Demanding Evidence

[Syntax]

I regularly have to point out and **defend the reality of reality as a non-optional, fundamental epistemic commitment here on this forum. **It is not very ambitious, and frankly, it’s pretty embarrassing for the collective community that this needs to be pointed out, and by unbelievers (usually), for a bunch that suppose they have been or are being “guided into all truth” or some such. This is very basic stuff, but that is where the thinking fails very often on this forum, right out of the blocks, on the most unambitious and basic stances about knowledge and epistemology.

The reason why you have to regularly point out to people here that “the reality of reality is a non-optional fundamental epistemic commitment” is precisely because this so-called criterion just tautologously begs the question. You’ve been doing this from the start, and people are smarter than you take them to be, TS.

Am I the only one that finds the skeptical consequences of the verification criterion of existence totally ironic?? Just think of Brain-in-the-vat scenarios like the Matrix. This criterion actually supports Idealism more than TS’s Physical Realsim.

It is noteworthy to point out that a strict adherence to an empirically-based epistemological criterion for a metaphysical thesis about what actually exists led George Berkeley to Metaphysical Idealism. It goes like this: since we have no access to the outside world independent of our sense-perceptions there is **NO **reason to suppose that there exists a so-called “physical world external to our ideas” at all. From here, Berkeley concluded that so-called “physical matter” just is ideas. “Esse is percipi.” For if I only have access to my sense-data since I can never get outside of that sense-data in order to determine whether or not that sense-data does, in fact, correspond to the real world, it is absurd to even suppose an external physical world exists independent of my sense-data. The verification criterion leads to precisely these skeptical results. So if the only epistemic justification we have for believing that objects continue to exist, or that observed regularities will continue in the future, is the verification criterion of existence, we actually have **no justification ** for these empirical beliefs whatsoever since we don’t have access to objects in themselves, only our immediate sense-data. So it is probably **THE **poorest criterion for telling us what does, in fact, really exist.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

 

[Betterave]

NO kidding, brother!

 

[Betterave]

You

Here’s an example of an error (we don’t need to look far): you’ve just suggested that you have reason to construe my view as trying to make the case for “the unreality of reality” - I have said nothing that would suggest that my view was anything like that. Therefore, your suggestion here is an error, one which suggests that you are completely oblivious of the standard conceptual extensions of the terms you use.

I think it may take more than asking questions, though.

That’s right, but this is because you have refused to answer my questions. I suspect that you are incapable of independent intelligent thought outside of a very narrow range of technical questions, so I can’t very well just explain things to you - you won’t understand. You’ll just repeat some stupid mantra about fooling yourself or the reality of reality that does nothing to address the point raised. And you won’t notice that you have not addressed the point raised, because you never understood it in the first place!

If I ask you questions, you at least have the chance to examine your own view and to learn to think critically about it. But if you choose to refuse to answer my questions, then I guess you’ll just have to remain happily mired in your own dogmatic confusion.

Also, obviously, if you would answer the questions I ask you, so as to engage in a mature intelligent dialogue, I would be able to better understand your view, such as it is. This asking a series of questions thing so as to try to gain a fair understanding of your opponents position might be a good trick for you to try once in a while too! SERIOUSLY! Your stupid straw men arguments are really tiresome. (Of course you have to have a basic understanding to be able to even ask good questions, and I think you may lack that basic understanding.)

It does tell us something fundamental. Really, put your hand in a flame for a few seconds – long enough to get my point, but not long enough to do any real damage! That’s as basic as it gets as a starting point. We are biological entities, hardwired for epistemic commitments such as the ‘reality’ of an open flame’s heat. It doesn’t get more basic than that, that I am aware of. And that is our grounding. That is where we start from.

But I don’t need to do this, TS! I already know what happens! Awareness of this kind of experience is already part of my view of reality! Can you imagine that?!?

So you apparently think that you are in touch with reality, but you think that you need to tell me, “really, put your hand in a flame…etc.” and that this suggestion is going to stop me from arguing that “reality is unreal”? And you think you are in touch with reality…??? (You’re not - maybe you need to go put your hand in a candle.)

 

[Betterave]

You know what I mean right, TS? Go put your hand in the flame of a lighted candle. Then maybe you’ll have an epiphany and understand that idealism is not based on a rejection of ‘the reality-of-reality’…? (No, that probably wouldn’t really happen, would it? Can you see how that argument works, TS, how it runs both ways? - absurd when I make it, absurd when you make it?)

 

[Touchstone]

The reason why you have to regularly point out to people here that “the reality of reality is a non-optional fundamental epistemic commitment” is precisely because this so-called criterion just tautologously begs the question. You’ve been doing this from the start, and people are smarter than you take them to be, TS.

It’s not tautologous. That’s precisely the point being raised here, that’s it’s a natural imperative, a physiological condition, not a definition we simply assert. That’s the force behind the “hand in flame” experiment, it provides a visceral (and painful, if you aren’t quick) falsification of the idea that this epistemic commitment is somehow definitional, arbitrary, a mere tautology.

It’s biology in action, and you aren’t free to “redefine it” any more than I am, and you will withdraw your hand and/or howl in pain like the rest of us, demonstrating for yourself and any who care to witness that this basis for knowledge is built-in to our wiring.

Am I the only one that finds the skeptical consequences of the verification criterion of existence totally ironic??

I guess I may have to look back, but haven’t we been through the ‘verification’ thing already, here? Verification alone doesn’t get one very far, epistemically. Positive demonstration is good, but liability to falsification is what provides the meaningful and practical distinctions between real knowledge and mere pretenders to same.

What do you suppose are the ironic consequences of liability to falsification? That would be interesting to hear? If we can provide meaningfulness for “false” or “unreal”, is that some kind of absurdity or incongruity, in your view? I do think that there is at least a superficial irony in the epistemic value of liability to falsification; it’s counter-intuitive that establish the risk and threat of falsehood for a proposition would serve as a basis for embracing it’s truth. Icongrous, surprising in its connection to ‘truth’? Perhaps. In any case such is our epistemic condition.

Just think of Brain-in-the-vat scenarios like the Matrix. This criterion actually supports Idealism more than TS’s Physical Realsim.

And this is the reason for the flame under one’s hand. It brings a searing clarity to the foolhardiness of such claims. As soon as you must interact with the world, you prove that such idealism is just pretense; an idealist of this sort exposes himself as a poser just by his actions. He cannot maintain his skepticism of the reality of reality when he is asked to interact with it. This kind of commitment is only tenable so long as it is never applied or considered seriously.

It is noteworthy to point out that a strict adherence to an empirically-based epistemological criterion for a metaphysical thesis about what actually exists led George Berkeley to Metaphysical Idealism.

This does not reflect the George Berkeley revealed in his writings, or writings about him by those who knew him. His motivation, by his own admission, was to slay the “idol” of matter, which he supposed the unbelieving had erected in place of God as the object of worship. That’s hardly a recipe for “strict adherence” to empiricism!

Even so, Berkeley’s immaterialism takes shape in the context of his empiricism, which is to say that he had no trouble “speaking with the vulgar” – fire heats, water flows downhill, etc. On a practical level, it’s just empiricism.

My son asked me some time ago what would be the difference between a universe like ours and a universe where everything – everything! – was scaled up to be exactly 10 times the size of our universe. He was frustrated to hear that those universe were not distinguishable, they were the same universe, as “scaling everything” at that context is meaningless – there’s nothing to scale in relation to in his formulation.

Berkeleyan idealism is something like that - the ‘immaterialism’ obtains behind the sensory wall, and his denial of the actuality of matter then is, well, immaterial, for practical purposes. Berkeley’s goal of “de-idolizing” matter ends up being just that, a kind of metaphysical denial of matter, which doesn’t interfere with the empirical analysis at all. Water runs downhill, even so, for Berkeley.

Which is just to say – immaterialism launched from empricism I think is unwarranted, and anti-epistemological in that it dissolves the distinction between ‘real’ things and ‘imaginary’ things – real things are only imaginary things and imaginary things are all real things in Berkeley’s view, as well as the rendering void the concept of ‘error’ for ideas – there is no extramental matter or objective world by which to render ‘error’ meaningful as we understand the term, but it’s hardly a problem. Berkeley keeps his views constrained to metaphysical speculation, which renders it inert epistemically. Saying matter is real or imaginary is an abstract academic question, not a practical one for the empiricist.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

It goes like this: since we have no access to the outside world independent of our sense-perceptions there is **NO **reason to suppose that there exists a so-called “physical world external to our ideas” at all. From here, Berkeley concluded that so-called “physical matter” just is ideas. “Esse is percipi.” For if I only have access to my sense-data since I can never get outside of that sense-data in order to determine whether or not that sense-data does, in fact, correspond to the real world, it is absurd to even suppose an external physical world exists independent of my sense-data.

That is, of course, where Berkeley’s “common sense idealism” is faulted, as the objective, extramental world hypothesis offers parsimony and economy that “finite spirits” and the rest of the actors in his extreme subjectivism can’t approach. It seems like an extramental world exist, which doesn’t establish that it does, but it certainly innoculates the idea from classification as absurd, even in full view of the idea that our only access to that world would be mediated by the senses.

Here, his “common sense” becomes a bit of comedy, and he adopts manifestly anti-common-sense in rejecting matter outright. Consider the conspicuous innefficacy
of Berkeley’s appeals to common sense on this. It was wholly unpersuasive as common sense, and got him nowhere with his peers on that basis. He may have been correct, but it was not “common sense” he was trading in.

The verification criterion leads to precisely these skeptical results.

See above on liability to falsification. The realism I find compelling is not verificationalist, but primarily eliminative, epistemologically, which is quite a different proposition. Positive support for an idea empirically is good, but it’s useless on its own, and religious interpretations are the perfect demonstration of this. Any and all phenomena are “verificational” for an omnipotent, arbitrary, impassable God. The poverty of simple verificationist approaches is starkly apparent, here. It’s only when we apply some force to the other side of the lever – liability to falsification – that ‘true’ and ‘false’, ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ become meaningful, and the explains-all-hence-explains-nothing paradigms like that of the omnipotent God are shown to be ‘not even wrong’, incapable of being addressed with meaningful concepts like that, because it’s perfectly, utterly immune to falsification.

So if the only epistemic justification we have for believing that objects continue to exist, or that observed regularities will continue in the future, is the verification criterion of existence, we actually have **no justification ** for these empirical beliefs whatsoever since we don’t have access to objects in themselves, only our immediate sense-data. So it is probably **THE **poorest criterion for telling us what does, in fact, really exist.

If we are wired for belief in the persistence of objects, of the reality of reality, and it’s a physiological imperative, one that we can easily prove we are bound to, each of us, why would we even consider or bother with justification in this area? We might as well try and justify our compliance with gravity, right? It’s a fact of our natural condition, a necessity, a biological axiom. And we don’t justify axioms, correct?

Don’t make me have to resort to cigarette lighter pedagogy here with you, too, please.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

You know what I mean right, TS? Go put your hand in the flame of a lighted candle. Then maybe you’ll have an epiphany and understand that idealism is not based on a rejection of ‘the reality-of-reality’…? (No, that probably wouldn’t really happen, would it? Can you see how that argument works, TS, how it runs both ways? - absurd when I make it, absurd when you make it?)

I don’t think the flame is dispositive towards realism or idealism as an existential metaphysic. The ‘reality of reality’ obtains empirically (see my response above to Syntax for more on this re: Berkeley). Reality is manifest through the senses, even if one wants to take a hyper-subjectivist stance at the metaphysical level (like Berkeley). Metaphysics is fluff, plastic, intractable.

The flame is not, though. And it’s a vivid way to demonstrate the force and primacy that our senses, our physiology has on our cognition and epistemology. That’s why I’ve been saying “we’re all empiricists on a fundamental level”, as opposed to committing us all to realism or idealism. The flame is efficacious upon our thinking (and unthinking!) reactions, no matter where you come down on the fluff of realism/immaterialism metaphysically. The flame is “real” either way, and the yelp of an idealist or a realist whose hand is thrust in the flame demonstrates this dramatically.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Here’s an example of an error (we don’t need to look far): you’ve just suggested that you have reason to construe my view as trying to make the case for “the unreality of reality” - I have said nothing that would suggest that my view was anything like that. Therefore, your suggestion here is an error, one which suggests that you are completely oblivious of the standard conceptual extensions of the terms you use.

Well, I did allow for “however you want to frame it” – anticipating, but not constraining you to that or any particular objection. However you want to object – doesn’t matter to me – let’s get it out there on the table! Why dance around this? If you have an objection, state it positively.

That’s right, but this is because you have refused to answer my questions. I suspect that you are incapable of independent intelligent thought outside of a very narrow range of technical questions, so I can’t very well just explain things to you - you won’t understand. You’ll just repeat some stupid mantra about fooling yourself or the reality of reality that does nothing to address the point raised. And you won’t notice that you have not addressed the point raised, because you never understood it in the first place!

Alas, it’s hopeless, then. I’m beyond recovery, in your view here.

If I ask you questions, you at least have the chance to examine your own view and to learn to think critically about it. But if you choose to refuse to answer my questions, then I guess you’ll just have to remain happily mired in your own dogmatic confusion.

I just find it odd that you refuse to offer a positive response of your own. I’m quick to ask probing answers of colleagues, friends, my children. But if I want to be persuasive, or informative, I am keen to provide a positive solution and support for it to go with it. That’s conspicuously absent in your posts. I guess I understand from this post it is because it’s a lost cause anyway, but maybe just fielding as many questions as you can rattle off (asking questions is easy, answering is hard! You’ve got the easy chair here) will work me to rehabilitation and penitence.

Also, obviously, if you would answer the questions I ask you, so as to engage in a mature intelligent dialogue, I would be able to better understand your view, such as it is.

I think I’ve responded in both a mature and intelligent way. Readers can judge for themselves, I guess.

This asking a series of questions thing so as to try to gain a fair understanding of your opponents position might be a good trick for you to try once in a while too!

I do ask questions here and there, if you notice. But I try to avoid the asymmetries you are enjoying here – one can ask a dozen questions in less time and with less thought than it takes to provide one good answer. I’m interested to know the arguments, but I can’t be bothered, generally, to torture it out of you, or anyone. I’m fine with carrying more load in terms of answers and defending than I exert in asking and demanding. Part of why I’m here is just to represent unbelief in a thoughtful, coherent way.

SERIOUSLY! Your stupid straw men arguments are really tiresome. (Of course you have to have a basic understanding to be able to even ask good questions, and I think you may lack that basic understanding.)

Then it is, indeed hopeless for me! Without a basic understanding, I will not get very far at all.

But I don’t need to do this, TS! I already know what happens! Awareness of this kind of experience is already part of my view of reality! Can you imagine that?!?

Oh, I know it’s part of your experience, too. That’s not in question. The problem seems to be identifying the ramifications of that for (and all of us), epistemologically. That is a different, and more elusive kind of awareness. We feel the flame on our hand, for sure, but it’s not a given that the implications of this are realized. Syntax is a smart, eloquent poster, and it’s a live question based on our last exchange whether these ramifications are held in view, or not. If one asks, “what is my justification?” in that case, I strongly suspect there is a disconnect, for this is asking for the justification for an axiom. If it’s axiomatic, it’s a contradiction in terms to ask for justification. If we need justification, if the premise is not necessary to proceeding, it ain’t an axiom, by definition.

There’s a big gap between “flame is real” and “reality is real” as the insight gained from “flame is real”. It may seem obvious, but your questions (and Syntax’s, and many others) underscore the non-obvious nature of the connections.

So you apparently think that you are in touch with reality, but you think that you need to tell me, “really, put your hand in a flame…etc.” and that this suggestion is going to stop me from arguing that “reality is unreal”?

It’s persuasive, I think, for those that do suppose we are liberty to proceed in “Matrix” mode, adopting that kind of skepticism toward the efficacy of the reality around us. If the idea has merit, not as just idle musing, but as a claim about reality itself and the epistemology available to us, the flame should not be a barrier to adopting and “living” that idea. But I don’t know anyone who can “live the idea”.

And you think you are in touch with reality…??? (You’re not - maybe you need to go put your hand in a candle.)

The flame seems perfectly real and extramental to me. My body reacts involuntarily to the sensation when I put my hand too close the flame in the fireplace here in the room. If you don’t think that’s “in touch”, I await your correction as to what “in touch” would mean and how it would be applied and demonstrated, if you have such.

-TS

 

[Syntax]

That is, of course, where Berkeley’s “common sense idealism” is faulted, as the objective, extramental world hypothesis offers parsimony and economy that “finite spirits” and the rest of the actors in his extreme subjectivism can’t approach. It seems like an extramental world exist, which doesn’t establish that it does, but it certainly innoculates the idea from classification as absurd, even in full view of the idea that our only access to that world would be mediated by the senses.

Here, his “common sense” becomes a bit of comedy, and he adopts manifestly anti-common-sense in rejecting matter outright.

Berkeley’s appeal to a common-sense premise to draw a anti-commonsense conclusion is very much a comedy–this is precisely the reason why I mentioned it. So which piece of this situation is the more commonsensical? (1) that matter exists, or (2) that we only have access to what appears to be a mental world of ideas? They are both very plausible. And the Hindus, I might add, find (2) much more plausible than (1). So appeal to which is the more allegedly “commensical” view is completely arbitrary. That’s the beauty of Berkeley’s argument: it turns your own appeal to “common sense” onto its head.

We can continue to motivate the commonsense plausibility of each one, and the more we do, the more paradoxical the situation becomes. So you are still in no better shape than Berkeley. This is why your criterion is an incredibly poor criterion for what exists, because by itself, it alone advances too many potential defeaters for thinking it is true.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

when empiricism claims it is the only source of knowledge, i know this claim is self refuting because it is not knowledge one can gain empirically.

therefore empiricism is false.

what more is there to say? one either accepts the strictures of logic. or one does not. is that not the difference between a rational man and a holder of a cherished belief?

 

[Touchstone]

Berkeley’s appeal to a common-sense premise to draw a anti-commonsense conclusion is very much a comedy–this is precisely the reason why I mentioned it. So which piece of this situation is the more commonsensical? (1) that matter exists, or (2) that we only have access to what appears to be a mental world of ideas? They are both very plausible. And the Hindus, I might add, find (2) much more plausible than (1). So appeal to which is the more allegedly “commensical” view is completely arbitrary. That’s the beauty of Berkeley’s argument: it turns your own appeal to “common sense” onto its head.

OK, well this at least illuminates the misunderstanding, here. I’m not a strong advocate of “common sense”, and am acutely aware of why and how this has become a buzzword for Sarah Palin in politics lately; it carries the appearance of gravity as a term, but it doesn’t establish or ground anything. If there’s a more vocal critic of unaccountable, self-justifying intuition around here than me, I don’t know who it is. Science is systematic vetting of “common sense”, and the results are not at all pretty – “common sense” is as likely to be sardonic euphemism for hubris and ignorance as a mark of intellectual virtue.

So don’t expect much traction with the “common sense” angle from me. If it’s all one has to go one, it’s all one has to go on. But it’s a poor substitute for real knowledge and careful, disciplined thinking, when that is available.

I don’t hold the ‘reality of reality’ to be grounded in common sense, then. Surely, it is a common stance, but the point of applying a flame to one’s hand is to remove the question from the conjectural into the demonstrative and empirical. Forget “common sense” – it’s brute physiology at work when the pain of flame burning the hand takes over.

We can continue to motivate the commonsense plausibility of each one, and the more we do, the more paradoxical the situation becomes. So you are still in no better shape than Berkeley. This is why your criterion is an incredibly poor criterion for what exists, because by itself, it alone advances too many potential defeaters for thinking it is true.

I haven’t advanced 'common sense" as the ground here, and like I said, I am probably one who has the most skeptical view of that as a foundation as anyone here. Not an argument I endorse, and one I actively tear apart here, regularly.

And while I’m not an idealist, in Berkeley I find plenty of shared, practical epistemology. He was an empiricist, after all. The “immaterialism” obtains in the metaphysical abstracta for Berkeley, just as the materialism of matter does for me. That’s an interesting divergence to discuss, but not one that strikes me as apropos here. Maybe you can apply the difference for me more concretely [sic].

The grounds for my embrace of this criterion are a) that we are not free to do otherwise, fundamentally (physiologically), and b) it yields the most performative, robust models of our surroundings, by far. Supernaturalist models can’t hardly qualify as models at all, let alone outperform empirical models. What performance we may identify from them is just that which is borrowed from, or overlaps, empiricist models.

-TS

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Supernaturalist models can’t hardly qualify as models at all, let alone outperform empirical models. What performance we may identify from them is just that which is borrowed from, or overlaps, empiricist models.

-TS

supernatural merely means non-physical. thats it. using the word supernaturalist, is little more than a linguistic assault, an attempt to make the logically contradictory empiricism sound some how less magical than it is.

 

[Touchstone]

supernatural merely means non-physical. thats it. using the word supernaturalist, is little more than a linguistic assault, an attempt to make the logically contradictory empiricism sound some how less magical than it is.

Well, then, how magical is naturalism? What would you say identifies a paradigm as (more or less) magical?

-TS

 

[Syntax]

I don’t hold the ‘reality of reality’ to be grounded in common sense, then. Surely, it is a common stance, but the point of applying a flame to one’s hand is to remove the question from the conjectural into the demonstrative and empirical. Forget “common sense” – it’s brute physiology at work when the pain of flame burning the hand takes over.

I still don’t see how this helps with the Berkelian case. I don’t think he would see it either. It just begs the question that the existence of matter is more certain than the existence of mental states. Like I said, all we have to do is push the anti up on the transparent existence of mental states which seems to be immediately obvious that we all have.

Besides, the point of Berkeley’s argument was purely epistemic–to show that empirical statements made about physical observables provide little, if any, justification for believing that the external physical world exists since the only thing we are immediately acquainted with are what appear to be immaterial, qualitative mental states, not a physical world. In order to resolve this dilemma, you tell us that with respect to the apparent immateriality of mental states, that materialistic elimitavism about qualitative mental states happens to be the correct view, and that Berkelian-kinds of dilemmas are therefore resolved. But your elimitavist view itself is dependent on the same set of faculties that tell us mental states are immaterial, not physical, whose very own immaterialistic intuitions can be pushed beyond the commonsensical into the demonstrable. So this elimitavist thesis doesn’t help us resolve this Berkelian dilemma since it just begs the question about whether or not what we take to be mental really is, in fact, physical, and what we take to be physical is, in fact, mental. This question cannot be resolved in the 1st-person because of these very conflicting intuitions that arise from the same set of empirical faculties. Again, your epistemic empiricism about what exists puts you in a position no better than Berkeley’s.

So don’t expect much traction with the “common sense” angle from me. If it’s all one has to go one, it’s all one has to go on. But it’s a poor substitute for real knowledge and careful, disciplined thinking, when that is available.

Ok, let’s raise the standards in more epistemically difficult contexts so that your common-sense appeal to cigarette lighters does no good in a scenarios where the only evidence we have is epistemically indistinguishable from BIV-type “evidence.” We don’t even have to postulate immaterial entites at all to successfuly demonstrate the skeptical result of your criterion. We only have to cite an intuitively plausibel epistemic closure principle:

If I know P, and I know that P entails Q, then I know that Q. So,

If I know that I have hands, then I know that I am not a brain in a vat.
But I do not know that I am not a brain in a vat.
Therefore, I do not know that I have hands.

Simply entertaining the Matrix thought-experiement shows why your epistemic criterion would be quickly undermined since the only thing you have direct access to are your own sense-data, not the objective world itself. If we were BIV’s, we would have no justification for believing that our representation of a physical object was really a representation of a physical object, since we wouldn’t know the very notions of “brains” and “neural-stimulations” had semantically applicable content matching the outside world. The differences between what we take to be physical reality now and what objective reality is really like, can be just as different in vividness and distinctness as that between dreams and physical reality since the lower, more primitive, receptive centers in our consciousness could be manipulated instead of higher cognitive functions which none of us ever had the opportunity to use.

What you take to be “physical” reality is no guide to what objective reality is really like, just as your 1st-person experience of 3-D objects provides no guide for discerning what the experience of 4-D objects is like. To be perfectly honest, the more I think about quantum physics, for instance, the more I begin to have just as much a hard time conceiving what a physical object is really like, just as I do conceiving what an immaterial entity is like. So I don’t even come close to sharing your certainty of what “physical” means at all. This isn’t because I’m superstitious–quite the opposite. The more I think about it, the less I have a firm grasp on what it means. I am actually more skeptical than you about what we take to be alleged “physical” objects from the start. Your own view seems incredibly naive to me. In spite of some healthy skepticism, sometimes I think your die-hard reductionism and elimitavism prevents you from entertaining new possibilities so crucial for the advancement of science, and it is not a view that all practicing scientists share anyway.

The grounds for my embrace of this criterion are a) that we are not free to do otherwise, fundamentally (physiologically)

You must be meaning something else, because what is said here is clearly false. If you mean that the only objects that exist are physical objects, and that the only epistemic access we have to the existence of any objects whatsoever is sense perception, then I am still free to reject this criterion. I just did. So I am not physiolgically determined to embrace it.

 

[Leela]

when empiricism claims it is the only source of knowledge, i know this claim is self refuting because it is not knowledge one can gain empirically.

therefore empiricism is false.

what more is there to say? one either accepts the strictures of logic. or one does not. is that not the difference between a rational man and a holder of a cherished belief?

Empiricism itself doesn’t make any claims. How would that work?

Some people on the other hand claim to subscribe to empiricism–to the position that all knowledge comes from experience. Someone claiming that all knowledge comes from experience is presumably making that claim based on experience–that is if this rational man is also accepting the strictures of logic.

If you don’t think that knowledge comes from experience, then where do you think it comes from? The traditional alternative is that we are somehow hardwired with certain knowledge from birth and have an innate faculty of reason that we can use to deduce new knowledge from the basic hard-wired knowledge that we all start out with. Rationalists though that such is the only true knowledge. Is this your view?

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Well, then, how magical is naturalism? What would you say identifies a paradigm as (more or less) magical?

-TS

it depends which definition of naturalism you mean. if you mean the philosophical definition.

Philosophy
The system of thought holding that all phenomena can be explained in terms of natural causes and laws.

in as much as it assumes empiricism, then it too is false. you cant build a good house on a false foundation.

an argument or belief is “magical” if it involves an actual logical contradiction. what else could make something magical? its not as though its a claim that miracles exist, simply because one doesnt know how they were done. which is the normal claim for something being “magic”

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Empiricism itself doesn’t make any claims. How would that work?

empiricism is the claim.

Some people on the other hand claim to subscribe to empiricism–to the position that all knowledge comes from experience. Someone claiming that all knowledge comes from experience is presumably making that claim based on experience–that is if this rational man is also accepting the strictures of logic.

that claim still falls to the self refuting nature of the empirical claim. replacing the words empirical with guy who makes empirical claim from experience, doesnt move the ball at all.

"when empiricism claims it is the only source of knowledge, i know this claim is self refuting because it is not knowledge one can gain empirically.

therefore empiricism is false."

accepting a self refuting argument, is irrational.

thats good way one can tell a rational belief, from a cherished belief.

If you don’t think that knowledge comes from experience,

i dont think that. it is just not the sole source of knowledge as it claims.

 

[Leela]

that claim still falls to the self refuting nature of the empirical claim. replacing the words empirical with guy who makes empirical claim from experience, doesnt move the ball at all.

"when empiricism claims it is the only source of knowledge, i know this claim is self refuting because it is not knowledge one can gain empirically.

therefore empiricism is false."

accepting a self refuting argument, is irrational.

thats good way one can tell a rational belief, from a cherished belief.

The claim that all knowledge comes from experience is not self-refuting in any way that I can see. How does that claim refute itself? Why do you insist that the truth of empiricism is something that cannot be gained through experience?

It sounds like you really cherish the belief that empiricism is self-refuting, but you haven’t made a rational argument for that claim.

i dont think that. it is just not the sole source of knowledge as it claims.

What other way of acquiring knowledge are you suggesting? If you mean revelation, isn’t revelation a sort of experience?

 

[Touchstone]

The claim that all knowledge comes from experience is not self-refuting in any way that I can see. How does that claim refute itself? Why do you insist that the truth of empiricism is something that cannot be gained through experience?

It sounds like you really cherish the belief that empiricism is self-refuting, but you haven’t made a rational argument for that claim.

Not enough time here between meetings to respond to Syntax (will later!), but on this, yes, this is a blunder, and a repeating one. Empiricism is inherently inductive – it goes from the specific to the general – so even in “hardcore” cases, where the claim is “all knowledge comes from empirical interaction with the world”, that statement itself is an expression of empiricism at work. It is “practicing what it preaches” by making that general statement about the world based on a pattern of specifics.

WSP (and others) I suspect just do not understand the inductive nature of the claim “empiricism is the sole source of knowledge”, and suppose it must be either a) deductive, b) certain (which inductive inferences such as this cannot possibly be) or ideally c) both of the above.

The fallacy of the ‘empiricism refutes itself’ then is basically the forcing of a false threshold on its claims a means of justifying itself. Empiricism is an example of strong self-consistency – when we review the evidence, and look at what performs and stands up to the tests for knowledge, we see striking patterns that align that knowledge with empirical methods; given the specifics we have available, the generalization that proceeds from the data is that empiricism works, and works in a singular fashion as the building blocks of knowledge (reason gets applied and all that, but empirical (name removed by moderator)ut is the driver).

What empiricism does not claim to do, and what it finds wholly INCONSISTENT with its epistemology is to establish some sort of certain positive validation. Empiricism is the rejection of that basis for acceptance. The terms warpspeedpetey would demand for “justification” for empiricism would necessarily be a repudiation of empiricism!

-TS