There are no known instances of one reasoning to new knowledge of the world a priori

[beshvac]

Peikoff: "The theory of the analytic-synthetic dichotomy presents men with the following choice: If your statement is proved, it says nothing about that which exists; if it is about existents, it cannot be proved. If it is demonstrated by logical argument, it represents a subjective convention; if it asserts a fact, logic cannot establish it. If you validate it by an appeal to the meanings of your concepts, then it is cut off from reality; if you validate it by an appeal to your percepts, then you cannot be certain of it".

Jeez, most estimates I go out on represents this!

I can TELL them they should not be replaceing their 9 year old furnace....I can SHOW them here is the choke point in your duct that killed your current furnace....And they go with the low bidder that said IT ISN"T SO!

[koolkahuna]

Printer2, you have to realize this British boy is trying to write a thesis on our responses to his posts.
He is still in Philophoschool and giggling like a british schoolboy on his first foxhunt each time he gets a bite.
I saw Charles and Diana when they came to our little colonial outpost in the eighties. She was awesome, him not so much. He considered himself quite the philospher as well.
He came off just like Thermalunderwear does.
Irrelevant and annoying.

[air1]

Glen - this is technical philosophy - the junction where epistemology, metaphysics and philosophical logic meet. Its related to the search for reality and our mapping of it - what can we know and how can we come to know it. There must be at least one other person here who enjoys studying and doing western philosophy?

The problem with western philosophy is they over think things and end up going around in circles.
We need to accept that some things are beyond human comprehension and just magical.
I prefer the eastern approach and the question; what is consciousness?

[thermophysics]

The problem with western philosophy is they over think things and end up going around in circles.
We need to accept that some things are beyond human comprehension and just magical.
I prefer the eastern approach and the question; what is consciousness?

Hmm, what is it to "over think" something? Do you have an example? Surely, if it is one's job simply to think about problems, known for over 2500 years to be particularly difficult, then one should think as long and as hard as is necessary.

There has been much progress the last 500 or so years. Related to something already said on this thread - it was Wittgenstein who solved a problem Socrates had been dishing out famously for 2400 years. It is now known as the Socratic Fallacy - that if you cannot define something in necessary and sufficient terms then how can you be sure never to miss instances or mistake false instances of that subject entity. Wittgenstein's family resemblance principle combined with Sibley's defeasibility principle has solved this 2400 year old problem. Many of the ancient paradoxes have been resolved such as Zeno's paradox which was solved by philosophers of mathematics.

A philosopher is not interested in magic or even matters empirical - those are areas best left to scientists. Scientists use measuring-tapes, weigh-scales and stop-watches and the like to learn from the world. Philosophers deal with everything else that comes via the abstract - questions that cannot be answered by such instruments of science. A scientist might do an experiment to see if freedom does bring greater happiness but a philosopher is required if someone goes on to ask a further question of whether happiness is even important which is clearly a question a scientist cannot answer without some some sort of philosophical tool box.

"What is consciousness" is ultimately an empirical question untouchable by both western and eastern philosophers. But western philosophers do busy themselves policing the language and conceptual frameworks employed by those scientists. A scientists might assert that reflective consciousness is limitless as is an infinite regress - Dan Dennets intentional stance - for example. A philosopher will come along and say "Steady, old boy, lets not get carried away - what do you mean by "consciousness" and "limitless" and "infinite" and "regress" - please cash these out - we would like to see that they all cohere without embedded contradictions.

Wittgenstein pointed out to scientists that the alloy they used to keep in Paris as the template length of the SI system's 1 meter could not itself be a meter. When they asked why he asked them how would they measure it. They said with a meter rule. He said how did they know their meter rule was a meter. They said because it was the same length as the alloy in Paris. He replied "sure, but how do you know the alloy in Paris is itself a meter?". They eventually understood that it could not itself be a meter. Because the definition of a meter was something other than the alloy that was simply as long as that alloy at a certain temperature which necessarily excludes that alloy itself.

Hume's problem of induction is a most famous example of recent developments in western philosophy which happens to be the reason why, despite the illusion that we can, we cannot reason to new knowledge. Wittgenstein showed by argument why we cannot know our private experiences nor develop a private language. Thus the only way to learn about the universe is through bright daylight sense experience of the type available to all physically healthy humans - there is no other way - these are huge advances that took a couple thousand years of debate with very long and deep thought to get too. These days so much of this is around us anyway that we now take much of it for granted not realising how much our modern world depends on philosophers. The US Constitution is much moulded from the British Philosopher John Locke's Two Treatise and every law (Statute) ever written into the US or UK law books was first tested by western philosophers.

[air1]

You're doing it again.

[thermophysics]

You're doing it again.

Indeed, am always willing to think

[air1]

Like I stated before, some the mysteries of the universe are beyond human comprehension. For example, we exist in a 3 dimensional world, so we cannot comprehend what a 4th dimension would look like because we have no point of reference. Even though mathematically dimensions beyond the 3 spatial dimensions we are familiar with are describable. So our mental concept of the universe is limited our ability to sense and measure and our point of reference. Just as you can't teach a dog phsyics, humans are limited in our abilities to understand all that is.
But it's fun to try.

[thermophysics]

Printer2, you have to realize this British boy is trying to write a thesis on our responses to his posts.
He is still in Philophoschool and giggling like a british schoolboy on his first foxhunt each time he gets a bite.
I saw Charles and Diana when they came to our little colonial outpost in the eighties. She was awesome, him not so much. He considered himself quite the philospher as well.
He came off just like Thermalunderwear does.
Irrelevant and annoying.

The problem with evidence is that it can be seen to fit an unlimited number of theories. The theory that a fairy hovers next to absolutely every object on this earth waiting to carry that object down to the next available level at a constant rate of acceleration and then the theory that it is actually gravitons that cause the falling acceleration and then the theory that time is slower nearer heavier masses and so objects fall back in time at constant acceleration and so on are all confirmed by the witnessing of any object accelerating toward the ground. An object falling to the ground can be construed by proponents of each theory as evidence of their particular theory amongst a basket of incompatible theories.

What this means is that you could make up just about any old reason you want about why I post as I do and all of them will be confirmed by the evidence.

This is called theory underdetermination by evidence - first spoken of by John Stuart Mill.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underdetermination

"To show that a conclusion is underdetermined, one must show that there is a rival conclusion that is equally well supported by the standards of evidence. A trivial example of underdetermination is the addition of the statement "whenever we look for evidence" (or more generally, any statement which cannot be falsified). For example, the conclusion "objects near earth fall toward it when dropped" might be opposed by "objects near earth fall toward it when dropped but only when we check to see that they do." Since one may append this to any conclusion, all conclusions are at least trivially underdetermined. If one considers such statements to be illegitimate, e.g. by applying Occam's Razor, then such "tricks" are not considered demonstrations of underdetermination." ~ Wiki Link Above.

At the end of the day many of our theories simply speak more about ourselves than they do about the subject material.

[thermophysics]

Like I stated before, some the mysteries of the universe are beyond human comprehension. For example, we exist in a 3 dimensional world, so we cannot comprehend what a 4th dimension would look like because we have no point of reference. Even though mathematically dimensions beyond the 3 spatial dimensions we are familiar with are describable. So our mental concept of the universe is limited our ability to sense and measure and our point of reference. Just as you can't teach a dog phsyics, humans are limited in our abilities to understand all that is.
But it's fun to try.

Yes, and I agree we should anyway try - after-all it was once said that we will never know where electricity comes from and Einstein was told not to bother with studying physics because everything was already known.

[Space Racer]

TP: In the interest of using simple concrete examples, do you ever find yourself talking about maps and the applications of various projections in your discussions of philosophy?

(See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_projection)

[air1]

TP, you're a smart guy but you speak way over everyone's head. Try explaining things to me like I'm in kindergarten. Then we'll move on from there.

[printer2]

Printer2, you have to realize this British boy is trying to write a thesis on our responses to his posts.
He is still in Philophoschool and giggling like a british schoolboy on his first foxhunt each time he gets a bite.
I saw Charles and Diana when they came to our little colonial outpost in the eighties. She was awesome, him not so much. He considered himself quite the philospher as well.
He came off just like Thermalunderwear does.
Irrelevant and annoying.

Does that mean there is a test afterwards? I was never very good at tests.