logical bob wrote:I'd argue that logic actually is the consequence of empirical evidence.

I’m in agreement with what I think is your main point, that we have no more guarantee of being right in logic than we have in our knowledge of the external world? Our firmest convictions in either area could turn out to be wrong.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that our feelings of certainty in logic are dependent on our feelings of certainty about the external world, I would say the two are more confusedly intermingled than that? In post #119 above you say:

logical bob wrote:Most people would be happy to say that a sudden failure of gravity to act the way we expect it to is impossible, but nobody has an issue with the idea that gravity is something we learn from experience and not a matter of necessity. Impossible things are impossible because that just isn't the way the world works.

Most people think of gravity as a universal law because we take it that science says so; we don’t have a problem with imagining that helium balloons could go up because gravity is working backwards, we just take scientists’ word for it that gravity’s working fine and the weight of air is responsible for the balloons’ behaviour. I would guess that very few people have first-hand experience and understanding both of the astronomical observations and of the sophisticated maths that underlie Newton’s version of gravity, and appreciating Einstein’s version needs more of same. Formulating the laws of gravity needed logic in the form of maths. I don’t think scientists would claim they are 100% sure there will never be exceptions to gravity, especially as gravity and quantum theory are still unintegrated?

zoon wrote:

logical bob wrote:I'd argue that logic actually is the consequence of empirical evidence.

I’m in agreement with what I think is your main point, that we have no more guarantee of being right in logic than we have in our knowledge of the external world? Our firmest convictions in either area could turn out to be wrong.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that our feelings of certainty in logic are dependent on our feelings of certainty about the external world, I would say the two are more confusedly intermingled than that? In post #119 above you say:

logical bob wrote:Most people would be happy to say that a sudden failure of gravity to act the way we expect it to is impossible, but nobody has an issue with the idea that gravity is something we learn from experience and not a matter of necessity. Impossible things are impossible because that just isn't the way the world works.

Most people think of gravity as a universal law because we take it that science says so; we don’t have a problem with imagining that helium balloons could go up because gravity is working backwards, we just take scientists’ word for it that gravity’s working fine and the weight of air is responsible for the balloons’ behaviour. I would guess that very few people have first-hand experience and understanding both of the astronomical observations and of the sophisticated maths that underlie Newton’s version of gravity, and appreciating Einstein’s version needs more of same. Formulating the laws of gravity needed logic in the form of maths. I don’t think scientists would claim they are 100% sure there will never be exceptions to gravity, especially as gravity and quantum theory are still unintegrated?

Whether or not there will be 'exceptions' to 'statements' (about observations) is a philosophical wibble that only plays with the semantics of the terms 'exception' or 'universal'. One could (if one were really desperate) define it to mean any variation from a theoretical expression (however small that variation turns out to be). That's why some people say classical formulation of gravitation is 'wrong'; they're only trying to generate some power in the wibbling plant. Wibbly statements about mathematical expressions of physical theory (expressions that are not intended as anything more than models) just try to pump up the volume for the wibblers.

The problem of having to "take scientists' word for it" is not a problem with science, it's a problem with ignorance of science, and people who speculate about 'sudden failure of gravitation (to be observed)' are trying to dig themselves out of a deep mine of ignorance with a dessert fork. Worrying about whether everything we think we know might turn out to be wrong fundamentally is the raving of a victim of an obsession with The Matrix.

VazScep wrote:
As far as S5 describing the real world, it's not the sort of talk I'd buy into, but that's because I don't take metaphysics remotely seriously.

You should. And you do. You just don't realize when you do. Consider moral philosophy. It always begins or rests on ideas of what we are and what others are to help determine what we should do. Current moral systems, for instance, do not pay rocks and dirt any attention, though they often do pay much attention to those things we call persons. We explain this difference of attention, in part, by an understanding of what these things are, which is always a metaphysical question. Political philosophy is the same, always dependent upon the deep, metaphysical questions about what we are and what sort of qualities we have (hence, the emphasis, in liberal societies, on human dignity and freedom). You only delude yourself with statements like the above.

Welcome back, Mick.

AMYNTAS wrote:Consider moral philosophy.

No thanks.

VazScep wrote:

AMYNTAS wrote:Consider moral philosophy.

No thanks.

You don't have much choice. You reason morally all the time, and when you do, you always do so on background presumptions of what you are and what other things are. These are metaphysical concerns. The very idea of moral responsibility and culpability rests on ideas of human liberty and free will, which are, again, metaphysical concerns. Again, you only think that you do not consider metaphysical issues, perhaps out of ignorance, but more likely a stubbornness, but you are always wrong, and you'd do yourself well to stop kidding yourself about it. So yes, humans, and even you, need metaphysics. Get over it.

AMYNTAS wrote:

VazScep wrote:

AMYNTAS wrote:Consider moral philosophy.

No thanks.

You don't have much choice. You reason morally all the time, and when you do, you always do so on background presumptions of what you are and what other things are. These are metaphysical concerns. The very idea of moral responsibility and culpability rests on ideas of human liberty and free will, which are, again, metaphysical concerns. Again, you only think that you do not consider metaphysical issues, perhaps out of ignorance, but more likely a stubbornness, but you are always wrong, and you'd do yourself well to stop kidding yourself about it. So yes, humans, and even you, need metaphysics. Get over it.

Nope.

Guess again.

Perhaps you could give us an example of how your own moral reasoning has been improved by metaphysics? A way in which you behave better than people who've never studied philosophy.

If he avoids Thomism in such an answer he'll be doing well. I see he's broken cover on gay bashing and Canadian politics in other threads and will need to log in on one of his other socks very soon to continue the discussion.

The thing I can never understand is not why he thinks everyone here is such a complete idiot, but why having reached that conclusion he wants to spend his time talking to them anyway.

Having said that I did read an interesting (albeit offtopic) piece the other week about whether "reformed" sock puppets are really a hazard, or whether one is getting what they want by modifying the sockees behaviour.

https://blog.vanillaforums.com/communit ... -accounts/

User: You may have banned me, but I’ll just make an alternate account and keep posting!
Mod: Right, but because of your constant abusive behaviour we’ll know it’s you and simply ban it again.
User: Well then! I’ll follow all of the rules of the forum and you’ll never know that it’s me
Mod: So you’ll just start contributing properly? Lo, I am undone.

On the other hand, maybe (since he's in a philosophical mood) this is food for thought:-

Naturally this is an incredibly childish way to carry on, but even experienced journalists have been caught doing this with their own wikipedia entries. Generally these users aren’t going to bother to clear their IPs or cookies, so aren’t too hard to detect. It’s a good idea to run an IP check on any new user who have suddenly materialised to be extremely supportive of one of your regulars. A user of sockpuppets by definition has a lot wrapped up in their online identity. The embarrassment of their juvenile deception being revealed will normally prevent repeat offences.

Yes. Childish and embarrassing indeed.

There's clearly some previous here that I don't know about.

logical bob wrote:There's clearly some previous here that I don't know about.

There's been some hosiery posting lately.

logical bob wrote:Perhaps you could give us an example of how your own moral reasoning has been improved by metaphysics? A way in which you behave better than people who've never studied philosophy.

That's not the subject at hand. My point is that metaphysics is a precondition for moral philosophy and political philosophy, since, among other things, what a thing is partially determines whether it has moral duties, responsibilities, rights, is subject to natural law, or whatever else; and moreover, what a thing is partially answers which moral duties, responsibilities and rights it has.These are the basic concerns of moral philosophy; and hence, understandings of what a thing is informs our moral philosophy. It's a precondition of there being any moral philosophy.

Thommo wrote:The thing I can never understand is not why he thinks everyone here is such a complete idiot, but why having reached that conclusion he wants to spend his time talking to them anyway.

There's a weird logic in failing to see the triviality of the task one has undertaken and then overestimating the power of the toolset one brings to complete it. As VazScep pointed out, ex falso quodlibet.

The old-fashioned motivation is that of confronting Mick's crap directly because some rube might read it and, well, take it seriously. The new-fangled motivation is that the internet is full of trolling.

AMYNTAS wrote:That's not the subject at hand. My point is that metaphysics is a precondition for moral philosophy and political philosophy

Fuck it. Maybe it is. I'll put my hand up and say that I'm not interested in that stuff. If someone wants help writing something as pedestrian as the manifesto for their local activist club, the most I'll offer to check is the grammar. And if it comes to anything like state-craft, I don't even want cynical twats such as myself around. But that should be obvious.

As for whatever it is that passes for my ethical and political opinions and opinion making, I have little evidence to judge. I'm entirely unmotivated to join arguments over whether institutions have a right to exclude practising homosexuals, or discuss the meaning of the founding documents of nations. Those threads you participate in make it clear that you take recourse to (refuge in?) metaphysics. I suppose these days, if you don't much like gayness and the idea of gay sex happening, it's a good strategy. It keeps people distracted at least for a few threads before they can dismiss you for a homophobe.

Besides, there is a difference you probably missed between not doing something and not taking something you do remotely seriously. I do, as a matter of fact, still occasionally read contemporary papers in metaphysics, and do so in the hopes of finding a cool idea. But I mostly stick to sci-fi.

My curly brackets:

logical bob {addressing AMYNTAS} wrote:Perhaps you could give us an example of how your own moral reasoning has been improved by metaphysics? A way in which you behave better than people who've never studied philosophy.

The form of your question implies that there is some objective criterion for what is better behaviour. The problem for atheists who would like to invoke some such objective standard of moral virtue is that its existence appears to be on a par with that of god’s; to that extent, I think AMYNTAS has a point. I don’t agree with AMYNTAS’ argument here that we need god to account for the supposed objectivity of moral standards, they are an evolved aspect of human social behaviour, which science hardly yet begins to understand.

With logic and the physical world (attempting to stay vaguely on topic), a previously assumed metaphysical objectivity can be replaced by consensus without too much trouble: logicians and scientists tend to agree with each other at least on what works in practice.

In the case of morality, moral standards of different groups can be markedly different, very often coming down to the groups struggling with each other for resources, with each group regarding the other(s) as essentially evil. It’s messy, and it’s probably been messy since before human language evolved. Claims for objective morality at a detailed level seem to me to be silly when coming from atheists, but they tend to be central to political discussion, which cannot be dismissed as silly, it’s how societies cope. (Some people like me tend to stay away from politics, but this is essentially free riding, which is fine as long as it works.) OK no functioning society is going to eat babies, but questions of welfare versus incentives, or when exactly to bomb fundamentalists, or when free speech turns into hate speech, are trickier; it’s a matter of what works best for society as a whole, which is at best difficult to quantify and is currently changing non-stop with technology. At the same time, morality cannot just be dismissed, because it does, in the case of our species, translate into large quantities of guns and money, it’s somewhere in the middle of our unique form of cooperation. ?The best hope for our species is to continue the discussions of village pump politics at a global level, but it’s still messy.

(I am certainly not agreeing with AMYNTAS that there’s any point in going with religion, which is generally trying to impose standards which worked at a much lower level of knowledge and technology. If there was an eternal lake of brimstone awaiting atheists and homosexuals, it would be a generally agreed kindness to stop atheism and homosexuality, but there isn’t. I would have been happier with logical bob’s challenge if he had asked whether AMYNTAS really thinks Hell exists.)

logical bob wrote:There's clearly some previous here that I don't know about.

This guy is clearly the poster formerly known as Mick who was banned (amidst quite a bit of disagreement) for crossing the line to trolling. I'm not sure that should put you off discussing this with him, but I thought you deserved to be aware.

What I posted last night was a part tongue-in-cheek and part blowing-off-steam-at-the-end-of-the-day, I don't really suppose he comes here because he thinks everyone is an idiot but rather because he enjoys something about these kinds of exchanges he's having and he has minded his Ps and Qs better in this latest incarnation.

If, knowing this you find value in the discussion, then I'd say all the best to you, but as Vaz might caution - don't take it seriously.

PS: I'm probably breaking some kind of rules by accusing AMYNTAS of sockpuppetry based on little more than his identical posting style, interests and so on to that of Mick (seriously, why do you keep talking about Canadian politics while pretending to be Australian Mick? Can't you see the insult to everyone's intelligence, it's like that time you pretended not to speak English.), so if anyone thinks it appropriate to report me, it might not be the worst idea.

Cito di Pense wrote:Worrying about whether everything we think we know might turn out to be wrong fundamentally is the raving of a victim of an obsession with The Matrix.

That's precisely the point I wanted to make in starting the thread. Philosophy's preoccupation with skepticism is precisely that worry. I don't know if philosophy really even knows what an answer to that would look like, but the desire that our knowledge about the world should be guaranteed by something more than we already have is widespread. There are genuinely undergraduate philosophy courses in which The Matrix is a set text, though skepticism has been around far longer and it may be that the philosophical fixation contributes to the film's sense of faux profundity.

It may be difficult or impossible to argue that logic is empirical without sliding into wibble. It wasn't an integral part of what I wanted to say, which is why I didn't include it in the OP. I do think it's a lot less wibbly than the mainstream skeptical view, so I think you're a little harsh with zoon here, as he's basically joining me in a dislike of Matrixism.

zoon wrote:

logical bob {addressing AMYNTAS} wrote:Perhaps you could give us an example of how your own moral reasoning has been improved by metaphysics? A way in which you behave better than people who've never studied philosophy.

The form of your question implies that there is some objective criterion for what is better behaviour. The problem for atheists who would like to invoke some such objective standard of moral virtue is that its existence appears to be on a par with that of god’s; to that extent, I think AMYNTAS has a point. I don’t agree with AMYNTAS’ argument here that we need god to account for the supposed objectivity of moral standards, they are an evolved aspect of human social behaviour, which science hardly yet begins to understand.

I don't think it does imply that. As an answer I would have been happy with reported customer satisfaction. I was hoping Amyntas/Mick could have identified a situation in which metaphysics was useful or helped him to get something done.

He claimed that moral philosophy is non-optional because everyone thinks morally. If no example of how it contributes to everyday moral thinking can be given then it looks like it's very optional indeed. The fact that (probably almost) everyone thinks and functions morally some of the time while only a small percentage of them even know what metaphysics is suggests the same.

OK no functioning society is going to eat babies, but questions of welfare versus incentives, or when exactly to bomb fundamentalists, or when free speech turns into hate speech, are trickier; it’s a matter of what works best for society as a whole, which is at best difficult to quantify and is currently changing non-stop with technology. At the same time, morality cannot just be dismissed, because it does, in the case of our species, translate into large quantities of guns and money, it’s somewhere in the middle of our unique form of cooperation. The best hope for our species is to continue the discussions of village pump politics at a global level, but it’s still messy.

Yes, and it's questions like that that make it clear that moral realism is a bit silly. You only have to give the most cursory thought to what the protagonists are doing in attempting/opposing welfare cuts or discussing the bombing of Daesh to see that whatever's happening, it's nothing to do with discovering objective truth. I'd suggest that anyone who doesn't spot that should be made to read Foucault, but it would almost certainly be lost on them.

No functioning society is going to reach a settled solution to the trolley problem. Moral philosophy is strictly for discussing over a few beers. I say eat the cabin boy.

AMYNTAS wrote:That's not the subject at hand. My point is that metaphysics is a precondition for moral philosophy and political philosophy, since, among other things, what a thing is partially determines whether it has moral duties, responsibilities, rights, is subject to natural law, or whatever else; and moreover, what a thing is partially answers which moral duties, responsibilities and rights it has.These are the basic concerns of moral philosophy; and hence, understandings of what a thing is informs our moral philosophy. It's a precondition of there being any moral philosophy.

Compare that post to this one. If you mean what you're saying it's a better put down than I could manage and if you're taking the piss then it's already been done better.

logical bob wrote:Yes, and it's questions like that that make it clear that moral realism is a bit silly. You only have to give the most cursory thought to what the protagonists are doing in attempting/opposing welfare cuts or discussing the bombing of Daesh to see that whatever's happening, it's nothing to do with discovering objective truth. I'd suggest that anyone who doesn't spot that should be made to read Foucault, but it would almost certainly be lost on them.

No functioning society is going to reach a settled solution to the trolley problem. Moral philosophy is strictly for discussing over a few beers. I say eat the cabin boy.

And while chugging a beer, you might have someone approach you with their metaphysics on the nature of all moral beings and how it justifies war: "see, there's three kinds of people: dicks, pussies and assholes...."