Ummm philosophers - depending on their camp - do have an epistemology.Indeed. As an interesting mental game it has its place under the sun.I need to repeat: metaphysics without epistemology is empty speculation. Actually, I am going to make that my signature.
Except they do explain it.
You are setting up a false dichotomy. Take the biology textbook example. Like the calculus class, the terms are defined when they are introduced, and then after that, the author will continue to use them. Philosophers do the same thing. They define terms when they need to, and then they continue to use them and leave it to the reader to remember what they meant.
They do? Of course if oneâs purported âepistemologyâ is dependent upon their âcampâ, then it is another useless, subjective method. An objective, repeatable epistemological method should lead to the same answer, no matter what the questioner might a-priori believe.
Why should one care what those ancient people said? The world has developed since then, and their speculations have been bypassed.
Nope, they do not.
How rude to âshoutâ like a petulant child who cannot grab the attention of adults. The answer is: âNo, there is not such thing as wisdomâ. You earned a spot on my ignore list. Goodbye.
No, I think weâre on the same page here (Iâm not a platonist or an idealist). When I say ârealismâ I mean believing that there exists a world which is independent of any model we can construct to understand and predict our experiences. However, since science is engaged only in the task of building such models, it resides in the realm of the phenomenal rather than the noumenal (by phenomenal I mean the arena of experience, and by noumenal I mean the arena of the real which is independent of experience). I suspect that you think empiricism is somehow different from idealism, but I suggest to you that empiricism, at least the empiricism of Berkeley and Hume, which is the only pure and consistent kind, just IS idealism.
I take it that a proposition proposes something about the way the world is or could possibly be. Any sentence which doesnât do that also isnât a proposition. Also, you should have said âthere is an object which resides to the north of the north pole.â The sentence 2+2=3 is false (at least the predicate and subject reside in the same universe of discourse), but it isnât meaningless. The sentence 2+2=Giraffe is not false, it is meaningless. For something to be either true or false it has to propose something about the way the world is or could be (propose something within a universe of discourse). Everything which expresses that kind of proposal is either true or false (by the law of excluded middle) and cannot be both true and false (by the principle of non-contradiction).
Materialism is about as antithetical to realism as philosophical positions come. The materialist cannot be a realist about conscious or intentional states, the materialist cannot be a realist about logic (here I mean an objective construal of modal logical laws), the materialist canât be a realist about objective moral values or duties, the materialist canât be a realist about aesthetics, the materialist canât be a realist about much of anything. More significantly, the materialist canât be a realist about any of our models of reality, and thus, in the strictest sense, cannot be a realist about a mind independent world which is intelligible. The materialist cannot believe that persons exist, or even that they themselves exist (as persons with conscious and intentional states objectively). The materialist canât even believe that sentences can be true or false. These points are all recognized and outlined by materialists themselves (please take a look at Rosenberg, for example). Iâm not making this up, materialists argue that this does follow from their position. Please, please, please donât be a materialist - save yourself from stupidity.
I think that clearly an unjustified charge. After all, Philosophers adopt both a metaphysical model and an epistemological model. That seems obvious to me. Iâm not sure what more to say about that.
From your comments I presume you would accept that âGod existsâ is an example you have in mind. Here I think we do have good epistemological grounds for postulating God in reality (in metaphysics). For example, if I am a rationalist (and I note at this point that ALL rationalists in the history of philosophy have been Theists, from Plato to Leibniz to Spinoza to et cetera), then I might think that something like the Principle of Sufficient Reason (as a principle of modal logic) is self-evidently true, and also evidently obviates the need to postulate a necessary incontingent being of tremendous power which is the cause of everything which exists contingently, and which being is also personal. To see such an argument worked out, check out this paper written by a brilliant Catholic philosopher named Alexander Pruss: bearspace.baylor.edu/Alexander_Pruss/www/papers/LCA.html
Actually, they are (that epistemology is called Fideism). They may not be very good ones on their own, but if one is willing to fit those ingredients into a wider account of epistemology then I think that appealing to revelation, for example, can be a justified epistemic move.
Of course âphilosophyâ as an entire field of endeavor does not propose âaâ particular epistemology, but that is because philosophy as a formal approach does not side with any particular epistemological proposal but, as a formal endeavor, seeks the ultimate ground for considering any of them to be true. Philosophy is more basic even than epistemology which is why epistemology is within the wider field of philosophy and not the other way around.
Sticky: Consolidated Stickies For the Apologetics Forum. READ THIS FIRST!
A true philosopher would answer: âWhy would you like fries with that?âAs a lighthearted observation, here comes a cute little joke:
Q: What is the most frequent sentence a freshly âmintedâ philosopher says in his first job?
A: You want fries with that?
Please, slow down! Your posts have so much information that it is impossible to reflect on them within the confines of the 6000 character post-size. We need to get down to the basics.
)Unless they are clinically insane.
I disagree with the last part, since that is simply an âargumentum ad numeramâ.
A few words in response about âmyâ epistemology (it is not really âmineâ, of course). There are two distinct parts of reality; one is the objectively existing reality, and the other is the abstractions we make about this reality. The first part is subject to the empirical method - observation, hypothesis forming, experimenting, and verifying the results of our experiments against the actual reality. The other is the axiomatic systems, where the veracity of a proposition is established if it can be reached from the axioms, using the rules of transformation within the axiomatic system. By the way, I use the word âproofâ for this method, to set it apart from the âsubstantiationâ which refers to the propositions about the objective reality.
Perhaps because itâs presumptuous to assume that everyone in the past was living in unenlightened blindness? Perhaps because the moderns have gone wrong? These are of course arguable points, but you certainly have no business trying to answer them if you donât read âthose ancient people.â
I canât remember who said it, but this reminds me of a priest who was talking about philosophy. He said that, unlike with science, there is no reason to presume that newer philosophies are better than old ones.
Sorry, I always write the post and then go through and just take out large sections, but apparently I havenât taken out enough. Iâll try my best to be succinct.
Look, I recognize that one can try to say the same thing about logic. For instance in paraconsistent logics the principle of non-contradiction is not adopted as an axiom nor is it even a theorum. However, if you wanted to suggest that the principle of non-contradiction were not objectively true (true independent of whatever model of modal logic we want to adopt), then Iâd say you were crazy. Well, actually, worse than crazy. Iâd say that I donât know what you even mean by saying that the PNC isnât objectively true, and Iâd say that I donât think you know what you mean either. Similarly if you told me that 2+2=4 is only true relative to some system of arbitrated axioms I would say that you donât know what youâre saying. Granted that mathematical systems involve axioms, and sometimes axioms can even be controversial (such as the axiom of choice which leads to the banach-tarski paradox), that isnât a good reason to say that mathematical truths are not analytic truths.Let me reflect on this part first. Many people are under the assumption that mathematical truths are âabsoluteâ. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mathematical truths - just like propositions in any axiomatic system - are contingent upon the chosen axioms, and the choice of the axioms is arbitrary. Of course, not all axiomatic systems are equally useful.
Youâve stumbled upon something interesting here, and Iâm inclined to say youâre on the right track in one respect. Youâre right to say that propositions cannot exist mind-independently, but if we want to say that there are necessary truths (truths which are about the structure of reality) then it seems like weâre on our way to conceding that there must be some necessary being in whose mind resides these analytic truths. If all propositions reside in a mind, and if some propositions are necessary (in all logically possible worlds they obtain), then there must be some necessary mind. Now, I can anticipate ways in which you might respond, and there are a number of them, but instead of guessing at how you would respond, let me just set forth a principle here. If your view ultimately divorces reality from modality, such that reality cannot be captured or expressed in the language of the logically possible, then whatever else your view reduces to, surely it reduces to a version of irrationalism. I can see no reason to accept such a view, and in fact I think that a view should be discarded on those grounds alone.
Here is where I locate a significant difference between how you and I think about modal logic. I think that a particular account of modal logic can itself be correct or incorrect, in the very same way a particular model of relativity (say, Einsteinian and Lorentzian) can be correct or incorrect. If this is the case then it becomes trivially true to propose that some construals of modal logic do not adopt the PSR (as was discussed in the paper to which I linked you). The question has to be about which model is correct. If you arenât willing to take the conversation there (ultimately), then Iâm not sure Iâm willing to take the conversation anywhere (ultimately).
Here youâve misunderstood, as far as I can tell, both physics and philosophy. First, if physics said that matter and energy could not in any sense be created or destroyed then that would be trivial - physics wonât have answered the question of whether matter or energy can in fact have been created, but only whether we can or do have models in physics which propose that matter and energy can be created or destroyed. Not to mention the fact that if physics stipulated that matter couldnât be created or destroyed, it would be bound to mean that matter cannot physically be created or destroyed, and that would tell us even less about whether matter or energy really can be created or destroyed. Moreover, contingency is a logical, not a physical category. Even if the universe had always been here and even if our best physics postulated that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed in any sense, that would not thereby provide any rational grounds for claiming that either matter or energy are incontingent. Some x is contingent if and only if there is at least one logically possible world in which x, and there is at least one logically possible world in which not-x. Clearly that is the case of both matter and energy, on any construal of the metaphysical status of matter or energy. Remember what I said previously - if your model of reality trespasses the borders of logically possible world semantics, then it is literally irrational. Similarly if your scientific model trespasses those boundaries then it is literally irrational and unintelligible.
Iâm not sure how you can gloss over the fact that in order to use a method at all, and in order to have any standards of verification, you already have to have presupposed theoretical truths such as the normativity of experience the denial of atypical conditions, the presumption that the world is rationally intelligible, and (most stunning of all) that we have any access to actual reality (why do you think that our empirical experiences allow us to access reality - to justify the inference from experience to reality you need not only a presumption, but even a handful of metaphysical commitments).
Suppose I suggest to you that ex nihilo nihil fit (out of nothing nothing comes) were substantively true. If that is a proposition, then canât it be true or false? If it could, do you think thatâs an empirical claim, or a claim about modal logic (I think it is clearly a claim about the logically im/possible). If it is a theoretical axiomatic claim, and if it can be correct, then doesnât that just mean that to the extent that oneâs modal logic adopts it for the purposes of modelling the world relative to possible worlds, that oneâs modal logic will be in line with reality? Arenât there objective structural truths about reality?
Actually, first principles are always abstract a priori commitments. One cannot rationally filter experiences into models without having some basic framework of a priori commitments that make it possible to interpret experiences coherently at all. Certainly there is no empirical evidence for truths which are apprehended as self-evident, logically necessary, and understood without the aid of any other ideas. For example, that A=A, or that if A=B and B=C then A=C, or that AâB & BâC then AâC. Those truths are not empirical, they are pre-empirical (they are rational and intuitive).The trick is that those basic principles you mention are not the results of some abstract, a-priori, ivory-tower contemplation, rather the distillate of down-to-earth, âdirtyâ empiricism.
Religion is under-defined here. I think that on a wide enough construal of religion, even Naturalism ends up being a religion insofar as itâs a worldview which attempts to answer the questions religion has typically been in the business of addressing (giving an account of reality, answering the big questions, etc). Certainly some religions are incompatible with some scientific models, but if some religion is correct then itâs essential commitments will be, we expect, vindicated by science (at least if weâre scientific realists rather than, say, merely pragmatists or instrumentalists). This is more true of Christianity than any other religion, including ânaturalismâ. Science, it turns out, is generally a great argument for Christianity.
First, philosophy has a feedback mechanism, but it happens to rely on reason rather than experiment, and thus its results change given the inclination of thinkers and preferred processes of thought. For instance, if in one generation the philosophy of scientism youâre advocating is in poor repute, it may become more respectable in the next generation - but science will never verify scientism; scientism is a philosophical commitment.
There are no such things.
Ironically, there is an epistemological justification for believing the libertarian account. First, that itâs denial entails the denial of rational deliberation and doxastic voluntarism, which practically invalidates a position in any other case. Moreover, one can apprehend that we are categorically free by introspection, and since it is a basic belief (a belief which we form naturally about ourselves and how we interact with our world) we should only abandon it if we have some defeater for it. You know what people who are compatibilists argue contra libertarian arguments like these? Basically they just appeal to scientism. To call it clumsy is almost too polite.
Thank you for the interesting philosophical problem.
We all face the same problem.
Agreed. Logic is a special case, since the three axioms (the law of identity, the law of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle) are so basic, that one cannot even deny them without accepting them. (The law of excluded middle can be formulated in different ways, but we can neglect that for the time being.)
There we agree. The point is that the axiomatic systems are epistemologically simple. One presents a set of axioms, and a set of rules of transformation, and then attempts to show that a proposition is the corollary of the axioms, or not. The actual steps can be extremely complicated (see the proof of Fermatâs last theorem), but the epistemological method could not be simpler.
Well, I am glad you allow me to say with my own words what I mean. A short analysis follows.
Except the line of thought above, which proves that there is no ânecessaryâ entity.