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Old 25th November 2012, 06:43 PM   #121
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
The claim that evidence has value in deducing the truth of a proposition is not a philosophical one.

Assertions are easy.
Assertions are philosophical.
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Old 25th November 2012, 06:51 PM   #122
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Originally Posted by zeggman View Post
Assertions are philosophical.
I'll give you that one since unfounded assertions are all that philosophers have.
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Old 25th November 2012, 06:53 PM   #123
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Originally Posted by Kevin_Lowe View Post
Does there seem to be something a little... funny, perhaps... about judging an area of academic study based on the behaviour of one person who newly enrolled in a class?

I mean, do you normally do that? Do you judge karate based on knowing one yellow belt, or art based on knowing someone who took one watercolour class, or economics based on knowing someone who read a blog about it, or a genre of writing based on reading one short story?
Of course not. That was merely an example of the type of thinking you run into, especially amongst the newly-enthralled.
It seems to me that there is the old situation going on in this thread of talking past each other about different things.
"Philosophy" used to encompass general learning. "There are more things in your philosophy..." Before scientists were called scientists the usual term was "natural philosopher".
If you use the term to indicate general principals of sound thinking and reasoning and logic... That's one thing.
However, you can also use the term to speak of a particular philosopher's particular notions....Which are often very obtuse indeed and considering the degree to which such people agree with each other... Often somewhat suspect.

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Old 25th November 2012, 07:30 PM   #124
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
I'll give you that one since unfounded assertions are all that philosophers have.
Tish and fipsy!
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Old 25th November 2012, 08:05 PM   #125
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Originally Posted by Bikewer View Post
Of course not. That was merely an example of the type of thinking you run into, especially amongst the newly-enthralled.
It seems to me that there is the old situation going on in this thread of talking past each other about different things.
"Philosophy" used to encompass general learning. "There are more things in your philosophy..." Before scientists were called scientists the usual term was "natural philosopher".
If you use the term to indicate general principals of sound thinking and reasoning and logic... That's one thing.
However, you can also use the term to speak of a particular philosopher's particular notions....Which are often very obtuse indeed and considering the degree to which such people agree with each other... Often somewhat suspect.
That's exactly the problem. "Philosophy" covers everything from Hume to Deleuze, and from Peter Singer to Andrea Dworkin.

Some of it is dumb, obscurantist, unreadable, pointless, useless, offensive or all of the above. Some of it is intelligent, clear, relevant, useful or uplifting, or all of the above.

Hating philosophy is like hating books, or movies, or Americans, or Europeans. It's hating an enormously diverse set of things, and doing so merely demonstrates one's own vast ignorance about the topic.
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Old 25th November 2012, 08:13 PM   #126
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Originally Posted by Kevin_Lowe View Post
Forums like this attract a disproportionate number of people who are in the top 0.1% of the population. Odds are decent that you aren't the smartest person in the room even on your best days. Plus being lazy, drunk and depressed means these aren't your best days.

I'm serious about the laziness bit. Check the quote in my sig file: I believe it to be a true fact about the universe. IQ test smarts are all well and good but if you haven't combined them with a serious, long-term effort to think well you're just a talented amateur.



She might. It's been referred to by Newton as "standing on the shoulders of giants". Natural talent is no substitute for cribbing from generations of people as smart as you or smarter who worked very hard to understand the topic.
And if the level of rationality on this forum only comes for a tiny, eensy, miniscule 0.1% of the population, then is it really reasonable to think that the 99.9% can possibly be as rational, that woo can be reduced to only a small-minority position (>90% or 95% non-belief)?
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Old 25th November 2012, 09:04 PM   #127
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Originally Posted by Bikewer View Post
If you use the term to indicate general principals of sound thinking and reasoning and logic... That's one thing.
However, you can also use the term to speak of a particular philosopher's particular notions....Which are often very obtuse indeed and considering the degree to which such people agree with each other... Often somewhat suspect.
Perhaps one good way of finding out what it is that counts as philosophy would be to browse the reading list of a BA Philosophy course from a reputable university. Then read some of the titles on the list, or even just one, and make up your mind about how useful or worthwhile it would be to read more.
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Old 25th November 2012, 09:11 PM   #128
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Originally Posted by tsig
Originally Posted by zeggman View Post
Also, people who state flatly "no evidence for <some claim> has ever been produced" when it is obvious that evidence HAS been produced, but the flat staters were not convinced by it.


The claim that evidence has value in deducing the truth of a proposition is a philosophical one, and is a fundamental, rather than "a very minor and trivial," part of science.
The claim that evidence has value in deducing the truth of a proposition is not a philosophical one.

The claim that evidence ought to have value in deducing the truth of a proposition is a philosophical one... assigning (a higher) value to what has verified concerning the proposition. It is an act expressive of belief in a norm.
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Old 25th November 2012, 09:30 PM   #129
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Originally Posted by StankApe View Post
not in a terrible ,ranty mood anymore, so looking back, I shouldn't have made this thread.
It's alive!--- Mary Shelly
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Old 25th November 2012, 10:35 PM   #130
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Originally Posted by Acleron View Post
What is irritating is people criticising skeptics for being skeptical of the claims of philosophy although no evidence for its value is ever produced.
One would think knowledge is a value in itself. This is subjective, of course, as it tends to be with values.

Originally Posted by Acleron View Post
All we have are claims that everything we do is somehow philosophical.
Not everything is. But why would it bother you that a lot of things are? It's not a competition. We just have this type of investigating and exploring of the nature that isn't strictly/exclusively based on empirical data (that's more often than not simply because of the nature of the subject), and we have decided to call it philosophy.
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Old 25th November 2012, 10:48 PM   #131
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
I thought that's what a dictionary does.
How do you think those letters and words got there in that dictionary?
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Old 25th November 2012, 10:55 PM   #132
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
The claim that evidence has value in deducing the truth of a proposition is not a philosophical one.

Assertions are easy.
You want us to prove that philosophy is what it says it is?
As in, prove to me that mathematics is "The study of the measurement, properties, and relationships of quantities and sets, using numbers and symbols." ? (thefreedictionary dot com)
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Old 25th November 2012, 11:49 PM   #133
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Originally Posted by TeapotCavalry View Post
How do you think those letters and words got there in that dictionary?
Samuel Johnson?

Oh, wait! Philosophy put all of 'em in there!
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Old 26th November 2012, 01:41 AM   #134
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Originally Posted by TeapotCavalry View Post
How do you think those letters and words got there in that dictionary?
Philosophy invented printing too?
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Old 26th November 2012, 03:57 AM   #135
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Originally Posted by zeggman View Post
Also, people who state flatly "no evidence for <some claim> has ever been produced" when it is obvious that evidence HAS been produced, but the flat staters were not convinced by it.
What evidence? I've obviously gone blind because I saw no evidence just assertions.

Quote:
The claim that evidence has value in deducing the truth of a proposition is a philosophical one, and is a fundamental, rather than "a very minor and trivial," part of science.
1+1=2

Is fundamental to science and quite trivial, in fact it is far more important than philosophy because without knowing arithmetic, nothing works.
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:05 AM   #136
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
Philosophy invented printing too?
Oookay. So Dawkins didn't write The God Delusion, a printing press did. Gotcha!
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:18 AM   #137
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Originally Posted by Acleron View Post
What evidence? I've obviously gone blind because I saw no evidence just assertions.
How do you provide evidence to a claim that knowledge has value?
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:19 AM   #138
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Originally Posted by Acleron View Post
What evidence? I've obviously gone blind because I saw no evidence just assertions.

1+1=2

Is fundamental to science and quite trivial, in fact it is far more important than philosophy because without knowing arithmetic, nothing works.
Is 1+1=2 evidence for something, or just an assertion?

Science in Aristotle's time operated under the assumption that one could arrive at truth simply by reasoning about the world. The fundamental philosophical shift introduced by the empiricists was not a trivial one.
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:27 AM   #139
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Originally Posted by TeapotCavalry View Post
How do you think those letters and words got there in that dictionary?
I used to be a printer so I know the answer to that one.
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:28 AM   #140
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Originally Posted by TeapotCavalry View Post
Oookay. So Dawkins didn't write The God Delusion, a printing press did. Gotcha!
Yes, but he is a scientist, not a philosopher. If he were a philosopher then we've never have heard of him.
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:29 AM   #141
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
Philosophy invented printing too?
Everything is philosophy!
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:34 AM   #142
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
Everything is philosophy!
Not everything. But it's nice to read a good political philosopher in your sig.
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:45 AM   #143
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
Not everything. But it's nice to read a good political philosopher in your sig.
Which bits of everything are not philosophy?
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Old 26th November 2012, 05:01 AM   #144
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
Which bits of everything are not philosophy?
A cat is not philosophy.

(No offense to any cats out there reading this)
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Old 26th November 2012, 05:07 AM   #145
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Old 26th November 2012, 10:45 AM   #146
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
Which bits of everything are not philosophy?
Mostly the bits you have to buy from Edmund Scientific, although there are exceptions. A good rule is to look at your budget. If you are paying more for equipment than salaries, you probably aren't doing philosophy.
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Old 26th November 2012, 11:52 AM   #147
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Originally Posted by TeapotCavalry View Post
How do you provide evidence to a claim that knowledge has value?
I'm asking for evidence that philosophy has value. It has been claimed and it has been claimed that evidence has been submitted, so where is the evidence?
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Old 26th November 2012, 11:57 AM   #148
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Originally Posted by Acleron View Post
I'm asking for evidence that philosophy has value. It has been claimed and it has been claimed that evidence has been submitted, so where is the evidence?
Empiricism = philosophy.
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Old 26th November 2012, 12:01 PM   #149
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
Mostly the bits you have to buy from Edmund Scientific, although there are exceptions. A good rule is to look at your budget. If you are paying more for equipment than salaries, you probably aren't doing philosophy.
I was told, I think by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos, that the Philosophy Dept. is the only one cheaper to run than the Maths Dept.

They never buy board erasers, Philosophers never delete their mistakes.

(If that is wrongly attributed I apologise)
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Old 26th November 2012, 12:03 PM   #150
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Originally Posted by Acleron View Post
I'm asking for evidence that philosophy has value. It has been claimed and it has been claimed that evidence has been submitted, so where is the evidence?
I think you poisoned the well didn't you? It wasn't just value you asked for, but value of a particular type toward a particular objective. I would readily admit that philosophy has little or no value if you wish to make a bundt cake.

If you mean value in a more general sense, here's a list of practical value for the degree:http://healthcareethicscanada.blogsp...us-people.html (from 2008)
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Based on GRE scores, physics majors are the top natural science students, economics majors are the top social science students, and philosophy majors are the top humanities students. The philosophy majors scored higher than any other majors on the verbal and writing portions of the GRE
Does that suffice?
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Old 26th November 2012, 12:34 PM   #151
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Originally Posted by marplots View Post
I think you poisoned the well didn't you? It wasn't just value you asked for, but value of a particular type toward a particular objective. I would readily admit that philosophy has little or no value if you wish to make a bundt cake.

If you mean value in a more general sense, here's a list of practical value for the degree:http://healthcareethicscanada.blogsp...us-people.html (from 2008)


Does that suffice?
You come late to the party, I asked for evidence of value several days ago, since then it has been claimed that it has been presented.

You are restricting the meaning to 'what's in it for me'. I was merely wanting to see anything that might benefit our body of knowledge. All we have seen so far is that science is philosophy. As the only work that appears to be of value in my broad terms is Dennett's work, which is clearly science, I conclude that philosophy is a minor and trivial part of science.
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Old 26th November 2012, 01:57 PM   #152
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Originally Posted by Acleron View Post
You come late to the party, I asked for evidence of value several days ago, since then it has been claimed that it has been presented.

You are restricting the meaning to 'what's in it for me'. I was merely wanting to see anything that might benefit our body of knowledge. All we have seen so far is that science is philosophy. As the only work that appears to be of value in my broad terms is Dennett's work, which is clearly science, I conclude that philosophy is a minor and trivial part of science.
Perhaps it is a minor and trivial part of science, since they don't intersect much in the lab. What it isn't is a minor and trivial part of scientists.
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Old 26th November 2012, 02:13 PM   #153
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Here's an example of a good intersection: Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience ( http://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-.../dp/140510838X ), written by a philosopher and a neuroscientist. A critique can be found here: http://u15357647.onlinehome-server.c...ources/179.pdf
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Old 26th November 2012, 02:30 PM   #154
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Originally Posted by Acleron View Post
I was merely wanting to see anything that might benefit our body of knowledge.
Would you say knowing what knowledge is, how we acquire and justify it meets the standards of benefiting our body of knowledge?
Or do you expect some kind of discoveries from philosophers? If it's the latter, I wouldn't hold my breath.
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Old 26th November 2012, 02:47 PM   #155
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:25 PM   #156
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Originally Posted by TeapotCavalry View Post
Would you say knowing what knowledge is, how we acquire and justify it meets the standards of benefiting our body of knowledge?
Or do you expect some kind of discoveries from philosophers? If it's the latter, I wouldn't hold my breath.
What do we expect from philosophers? I expect vague waffle but you make take a different view.
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Old 26th November 2012, 05:25 PM   #157
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Originally Posted by TeapotCavalry View Post
Would you say knowing what knowledge is, how we acquire and justify it meets the standards of benefiting our body of knowledge?
Or do you expect some kind of discoveries from philosophers? If it's the latter, I wouldn't hold my breath.
There's the semantic wordplay in full regalia.
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Old 26th November 2012, 05:30 PM   #158
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Knowing about knowing about knowing about knowledge is frightfully important too.
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Old 26th November 2012, 05:48 PM   #159
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Originally Posted by dafydd View Post
Knowing about knowing about knowing about knowledge is frightfully important too.
If scientists don't study philosophy how can they know what they know? Without philosophy we are apparently adrift in a world where cause and effect have no meaning because they haven't been defined yet.
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Old 26th November 2012, 06:04 PM   #160
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Originally Posted by tsig View Post
If scientists don't study philosophy how can they know what they know?
They know what they know because they have studied their subject. They don't give a toss about knowing how they know that they know.
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