PHILOSOPHY THREAD (for rex and anyone else who cares to join)

Alrighty, I guess I'll kick this off.
So, we know that prominent figures in favor of Rationalism include Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, etc.
And then you have your basic British Isles trio of Empiricism, which would be Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.
AND THEN you have one Immanuel Kant, whose Transcendental Idealism has been called a synthesis of the prior epistemological schools of thought.

Now the question is, which do you prefer, and why?

Do you put your money with the Rationalists, is all knowledge ultimately attained a priori, gained and known through reasoning independent of sense experience because of innate concepts of reality we have from birth?

Or do you prefer a healthy Empiricist approach, believing all knowledge is truly gained from sense experience, a posteriori, obtained via observations made of the material world (and if you're as extreme as Hume and Berkeley, you don't even believe the material world exists)?

OR do you find Kant's approach the more compelling, his proposition that while all knowledge is ultimately obtained through experience, we can only make sense of it because of a preexisting conceptual framework (and that we can perceive a "phenomenal" world through our senses, but there is a true form of all things that are beyond our perception, which Kant calls the "noumenal" world)?

OR do you think all three approaches are a bunch of malarky and you have an alternate approach?

(if you found any of the above to be confusing, please Google the philosophers and respective schools of thought I have mentioned/ Rationalism, Empiricism, etc./Watch some Youtube videos, do a little research, please don't come into this conversation shooting from the hip)

PLEASE ANSWER IN A LOGICALLY VALID MANNER, ANY ARGUMENTS MUST HAVE SOUND PREMISES AND A DEFINED CONCLUSION, THIS IS PHILOSOPHY, NOT DEBATE, WE AiN'T HERE TO WIN, WE ARE HERE TO LEARN gosh darnit (unless of course reality is an illusion created by an evil demon, then f*ck all)

What exactly are “we “ applying philosophy and these types to?
Every day acts? Physical spiritual? I know for me at this point in life my balance isn’t dress right dress which means there are rarely equal parts of ideas I apply. Just wondering

I don't think knowledge can be gained, had, or attained.

I define knowledge as "having access to truth". To say "I know x" or "I have knowledge about x" is to say, functionally, "I have access to information regarding the truth of the actual state of affairs involved with x".
I define truth as "that which corresponds with that which exists in the actual state of affairs in reality".
I define correspond as "having an accurate 1:1 relation with x".

If knowledge is to be gained, had, or attained, then it follows that a statement (x) can have a 1:1 relation with the object of its reference in the actual state of affairs being described.
However, as Russell pointed out, all words are vague and lack a 1:1 relation with the objects of their reference.

If no 1:1 relation exists between any statement and the object of its reference, there is not a true correspondence -- it is partial at best.
If there is no true correspondence, humans cannot use language to have accurate understanding of "truth".
If humans cannot have an accurate understanding of truth, they cannot have access to the truth as-it-is in the actual (ontic) state of affairs.
If humans cannot have access to the truth as-it-is in the actual (ontic) state of affairs, they cannot have knowledge.

TheDude wrote: If there is no true correspondence, humans cannot use language to have accurate understanding of "truth".
If humans cannot have an accurate understanding of truth, they cannot have access to the truth as-it-is in the actual (ontic) state of affairs.

Not to be overly pedantic but... You didn't premise that language would be necessary to have accurate understanding of "truth". Even if we were to grant that, indeed, because the languages we have at our avail leave some room for mismatch between any intended meaning and the approximation of it that a language-like expression would carry, and we therefore cannot acquire accurate understanding of truth through language, this doesn't make it so that humans cannot acquire accurate understanding of truth in general, at least not without the additional premise that any understanding acquisition is either as a matter of fact or of definition tied to a language-like message reception.


Aside from that nitpick, also, if this definition of knowledge makes it so humans have no access to it, and presumably cannot truthfully point at anything else that does, what is the point in keeping the term? All this serves is make the word into a label without a referent, leaving us to try and come up with another label to refer to what ever thing we would have referred to by this one that happens not to match the definition. I mean, take the absoluteness or truthiness demand out of it and call the result "shmoledge" and we are basically back where we began, except now we needed to sacrifice one label that could have served the purpose of the new one we made ourselves need to invent. Somewhat wasteful, is it not?

Gisteron wrote: Not to be overly pedantic but... You didn't premise that language would be necessary to have accurate understanding of "truth". Even if we were to grant that, indeed, because the languages we have at our avail leave some room for mismatch between any intended meaning and the approximation of it that a language-like expression would carry, and we therefore cannot acquire accurate understanding of truth through language, this doesn't make it so that humans cannot acquire accurate understanding of truth in general, at least not without the additional premise that any understanding acquisition is either as a matter of fact or of definition tied to a language-like message reception.

Philosophy is exactly the activity to be pedantic in!
I’m mobile right now so this may not be as in-depth as I’d prefer (for my thumbs’ sake). I didn’t premise it because I’m not sure how it could be verified that anyone has knowledge about anything under non-linguistic circumstances. I consider body language and other relational expressions (that is, expressions which purport to communicate something meaningful) to be categorized as “language” as well. Supposing that someone did possess truthful knowledge under these circumstances, I don’t see how they could:
1. Communicate that knowledge, or
2. Verify that knowledge.
Furthermore, if the knowledge is not stored in the brain in the form of words or symbols (from which words seem to have their origin), given that these things are arguably also relational expressions (albeit internal ones), what form would such knowledge appear in?

Aside from that nitpick, also, if this definition of knowledge makes it so humans have no access to it, and presumably cannot truthfully point at anything else that does, what is the point in keeping the term? All this serves is make the word into a label without a referent, leaving us to try and come up with another label to refer to what ever thing we would have referred to by this one that happens not to match the definition. I mean, take the absoluteness or truthiness demand out of it and call the result "shmoledge" and we are basically back where we began, except now we needed to sacrifice one label that could have served the purpose of the new one we made ourselves need to invent. Somewhat wasteful, is it not?

Such an action could increase the precision of our statements. While this “shmoledge” has a lesser degree of accuracy than “knowledge”, it seems likely to me that it isn’t 100% inaccurate. Those things which are 100% inaccurate have their classification as “false” already. But I do think there is a difference, in an ontic sense, between an object (ie, a phrase) with 100% accuracy and an object with 80% or even 99.99...% accuracy. There is some property object A has which object B doesn’t have, and that’s reason enough for me to consider them two separate things. Given the subject matter at hand here using different terms for the two seems useful, since linguistic confusion is a constant problem in philosophy, but I’m not sure about “shmoledge”. Maybe Knowledge* or something like that.

But as for addressing whether rationalism, Kantianism, or empiricism are better ways to gather Knowledge*, I am not sure that any exclusive approach is the most ideal. Rationalists who believe in a priori knowledge* are correct; babies are literally born with reflexive responses to stimuli which are consistent between subjects and this is at least some kind of knowledge*. But we often come to rational conclusions based on experience and external stimuli, so the empiricist argument has something going for it.

I haven’t read enough Kant to give an intelligent response on Kantian epistemology. I’m not gonna lie, I find his writing dry and likely intentionally obtuse.

Yeah, I'm a fan of later Wittgenstein because he really saw shmoledge as the only thing we can discuss and the concept of language as a utilitarian tool to get some desired outcome. I.e. that language doesn't have to be the way it is, and that concepts that are necessarily unique and subjective like beauty, pain (or beetles) still have a word because we want to talk about them.

A lot of Kantians fetishized the capital-T Truth, and acted like you had to have this obscure logical path to reach it. The concept of truth itself is rather problematic anyways, so I stick to shmoledge

I love Wittgenstein. His whole "language games" concept is really eye-opening.
Beetle in a box!
It is fascinating to think that the context and meaning of what you are saying is entirely dependant on the culture you are in, what "game" you are taking part in. That's part of the reason why a lot of idioms like "putting the cart before the horse" don't transfer well across different languages and cultures.

TheDude wrote: I don't think knowledge can be gained, had, or attained.

I define knowledge as "having access to truth". To say "I know x" or "I have knowledge about x" is to say, functionally, "I have access to information regarding the truth of the actual state of affairs involved with x".
I define truth as "that which corresponds with that which exists in the actual state of affairs in reality".
I define correspond as "having an accurate 1:1 relation with x".

But how can we verify "reality"? What is "reality"? Do you mean the material world? How can we prove the existence of something that we can only perceive through our senses? We only indirectly experience the material world through our senses, hence Kant's concept of the separation of the Phenomenal world (what we directly experience through our senses), and the "Noumenal" world (the reality that lies beyond our perception).

The "state of affairs" could also be interpreted differently across different cultures, what is true for one is different from another. This is known as "cultural relativism" (not something I believe in, but it makes a good point).

Something like mathematics or the simple concept "bachelors are all unmarried", that is something we know to be true without direct correspondence of reality. You don't have to personally know a bachelor to make the analytic a priori judgment that all bachelors are unmarried.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I think you actually have a good point (a very Empiricist point I might add), but would you please elaborate?

So phenomenology is a thing but noumenology isn't for the simple reason that a priori knowledge is muuuuuuuuch harder to prove than one would think at first. I mean Russell's latter part of his career was just figuring out errors he'd previously made in his semi-positivist works.

"Snow is white because schnee ist weiss" where German describes the state of affairs I.e. the facts in the world assuming we can have some knowledge of qualities like color, etc. However, there is no such thing as a perfect, objective metalanguage, so we're a bit limited.

While cultural norms etc. can effect our perceptions, they don't change the external state of affairs. However, cognition/consciousness always involves an object and subject.

Ask your philosophy prof if you're going to hit pragmatism, because empiricism is a kinda antiquated paradigm. While that doesn't mean it's wrong per se, I'm also not anywhere near a philosophy expert, so your professor is more likely to be able to better explain the issues with it. In short, sensory perception theories have mostly turned into phenomenology which brackets a lot of those epistemological questions. And I doubt you'll want to dive into analytical philosophy because it's dense and honestly unrewarding.

It should be noted here, too, that the truth and our access even to things like "All bachelors are unmarried" are not only dependent on the definitions of the labels, but on the rules of inference themselves. Sure, we can define what we mean by the terms and the relations. But try and derive "If something is both a man and unmarried, that thing is also unmarried" from first principles. Well, we could write down the truth table of the implication and of the conjunction and see that indeed, "q turns out TRUE when ever "p" is TRUE and "if p then q" is TRUE, but that's a mere statement about the properties of a function that we call truth assignment. It might as well return 1's and 0's, or greens and blues as an output. Heck, there can be logic systems where all statements are mapped to the same truth value, or to a tuple of them, or systems with more than two or a finite or a countably infinite amount of truth values...

Point being, if we don't care about practical usefulness - by what ever metric - there is pretty much no unique and consistent way to produce any kind of rational thought. The distinction between a priori and a posteriori statements really only comes about well after we have assumed a whole bunch of premises, justified at most as being "for the sake of the discussion", or some other form of practical necessity. Pragmatism is a rather easy position to defend against many a sufficiently strong pedantry, because it dismisses the fiddly and elsewise unending discussion in favour of getting on with the interesting stuff anyone has practical reasons (as opposed to intuitive, gut-level dissatisfaction) to care about, and only justifies doing so by appealing to itself, insisting that at the end of the day, everyone can't help but agree with it anyway and we might as well start with that common foundation rather than go back to forever try to re-establish it.

I'm actually not a big fan of Western Philosophy and prefer a more Eastern approach.

To react to the first cartoon you posted, I would disagree with it. I believe that EVERYTHING has meaning, that there are no accidents or coincidences. In that sense, when you look out a window, all that you see is a beautifully balanced microcosm and macrocosm. To see it all as a blessing is the best way to look at life, no matter how terrible things might get. I know this from personal experience, incredible suffering and the thankfulness one feels when there is finally relief.

Zen has had a profound effect one me, whereas one might think it negates reality, it actually allows one to see reality as it truly is: a miracle.

How do you know what you believe? Just because you believe in a different set of answers and suppositions doesn't mean the questions change.

Also those are from existential comics which are mostly jokes about (you guessed it) existentialism. However, since you brought up meaning, what gives existence meaning?
Is there some external measure of it: either a sort of god or objective knowable standard? Or is it subjective and a matter of us finding/imposing it? Or some third option that's just a convoluted way of restating one of those two?
Is choosing to believe something based on it's therapeutic effect a good way of judging its truthiness? I mean it would probably make me feel better if I believed that I was the most beloved person in the world, but that seems like a dangerous path to take

Ganner Rhysode wrote: I'm actually not a big fan of Western Philosophy and prefer a more Eastern approach.

To react to the first cartoon you posted, I would disagree with it. I believe that EVERYTHING has meaning, that there are no accidents or coincidences. In that sense, when you look out a window, all that you see is a beautifully balanced microcosm and macrocosm. To see it all as a blessing is the best way to look at life, no matter how terrible things might get. I know this from personal experience, incredible suffering and the thankfulness one feels when there is finally relief.

Zen has had a profound effect one me, whereas one might think it negates reality, it actually allows one to see reality as it truly is: a miracle.

Yes, I love Eastern Philosophy, although, I find it much harder to understand than Western Philosophy. As far as Zen goes, that is why I love Alan Watts. He explains it in a way that Westerners can understand.

I have found that I tend to overthink quite a bit, and I tend to become unhappy, stressed, and pessimistic as a result. When I practice Zazen and mindfulness, I find quite the opposite. Everything becomes more beautiful, more profound, and life doesn't seem so small and pointless, it seems vast and beautiful, and even a speck of dirt becomes profound and gorgeous, as you think back on all the millions of year it took for that substance to develop, where it's been, how complex its molecular structure is, and then by chance, it ends up on your shoe.

Rex is absolutely correct, however. Just because something makes us feel good, does not belie any truth to the thing in of itself, other than it makes us feel good. It has a utilitarian truth, but no existential/epistemological/metaphysical truth. Or maybe it does, and we just don't understand it well enough.

Rex wrote: How do you know what you believe? Just because you believe in a different set of answers and suppositions doesn't mean the questions change.

Well, you can know you believe something, but as to the truth of any belief, no matter how rigidly logical and pragmatic/utilitarian, or the opposite, something purely subjective and emotional, how could anyone ever truly prove these to another?
I find that even if something seems truthful and makes perfect sense in your own mind, trying to prove it to others is like trying to chop down a tree with a butter knife.
At a certain point, most have their own theories, their own personal philosophies, and people's opinions on any matter are as diverse as their musical taste.
I'm not saying there isn't a definite truth out there, but you are going to have a hell of a time proving it, let alone actually convincing others.
Which brings up another question. How can one determine whether another actually understands something's nature, and is not just agreeing with you?

Rex wrote: Also those are from existential comics which are mostly jokes about (you guessed it) existentialism. However, since you brought up meaning, what gives existence meaning?
Is there some external measure of it: either a sort of god or objective knowable standard? Or is it subjective and a matter of us finding/imposing it? Or some third option that's just a convoluted way of restating one of those two?

The real question is, what is meaning? Is there a rational objective measurable meaning, a universal truth, or is it soemthing subjective and relative to each individual, like emotions and opinions?

Rex wrote: Is choosing to believe something based on it's therapeutic effect a good way of judging its truthiness?

No, but if there is an obvious and direct benefit from something, it has value in of itself, regardless of its truthfulness or lack thereof.
In fact, the truth of the thing seems a bit much to apply here.
You don't question the truth of food when it satisfies your hunger, so why question someone else's answer to their existential hunger?
Emotional matters and logical matters are separate things in my view. The emotional ones cannot be effectively argued for or against because they are relative.

However, maybe there are clear and logical ethical truths? I do not know.

Rex wrote: I mean it would probably make me feel better if I believed that I was the most beloved person in the world, but that seems like a dangerous path to take

If you are refuting the Zen practice with this statement, you are making a blatant strawman fallacy, as no one said this.

Gisteron wrote: It should be noted here, too, that the truth and our access even to things like "All bachelors are unmarried" are not only dependent on the definitions of the labels, but on the rules of inference themselves. Sure, we can define what we mean by the terms and the relations. But try and derive "If something is both a man and unmarried, that thing is also unmarried" from first principles. Well, we could write down the truth table of the implication and of the conjunction and see that indeed, "q turns out TRUE when ever "p" is TRUE and "if p then q" is TRUE, but that's a mere statement about the properties of a function that we call truth assignment. It might as well return 1's and 0's, or greens and blues as an output. Heck, there can be logic systems where all statements are mapped to the same truth value, or to a tuple of them, or systems with more than two or a finite or a countably infinite amount of truth values...

Point being, if we don't care about practical usefulness - by what ever metric - there is pretty much no unique and consistent way to produce any kind of rational thought. The distinction between a priori and a posteriori statements really only comes about well after we have assumed a whole bunch of premises, justified at most as being "for the sake of the discussion", or some other form of practical necessity. Pragmatism is a rather easy position to defend against many a sufficiently strong pedantry, because it dismisses the fiddly and elsewise unending discussion in favour of getting on with the interesting stuff anyone has practical reasons (as opposed to intuitive, gut-level dissatisfaction) to care about, and only justifies doing so by appealing to itself, insisting that at the end of the day, everyone can't help but agree with it anyway and we might as well start with that common foundation rather than go back to forever try to re-establish it.

Would you care to elaborate on Pragmatism? What is it?
And if it is justified by appealing to itself, that would be a Cartesian Circle, would it not?
That's not strong grounds at all.
You can't just say "A is true because A is true"
Or have I misunderstood you?

First off, hooray for everything in this thread being so productive and mature

Let me rephrase my question: why do you have your beliefs and how can you verify them/what are you assuming?

I'm not bagging on Zen, I actually like a lot of the concepts therein. I just think bringing that to this conversation is in your analogy eating a hammer to fix your physical hunger. My analogue was trying to point out the flawed reasoning that was used.

And Caesar, your vocab really sounds a bit dated for lack of a better term. Don't get me wrong, Descartes was brilliant; but it's like if we still discussed biology by asking if a cell had animalicules. Bracket out all the dead end circular reasoning ideas like the cogito, and then you can move on to the whole "what even is this and what's it like?" discussion.

Is that a question about dualism, epiphenomenalism and parallelism? :S I think I like enactivism because it's fun to work with :silly: