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

[tonyrey]

Just to add another note: science cannot explain how life began. To do this scientists would have to cross an enormous gulf that I believe is unbridgeable, by empirical means. They would have to discover how inanimate matter became organized into animate organisms. What was the very first organism to develop from inanimate matter? If scientists could bridge this gap, it would be a giant step forward for science. But this is asking for the impossible, despite there being those who think Artificial Intelligence is moving in just that direction. I think, to the contrary, that inanimate matter, if there was no God, had no replicating power to form itself into more complex structures that we might call “living” organisms.

Beyond this, there is another enormous gulf that science will never bridge. Scientists still do not know where the mass from which our universe was formed, came from. It is simply taken as a given.

Science furthermore cannot tell us why the universe is expanding, nor has any scientist given an explanation of time. What is time?

There is much here for philosophers to speculate about. Scientists are strictly limited by their empirical method. Philosophers however are not similarly restricted and I know of no philosophers or theologians who profess that science is the only path toward understanding–though there may be such. I also do not think the vast majority of scientists profess that science is the only route toward discovering Truth. I’m sure the majority of scientists can appreciate the need for other disciplines. Much of science also proceeds on grounds of faith–in this instance, a faith in the empirical method. Even the materialist dogma that only matter exists is a dogmatic position grounded on faith. Though materialists might deny their worldviews are founded on faith.

Welcome to the forum. An excellent post.

Unfortunately there is a mispelling which is not even in the post!

 

[inocente]

Why would I avoid using something that is right?

So any blog site filled with misinformation and opinion is instant philosophy? There’s no more logic in that blog than any fanzine, rant or advertizing blurb, but if that’s philosophy then you’re making my case for me, thanks for your support.

More accurately, your understanding of the blogger is wrong on all counts…

He’s confused over the false dilemma of faith or science, like we can’t have both, and ends up lamely trying to sell God as a scientific hypothesis.

I would think your presumption wrong, the real reason is that evil is the realm of metaphysics, not science–evil is a non-material thing, and science can only discuss the material.

The metaphysics labor union claims a demarcation dispute but forgot no one cares if they go on strike forever.

Physicists may not like the soft sciences but anthropologists and psychologists can and do study evil, even having the audacity to write books - a short selection at Amazon by way of evidence:

Anthropology of Evil
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others
Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing

*As the blogger states,

Surely I can read an American history book and find that Abraham Lincoln was indeed a President of the US, but that is not a scientific* proof.

The blogger doesn’t even know that science isn’t in the business of proof: psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200811/common-misconceptions-about-science-i-scientific-proof

Wikipedia lists history as one of the social sciences: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science

And what’s this from the American Heritage Dictionary? *Social science - A scholarly or scientific discipline that deals with such study, generally regarded as including sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, political science, and history. *

Who says that logic is magical? I certainly never said so, nor did the blogger. But logic is a premise of science, not a result.

The assumption that “science assumes & requires logic to be true” involves the mystic a priori existence of True Logic™.

But there’s no need for assumptions. Any logical atom can be treated as a hypothesis which can be empirically tested. As another example, to test “if p or q” all we need are two switches wired in parallel to a lamp.

Your example brings us to causation: science cannot prove causation exists. Causation is a premise of science. Further, AND, NOT, and OR gates work because logic works. That is, it is not a test of logic but a result of logic.

Again, science doesn’t do proof and there is no need for it, logic can be tested.

Again, love is a non-material thing and science cannot prove the non-material.

Again, for some reason you discount anthropology, psychology and sociology as science while counting any and every blog as philosophy. Scientists can study anything they please. Science is just a systematic way of gaining knowledge, so to say something is off-limits to science is to say it is too capricious to study systematically.

 

[inocente]

someone has already addressed this post so I won’t do it again but I have a very simple question for you.

what is the origin of matter?

if we don’t know the origin of matter what are some possibilities of the origin of matter? How can we go about finding it?

just a clarification doesn’t science only study matter? (aka everything in the universe is made up of matter so science studies everything in the universe)

For starters, space-time isn’t made of matter, but you are equating science with physics, chemistry and biology, and forgetting anthropology, sociology and psychology.

 

[inocente]

Again, your presumption is showing, but you remain oblivious to it.

At least three of the above (moral, historical, experiential) are qualitative “filters” which the human mind maps onto physical reality. Of course, there are correlations between events in physical reality and the way in which they are interpreted by the human mind and its filters, but the filters are “qualitative” and no way produced by the evidence. The filters are a priori and are presupposed in any interpretation. The scientific method, to remain purely objective or quantitative, does not create the filters and tries to interpret the data without reference to any of the filters. The evidence might corroborate the interpretation that arises when a filter is applied, but gathering the evidence (what science is about) needs to remain a separate activity distinct from interpretation. This distinction is crucial.

Your “rebuttals” to Alberti_Devoveo’s points highlight the correlation between the filters and physical reality, but you seem to presume the qualities are inherent in and arise from the evidential data, missing the point that they are an aspect of how human beings interpret the data and that the correlation between the data and the interpretation is dependent upon the human application of the filters and not found in the data itself.

Logic is not a filter, but instead a “formal” process which arises from the structure of intelligence itself. It is only possible to a rational mind and is also applied to physical reality in order to make physical reality intelligible. Some would argue, and I am sympathetic to this view, that physical reality is fundamentally intelligible because it was conceived and brought into being by intelligence. Physical reality is amenable to being comprehended because the Intelligence that created it also created human capacity for intelligence and reason. I believe this is the Thomist or Realist view as opposed to both the Rationalist or Empiricist views that separate the physical from the rational.

I think you are having to complicate things in order to hang on to that view.

History happened, facts are facts. Our “qualitative filter” of history is, in simpler language, just our interpretation and opinion of the facts - history is written by the victors.

Morality likewise is our interpretation of “good” and “bad”, and studies show that our opinion can vary according to our situation - see for example en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem.

What we think is beautiful or right or sensible is partly nature (how we’re wired, our common cognition) and partly nurture (what we’re taught in our particular culture). Studying this systematically produces useful knowledge as opposed to mystic metaphysics. For example, the DSM criteria for mood disorders.

“Rational mind” is a rather outmoded attempt to separate us from other species. Yes we have much more brain power. but we don’t have any elegantly wired logic unit or arithmetic unit between our ears, we are far more complicated and messy. Good job too or we would be no more than glacially slow computers.

 

[inocente]

Can you explain what makes a horse a horse, what makes a man a man, what makes a dog a dog, what makes any element to be the element it is ( I’m speaking of the periodic table here. ) The point I’m making is that science can only go so far, It cannot explain any of the above, but philosophy can, Each substance ( defined as a thing which exists but which exists in no other) in the " material " universe behaves in such a manner that it can be said to have a " nature " or " essence " composed of matter ( a particular matter) and a form ( a substantial form). So a horse has an essence or nature which is determinable by the accidents it displays in its activity.

This is what philosophy can do which science cannot. Now you may say this is a fruitless endeavor but that just exposes your prejudice against any type of reasoning not employed by science. For although science does not study the underlying composition or nature of substances, it does accept them or it would not be able to function.

Unless essence of chain-link fence and essence of VCR have existed for all eternity, “essences” appear to be just how some humans see the world, but it raises the interesting question of whether they can spot the subtle differences in essence of race-horse, essence of cart-horse, essence of rocking-horse, and essence of my little pony.

The scientific explanation is simpler. We’re very good at pattern recognition, to the extent that we see the world as made up of a catalog of things, and this must have developed to aid our survival. But as such our abstraction is imperfect, for example when our hair is cut, the hair on the floor which was part of us a moment ago is magically no longer part of us, when we eat a Dorito, it’s “essence” magically merges with ours. This indicates we must be very careful to test our assumption that the world is made of things.

And you said elsewhere that it was impossible to determine which philosophy was correct. In a sense you are correct. However we can automatically eliminate those which are Idealistic, it safe to take as a basic truth that we live in a real world. That narrows the choice down pretty far. In fact, it leaves us essentially with two forms of Thomism, those who side strictly with Thomas and those, like Duns Scotus, who do not. And the Scotus school and the like really have not born much fruit.

Why don’t you get " Aquinas, " by Edward Feser, out of the library or purchase a copy ( it is very reasonable) and read it. What have got to loose. I think it will open new vistas for you and it won’t put your genuine scientific thinking at risk at all. I know more than one Thomist who is a working scientist.

I once read some of Fesser’s blog, he seems to specialize in proof by verbosity.

 

[catholictiger]

For starters, space-time isn’t made of matter, but you are equating science with physics, chemistry and biology, and forgetting anthropology, sociology and psychology.

What is it made up of?

 

[Peter_Plato]

So any blog site filled with misinformation and opinion is instant philosophy? There’s no more logic in that blog than any fanzine, rant or advertizing blurb, but if that’s philosophy then you’re making my case for me, thanks for your support.

He’s confused over the false dilemma of faith or science, like we can’t have both, and ends up lamely trying to sell God as a scientific hypothesis.

This shows you are confused. He wasn’t trying to sell God as a scientific hypothesis. He was making the point that science cannot disprove God because God is not a natural phenonomena susceptible to evidential analysis. God is beyond the means of science to provide sufficient evidence because scientific evidence does not, as far as it can be applied, add up to logical certainty and must furthermore remain silent about supernatural claims because these are not in its field of view.

Neither does he claim there is a dilemma between faith and science, as you claim he does, precisely because science does not and cannot concern itself about supernatural existents. He did state that some do want to believe there is such a dilemma and want others to think there is in order to push their own agenda under the guise of science.

Your post makes me wonder whether you read the article at all or just skimmed it to glean contentious points.

The assumption that “science assumes & requires logic to be true” involves the mystic a priori existence of True Logic™.

But there’s no need for assumptions. Any logical atom can be treated as a hypothesis which can be empirically tested. As another example, to test “if p or q” all we need are two switches wired in parallel to a lamp.

Again, science doesn’t do proof and there is no need for it, logic can be tested.

The fact that logic can be tested empirically does not rule out that logical or deductive proofs are true a priori and without need of empirical testing. I made this point before and you didn’t answer it. Once again, you are stopping short of making a logically false claim that deductive proofs are only true because they are empirically validated. Instead you are claiming that because deductive proofs can be empirically validated they are empirically demonstrated and, therefore, there is no need to view them as deductive. Further, you use this logically tenuous claim to dismiss deduction as a necessary or valid way of going about the business of reasoning.

This claim is a false one because not all deductive proofs can be empirically validated, so deduction remains an important means of establishing certainty with regards to knowledge because there is no need to rely on empirical validation if a deductive means of establishing certainty is available. That is why philosophy remains even more important than science because, as has been pointed out several times to you, science relies on philosophy to establish the reliability of its method via logical means.

Your methods of twisting the claims and arguments of others is clearly muddled and possibly deceptive because you not only change the claims of others into an unrecognizable form that you beat with your own tired points, but you always, quite intentionally, it seems, sidestep those points for which you have no answer.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I once read some of Fesser’s blog, he seems to specialize in proof by verbosity.

I imagine a slug would make the same statement about Einstein’s work. Just because a slug’s eyestalks glaze over when it attempts to understand general relativity is not a valid indicator of the value of Einstein’s work, although it might, I suppose, count as evidence for some people.

 

[inocente]

What is it made up of?

I think Alberti is a physicist, but I’ll try and he can (and will ) correct me.

My dictionary of physics says space is “a property of the universe that enables phenomena to be extended in three mutually perpendicular directions”. Which may not strike you as overly helpful but there is nothing known more fundamental than space.

That dictionary doesn’t define matter but I think loosely it can be thought of as those particles which have rest mass. However atoms are virtually all space, so it would seem that everything, including matter, could be made of space-time, different configurations of geometry. I don’t know whether that idea makes any testable predictions or is merely a matter of mystic metaphysical musing.

 

[inocente]

This shows you are confused. He wasn’t trying to sell God as a scientific hypothesis. He was making the point that science cannot disprove God because God is not a natural phenonomena susceptible to evidential analysis. God is beyond the means of science to provide sufficient evidence because scientific evidence does not, as far as it can be applied, add up to logical certainty and must furthermore remain silent about supernatural claims because these are not in its field of view.

Neither does he claim there is a dilemma between faith and science, as you claim he does, precisely because science does not and cannot concern itself about supernatural existents. He did state that some do want to believe there is such a dilemma and want others to think there is in order to push their own agenda under the guise of science.

Your post makes me wonder whether you read the article at all or just skimmed it to glean contentious points.

I didn’t say he claims a dilemma, I said he’s confused over a false dilemma. Your post makes me wonder whether you read mine at all or just skimmed it to glean contentious points.

I don’t think he says “science cannot disprove God”, don’t know where you got that from. He quotes “It [religion] is testable” and says “There is one other kind of truth that cannot be proven or disproven by science. That’s because it is comprised of all of the other kinds of truth mentioned above mixed together: Religious truth.”

So apparently anything and everything claimed under every imaginable heading by every religion there ever was can be mixed like some kind of pudding and magically out pops one testable religious truth.

Why are we even discussing some blog anyway, is CAF now a review site for blogs? When I read it, I thought of Joseph Ratzinger’s view of lame apologetics from his Creation And The Fall. It’s no longer on the orginal website, but part of it is here (pdf):

How can such a sickly Christian view take a stand? And if this is the case, it cannot possibly radiate encouragement and enthusiasm. It gives, instead, the impression of being an organization that keeps on talking although it has nothing to say, because twisted words are not convincing and are only concerned to hide their emptiness.

*The fact that logic can be tested empirically does not rule out that logical or deductive proofs are true a priori and without need of empirical testing. I made this point before and you didn’t answer it. Once again, you are stopping short of making a logically false claim that deductive proofs are only true because they are empirically validated. Instead you are claiming that because deductive proofs can be empirically validated they are empirically demonstrated and, therefore, there is no need to view them as deductive. Further, you use this logically tenuous claim to dismiss deduction as a necessary or valid way of going about the business of reasoning.

This claim is a false one because not all deductive proofs can be empirically validated, so deduction remains an important means of establishing certainty with regards to knowledge because there is no need to rely on empirical validation if a deductive means of establishing certainty is available. That is why philosophy remains even more important than science because, as has been pointed out several times to you, science relies on philosophy to establish the reliability of its method via logical means.*

Your attempt to make philosophy self-importantly relevant is irrational given that philosophers never agree on anything. You need to qualify which philosophers you think science could not live without.

Your attempt to put words in my mouth is, as always, tiresome. I’ve made no claim that deduction is false or unnecessary, but that it’s correctness can be tested and there is no need to assume its existence a priori.

Your methods of twisting the claims and arguments of others is clearly muddled and possibly deceptive because you not only change the claims of others into an unrecognizable form that you beat with your own tired points, but you always, quite intentionally, it seems, sidestep those points for which you have no answer.

Name calling and personal attacks are fallacies. If you can’t make a case without them, you can’t make a case at all.

 

[inocente]

I imagine a slug would make the same statement about Einstein’s work. Just because a slug’s eyestalks glaze over when it attempts to understand general relativity is not a valid indicator of the value of Einstein’s work, although it might, I suppose, count as evidence for some people.

So I say Fesser committed an informal fallacy and you have to commit another. What’s with you and personal attacks?

Second time today someone has been so uncharitable, must be the summer heat or something. We’re only discussing stuff here, “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition”.

But I apologize if you have Fesser’s pic on your bedroom wall and get crotchety when he’s dissed.

:coffeeread:

 

[Peter_Plato]

So I say Fesser committed an informal fallacy and you have to commit another. What’s with you and personal attacks?

Second time today someone has been so uncharitable, must be the summer heat or something. We’re only discussing stuff here, “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition”.

But I apologize if you have Fesser’s pic on your bedroom wall and get crotchety when he’s dissed.

:coffeeread:

You are hilarious. At least spell his name correctly - it’s Feser.

You seem to be under the impression that you alone can commit uncharitable and illogical attacks on the works of others with impunity but when someone else makes a similar statement about the piffle you present as an argument, you act indignant as if they have done something quite unpardonable.

I honestly don’t see how you can post with a straight face. You are either a facetious cad whose goal is to get others wound up or, if you honestly believe what you write, a very deluded individual. My gut says the former.

 

[catholictiger]

I think Alberti is a physicist, but I’ll try and he can (and will ) correct me.

My dictionary of physics says space is “a property of the universe that enables phenomena to be extended in three mutually perpendicular directions”. Which may not strike you as overly helpful but there is nothing known more fundamental than space.

That dictionary doesn’t define matter but I think loosely it can be thought of as those particles which have rest mass. However atoms are virtually all space, so it would seem that everything, including matter, could be made of space-time, different configurations of geometry. I don’t know whether that idea makes any testable predictions or is merely a matter of mystic metaphysical musing.

ok I see it differently and don’t think its this

personally (i’m not much of a scientist myself and this view comes from my philosophy) I believe space and time have no real essense no real existence. It is simply a measurment of matter in the universe and how it interacts with objects around it. Time is merley a figment of our imagination. Light tends to move slower closer to bigger objects, its not that time actually slows down and some exsting thing called time actually is effected by gravity. Rather it appears that time is shifted because of the amazing size and depth of the universe and how gravity effects the speed and travel of everything.

The two clocks analogy or rule or something. AKA if you put a clock on the 100th floor and a clock on the 1st floor they will act differently, they will move at different rates. Someone who travels at the speed of light will age less then someone who is on earth. While I can’t explain this phenemon I don’t think its because space and time have real existence in the world.

This is kinda a tangent to the thread but it kinda went with your post. I’m trying to show that I think matter is kinda the basis, or atoms or string or something is the basis of all science. There is something in the universe that is the constant in all thing and that is what science studies theorizes observes, etc. This thing is finite and not infinite. Everything must have a sufficent reason either initself or in something else. Everything finite can’t have its reason inself because it would be impossile for that thing to exist if it had to cause itself. (how can something non existing cause itself to exist, its absurd to think its possible)

so the analogy

what is the orgin of matter?

you have two options

its either matter (which would be absurd)

or something outside of matter (which by the process of elimination is necessitated) you would be outside the realms of science.

Matter may not be the most basic thing in the universe maybe in science all things can be reduced to space and time. If so all I would change in my question to you is what is the orgin of space and time.

My whole point to this long post is that Science can’t be the only knowledge. There must be other areas of knowledge. Science can’t explain everything because it can’t explain the origin of the thing it studies.

People like Dawkins Hitchens, etc. (the new atheist) are scientific reductionist and they fail to realize that science can’t explain everything known to man, but they think it can. They are great scientist but they don’t know philosophy.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I once read some of Fesser’s blog, he seems to specialize in proof by verbosity.

By the way, this is you “not” committing an informal fallacy by casting aspersions but making no attempt to say anything meaningful. Again, a slug could say substantially the same thing about Einstein and be just as wrong or right as you depending upon the slug’s ability to think rationally. A slug might be quite right in admitting that Einstein “seems to specialize in proof by verbosity,” but that is the slug admitting something about itself, not saying anything about Einstein.

I don’t think Mr. Feser should be held responsible for your limitations, just as Mr. Einstein’s thinking should not be subject to the criticisms of a sluggish mind incapable of comprehending relativity theory.

By saying Mr. Feser “seems to specialize in proof by verbosity” you seem to be admitting (mimicking your intentionally tenuous use of the word “seem”) that his verbosity is beyond your ability to parse.

I wasn’t committing a fallacy, I was showing by analogy how your own words could be read.

As to being charitable, I am attempting to correct error and inconsistency in thinking. That is the essence of “charitable” in the world of philosophy. Remember that you are posting on a philosophy forum so you should be expecting this kind of charity since logic and reason make up the medium of exchange in the economy of philosophy. Simply because you don’t think logic and reason are valuable does not mean they are not in themselves worth passing on.

Truth would seem more charitable and valuable to pass on than a used pair of socks, no? That would, however, depend upon your receptivity and your need. I think Jesus said something about the sick needing a physician but those who think they are healthy don’t see the need for one.

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

inocente

What about the elementary laws of logic that are involved in all explanations? Do they ever serve as the universal laws on which scientific explanation rests? No, they do not. The reason is that they are laws of an entirely different sort. It is true that the laws of logic and pure mathematics (not physical geometry, which is something else) are universal, but they tell us nothing whatever about the world. They merely state relations that hold between certain concepts, not because the world has such and such structure, but only because those concepts are defined in a certain way.

Rudolph Carnap, Philosophical Foundations of Physics.

According to one of the top philosophers of physics of his day, yes absolutely there exists a “True Logic” that is completely separate from the sciences. I will admit that I have read few Philosophy of Physics books, but the few that I have all have stated that laws of logic are the basis for physics.

The colloquial definition of science is the physical sciences, not all disciplines that use the scientific method–which, not all the social sciences use the scientific method. Most interestingly, there actually is something called the Historical method that does not at all appear to follow the scientific method, but is used as a form of knowledge-gathering. Weird, right?

Lastly, the Amazon links you provided me with do not prove that something is evil, only that there are things that we have already defined as evil and that “normal” people can do these things.

 

[catholictiger]

Alberti_Devoveo

I’m sure you saw his response to me but would you mind trying to clear up what he said about space and time being fundamental. He said you had a better understanding of it than he did.

thanks.

 

[Jessie5000]

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?

Even the vatican sponsors many scientific meetings in Rome. They even have hosted scientists to discuss alien life. Science goes hand-in-hand with faith. we are to take the teaching of the chruch and balance our understanding using all forms of revelation. The Holy Spirit gives us a brain for a reason and we are expected to use it.

Theology and science provide much to each other.

 

[inocente]

By the way, this is you “not” committing an informal fallacy by casting aspersions but making no attempt to say anything meaningful. Again, a slug could say substantially the same thing about Einstein and be just as wrong or right as you depending upon the slug’s ability to think rationally. A slug might be quite right in admitting that Einstein “seems to specialize in proof by verbosity,” but that is the slug admitting something about itself, not saying anything about Einstein.

I don’t think Mr. Feser should be held responsible for your limitations, just as Mr. Einstein’s thinking should not be subject to the criticisms of a sluggish mind incapable of comprehending relativity theory.

By saying Mr. Feser “seems to specialize in proof by verbosity” you seem to be admitting (mimicking your intentionally tenuous use of the word “seem”) that his verbosity is beyond your ability to parse.

I wasn’t committing a fallacy, I was showing by analogy how your own words could be read.

As to being charitable, I am attempting to correct error and inconsistency in thinking. That is the essence of “charitable” in the world of philosophy. Remember that you are posting on a philosophy forum so you should be expecting this kind of charity since logic and reason make up the medium of exchange in the economy of philosophy. Simply because you don’t think logic and reason are valuable does not mean they are not in themselves worth passing on.

Truth would seem more charitable and valuable to pass on than a used pair of socks, no? That would, however, depend upon your receptivity and your need. I think Jesus said something about the sick needing a physician but those who think they are healthy don’t see the need for one.

I’ve had enough of your personal remarks, bye bye.

 

[tonyrey]

I’m not interested in off-topic posts.

To think **love **is unrelated to whether science is the only source of knowledge is yet another reflection of Luther’s irrationalism considering that you referred to the parable of the good Samaritan and asserted that it’s highly unreasonable of God to **love **us…

 

[inocente]

Rudolph Carnap, Philosophical Foundations of Physics.

According to one of the top philosophers of physics of his day, yes absolutely there exists a “True Logic” that is completely separate from the sciences. I will admit that I have read few Philosophy of Physics books, but the few that I have all have stated that laws of logic are the basis for physics.

But wasn’t he a logical positivist, and wasn’t logical positivism rejected? I’d propose that “our” logic arises in us from deciding such things as fight or flight, i.e. it is an adaptation which originally had to be learned, or is something we learn for ourselves based on what works. Whether it preexists is then moot.

The colloquial definition of science is the physical sciences, not all disciplines that use the scientific method–which, not all the social sciences use the scientific method. Most interestingly, there actually is something called the Historical method that does not at all appear to follow the scientific method, but is used as a form of knowledge-gathering. Weird, right?

Yes, and some call technology or theology science too. My argument is that any discipline which is supposed to build knowledge about the concrete as opposed to the abstract must in some way be based on the concrete (on observation, sense experience, empirical evidence or however we want to put it).

To me this is the basic problem with the ivory tower approach to philosophy, where somehow knowledge about the world is supposed to arise purely by thinking really hard. It obviously doesn’t or philosophers would not disagree as much as they do.

Lastly, the Amazon links you provided me with do not prove that something is evil, only that there are things that we have already defined as evil and that “normal” people can do these things.

Yes, but the questions of whether evil exists objectively, and whether it is absolute or varies with culture, have been debated for many a long year without getting anywhere. By instead leaving that question aside we can make progress by investigating how people define evil and how they think of it.