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Soldier_Of_God
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This is indeed spurious reasoning. Empirical evidence has its place. What is being argued is that it does not represent the totality of evidence regarding knowledge and truth.
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James1215
Guest
It’s not spurious at all. Precisely because warpspeedpetey seems to argue that there are other ways of getting knowledge like using reason, they ought to be used. Especially if one has a disagreement with empirical methods.
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warpspeedpetey
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No one has made that claim. Ever.
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
Then you’ve misunderstood his position.
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James1215
Guest
Ok, so we can use empirical evidence and as yet we have no purely reason-based methods of gaining knowledge. If your main objection is the reference to maths, we can deal with that.
Given that the only reality which we have access to and therefore the only one we can have knowledge of, is perceptible reality, how are we to form true statements without empirical evidence? Now would be a good time to state your arguments so that I do not misrepresent them.
Given that the only reality which we have access to and therefore the only one we can have knowledge of, is perceptible reality, how are we to form true statements without empirical evidence? Now would be a good time to state your arguments so that I do not misrepresent them.
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
How about a simple example? We have two cubes; cube A and a cube B. If cube B has a length, width and depth are twice that of cube A, we know absolutely that cube B has 8 times the volume of cube A.
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James1215
Guest
That is knowledge about empirically understood objects. How did you know they were cubes? By measuring them.
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
It’s spurious because that is not and has not ever been the argument we, or all the experts, are making. You asserted a false statement.
I not only argue it, I have demonstrated it many times now.
Yet another spurious argument no one is making.
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
We them to be cubes by their definition. What measurement was done?
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James1215
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Well take some dice, for example. You’d have to measure them to know they were cubes (and not just cuboid).
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
Your analogy is a strawman’s argument. I’m speaking to geometry and have not used an actual object in my example.
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James1215
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Warpspeedpetey, if you think maths can give us knowledge of perceptible reality devoid of empirical evidence, let me in on the secret! As I am showing, it is maths/reason operating on empirically comprehended objects that produces knowledge, not reason alone.
If you think my position of requiring evidence for belief, and therefore perceptible evidence, is contradictory, you need to demonstrate that reason alone works.
If you think my position of requiring evidence for belief, and therefore perceptible evidence, is contradictory, you need to demonstrate that reason alone works.
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James1215
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You have not used an actual object, therefore you have produced no knowledge of perceptible reality. Saying ‘a triangle has three sides’ tells us nothing about the world.
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
That’s not the case. Using geometry tells us about the real world. We know absolutely about how cube volumes and dimensions interoperate. There can never be a real cube that has twice the dimensions if a smaller cube that won’t have eight times the volume. It would be readily accepted as irrefutable evidence of reality without recourse to empirical measurement.
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James1215
Guest
Then there we have it - knowledge from the analysis of physical objects that are in accordance with mathematical rules. It is reason and the empirical combined, once we know what the empirical is. It is another assertion entirely to say that reality must be in accordance with maths, before consulting reality. The Christian apologist William Lane Craig argues that some things in maths actually do not work in reality, like infinity.
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warpspeedpetey
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Of course you can! You just cannot claim a statement is true/meaningful only if it has physical evidence! When you do that, as we, the experts and the historical facts have demonstrated, you are creating a logical contradiction. Hence empiricism as a theory of knowledge is necessarily false.
Dubito, mathematics, and logics, all demonstrate reason without the empirical. You don’t even know if we are experiencing empirical reality or not. Reason is all that you really have. Hence Dubito
You are still using the the words “perceptible” and “reality”. You mean it as in “physical world”, when neither of those words refers solely to the physical world. Use standard terminology. Maybe you should just use standard terminology for epistemic discussions?
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
No we don’t have it. You are presuming that because there is corroboration with empirical evidence means that all evidence ultimately must be empirical in nature. In the *instance *given in my example, we know from the mathematics that a cube has a specific volume ratio without resorting to empirical measurement. The evidence for the given instance is mathematical and not empirical. Ego, we can know about reality and can have knowledge in the absence of empirical measures.
If we use the example of determining the surface area of a sphere, the mathematical principles were developed before any empirical analysis could adequately demonstrate it to be true. Hence, we know the reality of the area of the sphere long before it could be materially shown by empirical evidence. The value of pi could never be empirically derived but it’s utility in engineering is undeniable.
This is just a single person’s conception and not necessarily accepted as fact. Regardless, because some elements of mathematics are not applicable to reality doesn’t mean all elements are not applicable.
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warpspeedpetey
Guest
Measurements do not make cubes, the geometric relations of lines and their angles define a cube. If you want an example with no physical analog, then the mathematicians Hersh and Davis use non-Riemann hypercubes as an example in the book The Mathematical Experience. Further, there are no perfect shapes in nature, our idea of any perfection is always an example of non-empirical reasoning.
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warpspeedpetey
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He asked you about the imaginary cubes, not a physical example of a cube like physical object. Of course I haven’t failed to notice you aren’t bothering to reject our assertions concerning Dubito or the various logics.
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warpspeedpetey
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