hackenslash wrote:

kennyc wrote:
and broaden your horizons

I suggest you get some horizons

Which he could do by watcing Horizon ha ha ha

surreptitious57 wrote:Like james he is academically qualified and can therefore speak with authority on the subject. I must confess to most of it being above my station but that only proves my point about his expertise.

I was going to reply by PM (I can't - have you turned off PM's?) as this has some elements of personalization in, but they express only my opinion anyway and are loosely related to the topic.

Seriously, mate. I talked to you once about this before. Do you remember me saying that I don't even consider gender on the internet? I meant it - how can you honestly trust what you read? You must know that people on the internet can just say whatever they want to say - you can't check it. It's certainly not ideal to trust it.

With james, I don't even believe he's ever said he's qualified - I may be wrong - I've seen him say he was thinking of doing an Open University course, or some such. If he claims otherwise now then all I can do is laugh - I have no evidence against, but I also have no evidence for. A course with peers at university, with professors as genuine experts in the field.... james just would not be spouting the absurdly egotistical crap he does here. He wrote in the other thread about how his super powered philosophy could have equaled Einstein and all the other huge discoveries of our times... if only he'd been born earlier! This is not someone you can really trust with respect to claims they make about themselves.

The authority you hear is pure bravado, bragaddocio, conceited and close-minded nonsense. it is expressly designed to make you feel that he is great and you are out of your depth. Do not believe him for a moment. You are more than equal of james' ability to reason - and even if you weren't - don't set your goals so low!

hackenslash wrote:Scientists are philosophers, as I've repeatedly stated.

You're using a definition of philosophy that no one else uses. I am not a philosopher, I'm an astrophysicist.
If you want to meet philosophers at my uni, you need to go to the Faculty of Arts, not the Sciences.

Four views of the relationship between philosophy and science:

1. "Philosophy as Science:
…According to Quine, philosophy, properly conceived, is ‘a part of science’, though it ‘lies at the abstract and theoretical end’ of it. Given Quine’s celebrated attack on the synthetic–analytic distinction and his associated claim that no propositions are immune to revision in the light of experience, for him there can only be a difference in degree between ‘natural’ and ‘formal’ science. All of science is in principle empirical, but the propositions of mathematics or logic simply occupy a more central position in our network of beliefs and thus are less likely to be overturned by experience than, say, the propositions of chemistry. Philosophy, Quine thinks, enjoys a similarly protected position in the web of science."
(pp. 26-7)

2. "Philosophy as immature science:
A slight adjustment of the Quinean view yields an interesting answer. The reason philosophy has not made progress, it might be said, is that it is a science that has not yet, or has only very recently, ‘matured’, that is, ‘attained a clear view of its subject-matter and its goals’ and settled on a method or a set of methods that permits it to achieve those goals in a systematic fashion. One interesting fact about the ‘only recently’ version of the view is that the claim has been made any number of times throughout the history of modern philosophy, by, among others, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Russell, Husserl and, more recently, Michael Dummett and Timothy Williamson. Dummett, for example, writes that ‘philosophy has only just very recently struggled out of its early stage into maturity’. As an answer to the prescriptive question, this view is not refuted by the fact that so far, none of the alleged maturations has led to any substantial progress in philosophy comparable to what we find in the natural sciences. Philosophy, perhaps, really has been put on the path of science once (or indeed several times), only for this achievement to be immediately thwarted by philosophers’ failure to follow through on it."
(pp. 27-8)

3. "Philosophy as ‘midwife’ and ‘residue’ of the sciences:
There is another, much more popular, metaphilosophical position that still thinks of philosophy as continuous with natural science and accepts, in a way, McGinn’s point that there are principled reasons why philosophy will never make progress the way science does, while at the same time maintaining that philosophising has a point. This is the very widespread notion that philosophy is the ‘midwife’ and ‘residue’ of the sciences. Austin famously offers the following image:

'In the history of human inquiry, philosophy has the place of the initial central sun, seminal and tumultuous: from time to time it throws off some portion of itself to take station as a science, a planet, cool and well regulated, progressing steadily towards a distant final state.'

The image suggests that philosophy ‘shrinks’ as problems hitherto considered philosophical are, in Austin’s phrase, ‘kicked upstairs’. Although Austin suggests that this is no cause for concern, as plenty of problems remain for philosophers to grapple with, Oxford philosophers in Austin’s day did talk – in all seriousness – about ‘how long it would take to “finish off”’ the subject, equipped, as they thought they now were, with an effective method. P. F. Strawson recalls, for example, that a lecturer concluded his lectures on Hume’s moral philosophy ‘by remarking: “Had Hume shown the same acumen in logic [i.e. epistemology] as he showed in morals…philosophy…would have been over…sooner”’.

Numerous important philosophers have defended the residue view. Bertrand Russell, for example, held that there is no essential difference between philosophy and empirical science. Both are types of inquiry aimed at gathering knowledge about the world. The difference between philosophy and science is simply that we call an inquiry ‘scientific’ when ‘definite knowledge’ concerning its subject matter becomes possible. The ‘residue’ of questions to which no definite, conclusive answers have yet been given, is, according to Russell, what we call ‘philosophy’. John Searle articulates essentially the same view: ‘As soon as we can revise and formulate a philosophical question to the point that we can find a systematic way to answer it, it ceases to be philosophical and becomes scientific’."
(pp. 30-1)

4. "Philosophy as the logic of science:
Platonists, in Ryle’s image, might think of philosophy as a sort of super-science of super-objects, and thus as continuous with empirical science, if science has to admit the existence of such objects in mathematics. The logical positivists, though very deferential to the empirical sciences, believed philosophy to be quite different from them. Moritz Schlick, for example, diagnoses what he calls ‘a curious misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the nature of philosophy’. As he explains, the misinterpretation ‘lies in the idea that the nature of philosophy and science are more or less the same, that they both consist of true propositions about the world. In reality philosophy is never a system of propositions and therefore quite different from science’. While science is in the business of discovering truths about the world, philosophy, according to Schlick, is ‘the activity of finding meaning’. As such, philosophy is very important to the sciences, because they cannot investigate the possible truth (or falsity) of a proposition if its meaning has not been made clear. On the other hand, Schlick emphasises that scientific problems constitute the only genuine problems and thus all the so-called problems of philosophy will turn out to be either scientific (i.e. genuine) problems in disguise, or meaningless pseudo-problems. In the words of another prominent member of the Vienna Circle, Rudolf Carnap, ‘Philosophy is the logic of science, i.e., the logical analysis of the concepts, propositions, proofs, theories of science.’ For present purposes, we can regard Carnap as making essentially the same point as Schlick: philosophy is not to be thought of as any sort of science (let alone a Platonic super-science), but is concerned to clarify and analyse the meanings of, and logical relations between, scientific concepts, propositions and theories."
(p. 34)

(Overgaard, Søren, Paul Gilbert, and Stephen Burwood. An Introduction to Metaphilosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.)

4 is the metaphilosophical position of the logical empiricists/positivists: Philosophy as the handmaiden of science.

"Philosophy deals with science only from the logical viewpoint. Philosophy is the logic of science, i.e., the logical analysis of the concepts, propositions, proofs, theories of science, as well as of those which we select in available science as common to the possible methods of constructing concepts, proofs, hypotheses, theories. [What one used to call epistemology or theory of knowledge is a mixture of applied logic and psychology (and at times even metaphysics); insofar as this theory is logic it is included in what we call logic of science; insofar, however, as it is psychology, it does not belong to philosophy, but to empirical science.]"

(Carnap, Rudolf. "On the Character of Philosophical Problems." 1934. Reprinted in The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method, edited by Richard M. Rorty, 54-62. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. pp. 54-5)

"[L]et me state shortly and clearly that I believe Science should be defined as the 'pursuit of truth' and Philosophy as the 'pursuit of meaning'."

(Schlick, Moritz. "The Future of Philosophy." 1932. Reprinted in The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method, edited by Richard M. Rorty, 43-53. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. p. 48)

"Our conclusion is that philosophy was misunderstood when it was thought that philosophical results could be expressed in propositions, and that there could be a system of philosophy consisting of a system of propositions which would represent the answers to 'philosophical' questions. There are no specific 'philosophical' truths which would contain the solution of specific 'philosophical' problems, but philosophy has the task of finding the meaning of all problems and their solutions. It must be defined as the activity of finding meaning."

(Schlick, Moritz. "The Future of Philosophy." 1932. Reprinted in The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method, edited by Richard M. Rorty, 43-53. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. p. 50)

Pulsar wrote:

hackenslash wrote:Scientists are philosophers, as I've repeatedly stated.

You're using a definition of philosophy that no one else uses. I am not a philosopher, I'm an astrophysicist.
If you want to meet philosophers at my uni, you need to go to the Faculty of Arts, not the Sciences.

I think the argument effectively hinges on what you're seeking to define.

For me, the notion that a scientist IS a philosopher is the same as saying that an engineer IS a scientist. It is true from a certain perspective, but obviously there is a valid distinction between a concept and a practice.

When Hack has referred to science, he's talked of it more in the terms of it being a mode of thinking, therefore he's entirely right - it's philosophy.

However, when one talks of conducting the practice (i.e. scientific methodology), very little of the underlying reasoning is required - one can learn the practice rote and employ it successfully without necessarily engaging in the reasoning behind it. One can thereby still conduct science, and consequently fairly be labeled 'a scientist' without also acquiring the label 'a philosopher'. My definition, though, admits more for the vagaries of human whim such as in the labeling of things according to tradition, whereas Hack's is a purer explanation.

Essentially, science is the practice of philosophical naturalism (a philosophical assumption), which in turn we then call methodological naturalism (the practice), and which also employs one more stated epistemic assumption: the correspondence theory of truth.

Teuton wrote:Four views of the relationship between philosophy and science:
*SNIP*

Which one do you find most convincing, Teuton?

Pulsar wrote:

hackenslash wrote:Scientists are philosophers, as I've repeatedly stated.

You're using a definition of philosophy that no one else uses. I am not a philosopher, I'm an astrophysicist.
If you want to meet philosophers at my uni, you need to go to the Faculty of Arts, not the Sciences.

Yes.

Spearthrower wrote:

Teuton wrote:Four views of the relationship between philosophy and science:
*SNIP*

Which one do you find most convincing, Teuton?

3: Philosophy as "midwife" and "residue" of the sciences.

I think there's no well-defined boundary between philosophy and science. Although many philosophers approach things in the scientific spirit, I don't call philosophy (particularly metaphysics and ontology) a (mature or immature) science, because "philosophy lacks the wonderful decision procedures that are present in logic and mathematics (proofs) and the natural sciences (observation and experiment, together with mathematics)."
(Armstrong, D. M. Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. p. ix)

I emphatically reject 4, the positivistic view that philosophy is nothing but the logic and semantics of science, that "philosophy of science is philosophy enough."
(Quine, W. V. "Mr. Strawson on Logical Theory." 1953. In The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, rev. ed., 137-157. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976. p. 151)

hackenslash wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
But if you do not think that an academic qualification in philosophy is valid then what is

The ability to think clearly

They are not incompatible positions however and as logic is a branch of philosophy one would expect someone who had studied it to understand it more. Though not having a degree in it would not automatically mean that someone could not think clearly. But even here as on all rational fora one sees basic errors such as argument from authority and argument from emotion and confirmation bias and goalpost shifting and every other type of subjective reasoning that exists. The important thing is to recognise these deficiencies when one sees them in ones own methods of argumentation and learn from them by not repeating them. This is not something that can be achieved in a finite period because learning is a work in progress

My own basic philosophy is not to accept anything in principle unless it is objectively true or as true as can be. So that includes anything outside of science or mathematics from a scientific perspective and logic or reason from a philosophical one. But as I am only human and so not an automaton I cannot be that twenty four seven. And so emotional reasoning will by default exist within my thinking as it will too within everyones. But as long as it does not conflate or overlap with my logical reasoning then it is absolutely fine. And I know that since becoming an atheist and joining rational fora that I have become also by default more logical. For when when one is surrounded by other such individuals then it is only inevitable that one will become so oneself as long as one has an open mind. Now the nature of Rat Skep with regard to what posting styles are tolerated sometimes compromises this process but that is an occupational hazard one has to accept on being a member here

This beautifully segues into me realising that as we are only passing through and as knowledge is always finite that one should avoid holding absolute positions unless they can be proved. Because that would inhibit against acquiring any new knowledge. Accepting that which may not conform to a previously held worldview is a wonderful exercise in consciousness raising. And as a matter of principle if not necessarily practicality [ for this is a work in progress as in have said ] I absolutely refuse to deny something that is objectively true just because I cannot or do not want to understand it. And I am therefore as a consequence less prone to having fixed opinions about things. Even where I know I am right were you to say that one and one does not equal two I would not get het up about it. First of all because it is false and so can be disproved and second of all because I cannot open the minds of others who might think like that as only they can do that. Of course none of it matters ultimately which is why I do not hold opinions as firmly as I used to once upon a time. I find this a very liberating experience I would suggest others try it too but that is only something that they can decide

I usually apologise for going off topic but on this occasion I do not feel the need to. I am not here to convince you [ general you ] of the truth value of what I have just typed. I am merely suggesting that that is how it is for me at this point in time How you interpret it is beyond my remit and rightly so too

Spearthrower wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
Like james he is academically qualified and can therefore speak with authority on the subject. I
must confess to most of it being above my station but that only proves my point about his expertise

The authority you hear is pure bravado, bragaddocio, conceited and close-minded nonsense. It is expressly designed to make you feel that he is great and you are out of your depth. Do not believe him for a moment. You are more than equal of james' ability to reason - and even if you weren't - don't set your goals so low

I was specifically referring to Teuton not james. But since you mentioned him I have to say that he is my intellectual superior too. This is not false modesty but a simple fact. His overall knowledge of philosophy is way superior to mine. I am so ignorant sometimes I make him angry as hell. I am slowly starting to take notice of what he says. Bit of a struggle as I reject idealism as a philosophical position but I shall try to learn as much as I can from him without committing myself to it

And on a more general level I have no problem in being at the bottom of the intellectual food chain here. Someone has to be and it might as well be me. I am not interested in ego but to learn and engage with others who know more about stuff than I do. But I do not consciously think of myself like that while I am here even though that is how it is. But I am not interested in being intellectually equal to or superior to anyone because that is a false equivalence. Since I am only interested in being intellectually superior to how I am now compared to how I was before. Now the forum is populated by intellectual heavies who are light years ahead of me. If I can just have a few scraps from their table then I am more than happy to settle for that

surreptitious57 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

surreptitious57 wrote:
Like james he is academically qualified and can therefore speak with authority on the subject. I
must confess to most of it being above my station but that only proves my point about his expertise

The authority you hear is pure bravado, bragaddocio, conceited and close-minded nonsense. It is expressly designed to make you feel that he is great and you are out of your depth. Do not believe him for a moment. You are more than equal of james' ability to reason - and even if you weren't - don't set your goals so low

I was specifically referring to Teuton not james. But since you mentioned him I have to say that he is my intellectual superior too. This is not false modesty but a simple fact. His overall knowledge of philosophy is way superior to mine. I am so ignorant sometimes I make him angry as hell. I am slowly starting to take notice of what he says. Bit of a struggle as I reject idealism as a philosophical position but I shall try to learn as much as I can from him without committing myself to it

And on a more general level I have no problem in being at the bottom of the intellectual food chain here. Someone has to be and it might as well be me. I am not interested in ego but to learn and engage with others who know more about stuff than I do. But I do not consciously think of myself like that while I am here even though that is how it is. But I am not interested in being intellectually equal to or superior to anyone because that is a false equivalence. Since I am only interested in being intellectually superior to how I am now compared to how I was before. Now the forum is populated by intellectual heavies who are light years ahead of me. If I can just have a few scraps from their table then I am more than happy to settle for that

I wasn't asking you what you thought, I was telling you!

You are absolutely wrong in everything on your first paragraph aside from perhaps on whether james possesses the requisite intellectual baggage to be considered to know about philosophy - he probably does. You could probably read one book and be assured of ticking off the boxes too. Philosophy isn't knowing about philosophy, that would be the history of philosophy. Philosophy is about formulating and presenting ordered thoughts, logical arguments, coherent positions and the like. In that respect, I do not think you present anywhere near as much incoherent pap as james, but because you are more cautious of your own limitations, you are also thereby displaying an awful lot more intelligence. We are programmed to defer to authoritative figures, ones who are totally certain of themselves - james is never angrier with you than he is with anyone else, and it's certainly not your failing. Perhaps you might want to consider whether that anger is scholarly chiding, or intentionally demeaning so as to artificially elevate his own position.

As for the 2nd paragraph - - that's exactly how you learn. Being open to learning is a far superior position than convincing yourself you already know all the answers.

As for Teuton, I personally enjoy what he posts as it gives some interesting baggage to contend with, but I'd always prefer to hear what he thinks rather than him pasting what other people think.

TBH, if you've read Russell's History of Western Philosophy, you'll pretty much have all the bases covered in terms of the knowledge, with only some of the fine detail brushed out. In fact, if you've read Sophie's World, you won't be going far wrong. If you can think clearly and be aware of your own limitations, you've got it licked.

Spearthrower's nailed it in that last post, BTW.

Funnily, I first thought of History of Western Philosophy, then Sophie's World when I mentioned "read one book"!

Incidentally, this is pretty good too:

http://www.historyofphilosophy.net/

Spearthrower wrote:
Philosophy is about formulating and presenting ordered thoughts, logical arguments, coherent positions and the like. In that respect, I do not think you present anywhere near as much incoherent pap as james, but because you are more cautious of
your own limitations, you are also thereby displaying an awful lot more intelligence. We are programmed to defer to authoritative figures, ones who are totally certain of themselves - james is never angrier with you than he is with anyone else and it's certainly not your failing. Perhaps you might want to consider whether that anger is scholarly chiding, or intentionally demeaning so as to artificially elevate his own position

I think james gets angry with all who engage with him because of our refusal to accept idealism as a superior philosophical position to materialism. He has been doing this ever since the forum started and has an uphill struggle because I do not think he has convinced any one of it at all though he carries on regardless. His idealism aside one can see evidence of an ordered mind at work. He is clearly a deep thinker who is not swayed by appeals to popularity so for that if nothing else he should be commended. I have made a conscious effort to pay more attention to him from now on as I have already said. I cannot just keep posting anti idealist mantras. I need to up my game and actively engage with him from this point on

I don't know about that. He doesn't get angry with me, I don't think (though you'd have to ask him). I think he sees me as a sort of sparring partner, while I see him as that puppy that occasionally chews up your shoes or shits on the bed, but who you wouldn't want to be without.

His idealism aside one can see evidence of an ordered mind at work.

Well, I should hope so. He's not clinically insane, he just talks a load of shite.

He is clearly a deep thinker who is not swayed by appeals to popularity so for that if nothing else he should be commended.

Are we really talking about the same jamest?

Incidentally, what 'appeals to popularity'?

hackenslash wrote:I don't know about that. He doesn't get angry with me, I don't think (though you'd have to ask him). I think he sees me as a sort of sparring partner, while I see him as that puppy that occasionally chews up your shoes or shits on the bed, but who you wouldn't want to be without.

Can't I just have a puppy?

surreptitious57 wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:
Philosophy is about formulating and presenting ordered thoughts, logical arguments, coherent positions and the like. In that respect, I do not think you present anywhere near as much incoherent pap as james, but because you are more cautious of
your own limitations, you are also thereby displaying an awful lot more intelligence. We are programmed to defer to authoritative figures, ones who are totally certain of themselves - james is never angrier with you than he is with anyone else and it's certainly not your failing. Perhaps you might want to consider whether that anger is scholarly chiding, or intentionally demeaning so as to artificially elevate his own position

I think james gets angry with all who engage with him because of our refusal to accept idealism as a superior philosophical position to materialism. He has been doing this ever since the forum started and has an uphill struggle because I do not think he has convinced any one of it at all though he carries on regardless. His idealism aside one can see evidence of an ordered mind at work. He is clearly a deep thinker who is not swayed by appeals to popularity so for that if nothing else he should be commended. I have made a conscious effort to pay more attention to him from now on as I have already said. I cannot just keep posting anti idealist mantras. I need to up my game and actively engage with him from this point on

I have yet to see him display deep thinking.