A colossal accident?

[warpspeedpetey]

…‘Experience/perception is the only way to verify claims made about perceptible reality’…

I just asked if this what you meant. Its called the verification criterion of meaning. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verificationism
**

Verificationism

is the view that a statement or question is only legitimate if there is some way to determine whether the statement is true or false, or what the answer to the question is. **

It self refutes as well. The next step is to Poppers falsificationism which also self refutes, and then everybody pretty much took Russell’s point to heart and that was the end of those jokers.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

P.S. Read #166, there is the difference between my position and empiricism laid bare.

It’s not, your just following the same path of reasoning that led to the failure of the empiric schools.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

warpspeedpetey;8160816:

Yes indeed. Are you going to disavow the connection between the act of knowing and the result of having knowledge?

I am pointing out that you did not post the definition of the word you have been using and posted a different word. Not that it matters because it doesn’t change what “knowledge” means, but it does show you are trying to cherry pick meanings to fit your desired belief. I gave all 5 of the meaning in my choice of dictionaries, except “6. Carnal knowledge” as that couldn’t apply. The point being you should use definitions from the actual word you used.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

That is like me removing ‘just’ from Just War and saying that Catholicism has a doctrine promoting war.

that would change the meaning of the phrase. I haven’t done that. If you think different than point out where and how.

Here is an article I’m reading at the moment which will probably educate us both:

ithaca.edu/hs/philrel/defense_of_naive_empiricism.pdf

I have qouted from it already. When you get to the Russell part, let me know.

*If I want to argue with Google, I have a computer too. If you don’t have anything of your own to say why are we talking? I have sit through enough boring dissertation defenses. If you want to use random grad students as sources, you better make sure they have some reputation in the field, or that they are absolutely and obviously right. Anyone can post a paper on the Web.

 

[James1215]

I just asked if this what you meant. Its called the verification criterion of meaning. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verificationism
**

It self refutes as well. The next step is to Poppers falsificationism which also self refutes, and then everybody pretty much took Russell’s point to heart and that was the end of those jokers.**

I’m not saying that one ought to verify, but that if one is going to, one requires the use of evidence.

 

[James1215]

Did you read the title? It is a defense of empiricism!

Mind you, my position I maintain is different

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I’m not saying that one ought to verify, but that if one is going to, one requires the use of evidence.

You just said…
**‘Experience/perception is the only way to verify claims made about perceptible reality’…**Notice how “what you meant” seems to change everytime we point out a problem with what you said?

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Did you read the title? It is a defense of empiricism!..

I know.

 

[Soldier_Of_God]

You just said…
**‘Experience/perception is the only way to verify claims made about perceptible reality’…**Notice how “what you meant” seems to change everytime we point out a problem with what you said?

Perhaps James can provide a definitive position. I sense a fluctuating position as well.

 

[James1215]

I sense a fluctuating position as well.

The force is with you. If one is to verify a statement pertaining to the perceptible world, one needs empirical evidence (like for like). Verification is necessary to know that what you think is true is true - in a literal, tautological sense.

My point is not that people have to make verifiable statements, but that if they do not, they give us no reason to believe.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

…people have to make verifiable statements, but that if they do not, they give us no reason to believe.

Then please verify this statement if you would like us to believe it…wait, you mean there is no way to verify this statement?

If you hold this statement to be true it is necessarily false. Contradiction! Let me save you the trouble and point out the next step is falsification and it suffers the same fate. But go ahead and give it a try.

 

[Soldier_Of_God]

The force is with you.

If one is to verify a statement pertaining to the perceptible world, one needs empirical evidence (like for like). Verification is necessary to know that what you think is true is true - in a literal, tautological sense.

My point is not that people have to make verifiable statements, but that if they do not, they give us no reason to believe.

I have a question then. Would mathematics and other symbolic systems fit into your ‘perceptible’ world? Would they provide evidence? Would they provide validation? Are conclusions drawn from such symbolic systems valid?

 

[James1215]

Then please verify this statement if you would like us to believe it…wait, you mean there is no way to verify this statement?

If you hold this statement to be true it is necessarily false. Contradiction! Let me save you the trouble and point out the next step is falsification and it suffers the same fate. But go ahead and give it a try.

What I said then is tautologically true, it needs no verification. It tells us nothing about the world, rather, it tells us how to tell something about the world.

 

[James1215]

I have a question then. Would mathematics and other symbolic systems fit into your ‘perceptible’ world? Would they provide evidence? Would they provide validation? Are conclusions drawn from such symbolic systems valid?

There’s an analytical/synthetic distinction which I have only recently come across, where apparently some people think that maths falls under the analytical side and is tautological. I think that maths is an abstracted system in which consequences of principles and rules are worked out without regard to observable reality. Nevertheless, I think it takes a human mind grounded in the empirical to start having a grip on abstract concepts and see that they are logical. Ie we have to look at things before numbers of things make sense. As to whether maths developed into the abstract can then tell us about perceptible reality, I think no. I think if we want to know about the empirical we have to start with the empirical.

 

[James1215]

As to why we should care about verification tautologically conceived, I think it comes down purely to the fact that our experience of reality is the only way we experience it, whatever experience includes - maths or not. If this qualification is not added, I have just deemed maths irrelevant because analytical yet kept my position as ok despite the fact that it may also be analytical. More thinking needed on my part.

However, as to the original, does anyone think that we can have knowledge without being able to demonstrate that the knowledge is true? If we have it, is it always and necessarily of the perceptible world? If we have to demonstrate it, how do we do so? If unengaged reason is analytical and analytical is not good enough, what do we have recourse to? If reason alone is adequate, do you have an example of knowledge about the experienced world which is only evidenced by reason?

Saying that empiricism is dogmatic does not remove the need for evidence of some kind for statements, and I think there is no adequate evidence on perceptible reality that does not deal with the empirical.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

What I said then is tautologically true, it needs no verification. It tells us nothing about the world, rather, it tells us how to tell something about the world.

dictionary.reference.com/browse/tautology

**tautology **
3.
Logic .
a.
a compound propositional form all of whose instances are true, as “A or not A.”

If it needs no verification in this instance than it cannot be a tautology by definition because there is an instance in which it is not true. Further logical contradictions are always false. They can never be true by definition .

 

[James1215]

Lol actually, this could be tautologically true, but it might also be possible to verify:

1. The verifiable version: ‘My point is not that people have to make verifiable statements, but that if they do not, they give us no reason to believe.’

2. The tautological version: 'My point is not that people have to make verifiable [testable by perception] statements, but that if they do not, they give us no reason to believe [ie, to perceive].

For verifying:
Any experience of the efficacy of evidence is evidence for the necessity of evidence when combined with experience of the complete lack of evidence. Take the flying spaghetti monster. Do you have any reason to believe He exists?

For tautological version:
Perception is all we’ve got, if we cannot perceive something we cannot comprehend it.

 

[James1215]

dictionary.reference.com/browse/tautology

If it needs no verification in this instance than it cannot be a tautology by definition because there is an instance in which it is not true. Further logical contradictions are always false. They can never be true by definition .

No, it is tautological in that it is self-referential and a closed system. I may have been effectively saying: 'It has to be understandable to be understandable" where verifiable and believable were two parts of the same thing. Like saying that a bachelor has to be single. Well duh you might say, of course that is true, but in what way should something be understandable and why? So that is what I moved on to address.

 

[tonyrey]

1. Truth is a correspondence to reality, and the only reality we have access to is perceptible reality.
2. Where statements are made about this perceptible reality, they are meaningful
3. Statements about perceptible reality require like evidence to be supported. Perceptible evidence is no use to confirm the imperceptible, and vice versa. Evidence therefore has to be from that which is perceptible, ie empirical.

Forgive me for interrupting the discussion but the only reality to which we have **direct **access is our stream of consciousness, i.e. our thoughts, feelings, decisions and perceptions. We infer the existence of physical reality to which we have only indirect access, i.e. through our perceptions. We do not need evidence for our subjective experience!

 

[James1215]

I’m sure this is an important point, Tonyrey, but I do not see the significance yet…