Why do some people think that Science is the only source of knowledge?

[inocente]

Luther apparently, like some others around here, had a very perverse and primitive view of Wisdom and reason.

Sectarianism, like homophobia, is irrational.

*Which also covers the issue that you have with philosophy not being statically available, concretely knowable, controllable or demonstrable via an evidential base. The reason is because Wisdom is a living reality and avoids or goes away from those who attempt to grasp and hold power or sway over her. Those who love Wisdom know that she is not to be overpowered or manipulated nor is she quantifiable. In fact, unlike scientific knowledge which allows the person in possession of that kind of knowledge to attain the power to control the outcome, wisdom is only approached by letting go of all pretense to knowing and relinquishing any attempt to grasp at understanding. Socrates came close when he claimed the only thing he knew was that he did not know.

You want me to “prove” this to you? The only reason I can ascertain for anyone to demand such proof would be so that they can subsume Wisdom in order to make use of the available vast potential for truth that Wisdom affords in order to control some future outcome. However, Wisdom isn’t about control it is about a completely opposite reality: Love. If you want to control outcomes seek science, if you want Wisdom, you must abandon the will to power and control, and the demand for proof.*

No you don’t need to prove it, only philosophers demand proof, ordinary people are happy with whatever works best.

Your argument sounds very Zen, in the style of what’s the sound of one hand clapping, but in the real world wisdom is not defined as a mystic un-ness but as the ability to apply knowledge (“the ability to use your knowledge and experience to make good decisions and judgments”).

I think you’re confusing wisdom with humility, with giving up pride. I cited Psalm 131 to you earlier. Letting go is to be naked, to be reborn, to see divinity. There are lots of references. “Thank you terror / thank you disillusionment / thank you frailty / thank you consequence / thank you silence. // The moment I let go of it was the moment / I got more than I could handle / the moment I jumped off of it / was the moment I touched down” - Alanis Morrisette

The hypothetical lesbian is in trouble precisely because she has lost touch with reality and seeks to narcissistically impose her will on reality instead of accepting reality as the mysterious other that we participate in and not dictate our views to. The will to overturn reality can only end up creating a pseudo reality or fantasy. Human will cannot ground reality. We do not have that kind of power. To continue on a program that seeks to dictate the terms of reality to reality will only end in disaster.

You’ve now twice evaded any explanation for your reading of Paul.

By coincidence there’s a live thread on Romans 1:18-20 here. Apparently some think it’s about atheists. I hope Della, a Catholic and a Forum Master, will not mind me saying she gets it spot on: “Actually, if read in context, it is clear St. Paul was addressing heathens whose sins, such as temple prostitutes, were an affront to God.”

And since, in context, the next two paragraphs start “Therefore God gave them over” and “Because of this, God gave them over”, 1:26-27 is about whatever 1:18-20 is about.

 

[inocente]

Your position that “…the only questions worth asking are those capable of being answered by appeal to empirical evidence…” actually contradicts your point that “…[o]nly philosophers want absolute proofs. The rest of us go with what works until maybe something better comes along, then we go with that. We couldn’t function and survive if our every decision required absolute proof.”

If there are no questions worth asking that cannot be answered by appeal to empirical evidence, then clearly there are no issues that can possibly arise that would require anything but empirical proof. So why even bring up “the rest of us go with what works” and we “couldn’t function and survive if our every decision required absolute proof…” because by your own admission these “other” issues are not worth being concerned about.

Interesting conundrum you face here.

Don’t understand, I said proof is never required. In real life, all of us go with what works for us without ever needing proof. If you demanded absolute proof that nothing bad will happen today before getting out of bed, you could never get out of bed.

In real life, as in science, truth is provisional.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Science is limited to the study of the material world. We’re only able to study what we are allowed to study, nothing more. Why do people insist that science is the be all end all of knowledge and information? Why is belief in God allegedly incompatible with Science?

And they would be wrong. Obama is the only source of knowledge.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

The above shows that you have no idea what the real concern of the issue is.

I don’t decide to rob a bank (or not) based upon the evidence that I have collected that demonstrates reliably that there is no chance of being caught and an easy escape. Most questions like this one are moral questions, not evidential questions.

Unlike you, I do believe that there are very important issues that cannot be answered by evidence or evidence in isolation from a particular world view that is not itself evidentially grounded.

The evidence makes absolutely no difference to the rightness or wrongness of the act. The fact that children starve without food is a matter of simple fact, but that simple fact is not, ultimately, what makes anyone look after children. What makes anyone look after children has to do with a prior commitment to caring for them. Without that, the fact that children die without food could be a piece of evidence for how to do away with them if you had that inclination. The facts don’t create the basis for moral judgements, the facts only provide the pragmatic medium upon which the prior moral perspective is carried out. The facts don’t create the moral perspective, that is assumed in the ethical position that assesses the facts and uses them in a particular way.

Don’t understand. Reason alone has led some philosophers to propose nihilism, the doctrine that life has no meaning. By reason alone there’s no need to conform to social norms and no reason not to deceive, lie and con, but those are symptoms of antisocial personality disorder.

In healthy people morality is based on evidence, including our feelings, as well as reason, and this was known to Paul: “They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.”.

The evidence is that insufficient food harms children, the evidence is that our hearts go out to them, the evidence is that healthy people have compassion, and the evidence is that compassion doesn’t in any sense rely on rational argument. The Good Samaritan didn’t rationally debate whether the half-dead wretch might repay his efforts, he felt mercy and acted on it.

There’s even more evidence that I would be wasting my time, so it hasn’t been a priority at this time when time is scarce.

You’re the one who raised it and jumped threads to do so.

 

[inocente]

And they would be wrong. Obama is the only source of knowledge.

And given this week’s judgment, your Supreme Court.

 

[inocente]

Ah, yes… But what actually happens is often determined by what individual agents will to happen. That determination is not by fact or feeling alone, but frequently by judgement involving reason or a lack of it. It is the constituents of what makes up that judgement that does not depend solely on fact or feeling unless you have totally abdicated reasoning as a means of making good judgements.

To deny the importance of reason is to nullify the possibility of human free will and moral responsibility. Reason is that power which allows human beings to be elevated above the chain of merely caused physical events. Moral responsibility makes no sense without it.

I’m not arguing against reason, science can’t be done with reason, I’m arguing against reason alone. In other words a priori knowledge does not exist, all knowledge is experiential.

 

[inocente]

but why should anyone believe this?

for example, mathematical reasoning proceeds using reason alone (e.g. the pythagorean theorem isn’t proven by going out and measuring the sides of thousands of triangles).

Math is axiomatic, the theorems must be based on unprovable propositions. For centuries it was thought that Euclidean geometry was the only true geometry until discovering evidence that even space itself is non-Euclidean.

you gave no evidence at all that only empirical questions were worth asking; you gave evidence that some questions are endlessly disputed, but the controvertibility of answers to any particular question in no way entails that such a question isn’t worth asking.

That might be true if we had an infinite time on Earth, but with three-score years and ten there are more worthwhile pursuits while we’re here.

a lovely example of a scientist rejecting philosophy by means of a philosophical argument.

His joke is based on fact, not argument. Survival depends on eating the steak, not on proving the existence of the steak.

Although a joke isn’t funny if it has to be explained.

 

[inocente]

I’m not arguing against reason, science can’t be done with reason, I’m arguing against reason alone. In other words a priori knowledge does not exist, all knowledge is experiential.

Just noticed a typo, I meant “science can’t be done without reason”.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

And given this week’s judgment, your Supreme Court.

uch:

Linus2nd

 

[tonyrey]

I’d have thought love is highly irrational.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, the priest and Levite are very rational, they don’t get involved, but “a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him”.

Love is not irrational by God’s standards but only by self-righteous human beings.

And it’s highly unreasonable of God to love us but He does all the same.

It’s highly unreasonable to think it’s highly unreasonable of God to love us considering we are His children for whom He died. It amounts to believing He was unreasonable to create us in the first place knowing some of us would reject Him.

To think God is unreasonable in any respect is a further reflection of Luther’s irrationalism. God’s kingdom is a kingdom of truth not Unreason.

 

[Peter_Plato]

In other words a priori knowledge does not exist, all knowledge is experiential.

You do realize that this statement is self-defeating, like the claim “All statements are false.” What possible empirical evidence is there that could prove “all knowledge is experiential” to be true? No such evidence can exist because this statement, itself, can only be an a priori claim. If it is an a priori claim then it is an a priori claim to “know” that all knowledge is experiential, which defeats the claim itself.

This point was made previously by john doran, but you attempted to slip past it.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Note the progression of thought regarding the role of reason:

Philosophers never imagined the reality painted by quantum mechanics, thus proving for all time they simply don’t have the vision to do justice to reality.

Philosophers on science are as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.

The ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one’s a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one’s theoretical models. - Lawrence M. Krauss

There must be a means to separate objective from subjective, or any understanding is on shifting sands, as demonstrated amply by the hundreds of incompatible philosophical -isms.

If you wind back, I said personal beliefs are essential unless they conflict with evidence, then evidence wins.

In 1796 medic and scientist Edward Jenner tested the first ever vaccine, against smallpox, and in 1980 the World Health Organization declared smallpox dead. In 200 years lots of “ought” with nary a philosopher on the horizon.

… I’m arguing that modern professional philosophy can’t rid the world of disease, can’t put a man on the Moon and can’t explain consciousness. It can’t feed the poor, doesn’t look good hanging on a wall, you can’t dance to it, it doesn’t keep you warm in winter. The song is called War, huh, what is it good for only after the producer turned down Philosophy, huh, what is it diddily goodily doddily.

I’m not arguing against reason, science can’t be done with[out] reason, I’m arguing against reason alone. In other words a priori knowledge does not exist, all knowledge is experiential.

Which takes us back to my previous post that such a statement is self-referential and self-refuting.

 

[inocente]

You do realize that this statement is self-defeating, like the claim “All statements are false.” What possible empirical evidence is there that could prove “all knowledge is experiential” to be true? No such evidence can exist because this statement, itself, can only be an a priori claim. If it is an a priori claim then it is an a priori claim to “know” that all knowledge is experiential, which defeats the claim itself.

This point was made previously by john doran, but you attempted to slip past it.

In philosophical circles the statement that knowledge comes only from experience is called empiricism.

I’ll wait while you read up on it.

Or you could raise your issue with Aristotle, William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hermann von Helmholtz, David Hume, Leopold von Ranke, John Stuart Mill, …

 

[davidv]

In philosophical circles the statement that knowledge comes only from experience is called empiricism.

I’ll wait while you read up on it.

Or you could raise your issue with Aristotle, William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hermann von Helmholtz, David Hume, Leopold von Ranke, John Stuart Mill, …

Does giving something a name, i.e. empiricism, make it true?

 

[inocente]

Does giving something a name, i.e. empiricism, make it true?

Just letting Peter know that some of his beloved philosophers thought the idea is pretty neat.

 

[davidv]

Just letting Peter know that some of his beloved philosophers thought the idea is pretty neat.

How is this helpful? It provide little to no information on whether the information present in Peter’s post was correct, or not.

 

[Peter_Plato]

In philosophical circles the statement that knowledge comes only from experience is called empiricism.

I’ll wait while you read up on it.

Or you could raise your issue with Aristotle, William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hermann von Helmholtz, David Hume, Leopold von Ranke, John Stuart Mill, …

It is not clear to me that all or even any of your list of philosophers would agree that knowledge comes only from experience. It may be true that empirical knowledge comes only from experience, but that is not your claim.

Adding the word “only” makes a huge difference to your statement about empiricism. While it may be true that empiricism holds that knowledge can be derived via empirical means, that is not sufficient to establish empirical absolutism by implying that all other means to knowledge are thereby rendered impotent. This is another example of your slippery logic.

This little addition of “only” is reminiscent of Luther’s not so minor addition of the word “alone” to revise Scripture according to his own rendering of what salvation means.

 

[Peter_Plato]

At least a few on your list of “empirical” philosophers would claim that experience does not give us knowledge in the true sense of the word and they accept that knowledge in this true sense is impossible for us because empirical or sensory means are not sufficient for producing knowledge properly understood.

Others on your list would agree that empirical means offer possible sources for knowledge, but would also argue that these are not sufficient nor even necessary for knowledge.

Listing philosophers that are in some way linked to empiricism from a Wikipedia page is not sufficient to show that each of them claim empiricism is the only means to knowledge. It takes some familiarity with the history of philosophy to put their position regarding empiricism in perspective.

 

[Peter_Plato]

In philosophical circles the statement that knowledge comes only from experience is called empiricism.

I’ll wait while you read up on it.

Or you could raise your issue with Aristotle, William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hermann von Helmholtz, David Hume, Leopold von Ranke, John Stuart Mill, …

The ordering of your list is suspect. See:

Philosophers associated with empiricism include Aristotle, Alhazen, Avicenna, Ibn Tufail, Robert Grosseteste, William of Ockham, Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, John Locke, George Berkeley, Hermann von Helmholtz, David Hume, Leopold von Ranke, and John Stuart Mill.
From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empiricism

Note the word “associated” with, which is far from implicating each of them as staunch empiricists. And, again, the most adamantly empiricist of the group would not subscribe to the idea that true “knowledge” is even possible, but would rather insist that we cannot have anything approaching certainty, which is what “knowing” entails.

It is not clear to me which of us needs to do a little more reading.

I would suggest this site as a little more informative of what empiricism actually entails:

plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/

 

[tonyrey]

You do realize that this statement is self-defeating, like the claim “All statements are false.” What possible empirical evidence is there that could prove “all knowledge is experiential” to be true? No such evidence can exist because this statement, itself, can only be an a priori claim. If it is an a priori claim then it is an a priori claim to “know” that all knowledge is experiential, which defeats the claim itself.

This point was made previously by john doran, but you attempted to slip past it.

The downfall of logical positivism was due to the realization that the verification principle cannot be verified!