other ethical systems ultimately derive from distorted forms of our flawed moral intuition, that still does not mean that I have a reason why one should follow evolutionary ethics. There are still other models of "right" and "wrong" that humans have developed, and all I can meaningfully say about them is that they disagree with the evolutionary model, not that one should prefer to follow the evolutionary approach.

That's another one of my issues with Welfarism. It frequently claims to be a form of ethical realism, but it fails to bridge that is-ought gap, in my opinion, which also means that there is no logical reason to prefer consequentialism in general to principalism.

Instead, all we have to go off of is personal bias, which I used to find disturbing and unsatisfying. However, I also realize that valuing any action over any other action, or even logic itself, is something that has to come from outside of logic. Those are going to deal with the emotional drives of an individual, almost necessarily. Existentialism understands that we create our own purpose through the act of living, imbuing meaning into our choices manually, and that I find some satisfaction in.

Many Rationalists have argued in favor of Utilitarianism and evolutionary ethics, because they think it is rational to believe that one should do what is good, even if that imperative cannot be logically proven. I am not quite sure that the implication is true that it is irrational to do what one knows is bad, though. It reminds me of how Vulcans in Star Trek erroneously refer to their consequentialism as "a logical philosophy."

However, the Stoics did view their ethics as in-line with the Logos, essentially a form of Pantheism that believed in a pervasive "reason" which emanated the universe, causing its apparent structure and order. Given how Vulcan philosophy is mostly an exaggerated form of alien Stoicism, I think this makes some sense, with Stoic philosophers themselves talking about the "logical use" of things "according to their nature." In this sense, I do think evolutionary ethics could be called "a logical philosophy," although I think that is a bit misleading.

 

[Ella S.]

I thought you were being pretty fair from the outset. Not too far into the debate you proposed classifying science and philosophy as knowledge-seeking enterprises (or something similar). At the end of the day, I pretty much agree with you. I also concede, as do nearly all contemporary philosophers (around 99.9% of them) that science is better than philosophy at making determinations about nature. Natural philosophers did okay for the 24 or so centuries that they tried their hand at understanding nature. But everyone has to admit that logic and debate (without experimentation) is not the best way to understand nature.

Natural philosophers made observations and wrote them down. A lot of sciences (like astronomy) still hold to that model today. Because of the philosophy's history, and my personal love of philosophy, used to go around saying that philosophy "birthed the sciences." But I've since found that to be overstated. The scientific method is more a 16th century invention. Aside from containing elements of the Socratic method, it is a different animal than philosophy.

I have a bit to add to this discussion, perhaps a bit of disagreement.

To me, I see observation as a priori, not a posteriori, because it exists within the mind. I think we can imply that our observations reflect an external world through reason, but I think empiricism isn't correct to sort of assume the existence of this external world axiomatically. For all I know, I could be in the Matrix right now, and everyone else could be a highly-advanced AI.

I think the concept of experimentation, or testing in general, is actually much older than the 16th century. I see the major breakthrough in science as Karl Popper's theory of falsification, which directly answered Logical Positivism's verification principle.

Falsification is a rather new concept, coming from the 20th century. Before then, I would argue that there was not much to distinguish "scientism" and the "men of science" as they were once called from the natural philosophers, except for the fact that they were closely tied to the secularism of Enlightenment philosophy.

I would also say that falsification is still a logical concept, and ultimately that science itself is subordinate to logic.

Part of this comes from the fact that the "scientific method" is a vague term that has had several different, contradictory attempts at codifying it over the years, and it is only relatively recently that there has been some agreement about what it refers to. The Logical Positivists thought their approach was the scientific method, for instance.

I think it might be better to view science as a form of applied Post-Enlightenment epistemology, rather than some specific invention or rigid formulation.