It's nice to read you responding. But keep attention about your ponctuation; I am originally french-speaking, and I have to make the marks mentally. Thanks.
I'll answer you mainly about the first answer, the next being almost obvious.
But before to do so, let's me make a remark. Although Gingko seem to adopt the point of view of Wittgenstein, I think it has mainly to be taken as a possibility. As I see this from me, it would eradicate any way out of maths or respectively physics.
I think the idea to practice Wittgenstein's (relatively extremis) thought can be dangerous: it would - according to what I understand - avoid modal logic, and prevent some thoughts traditions - nevertheless present in science - through the theoretic sciences.
In this way, for example, I think there would not have much place for the question "Are the decompositions tried in physics a right way to understand the Nature ?", because such a question would have some ideology aspects (out or more abstract than science).
As I understand, Wittgenstein's attitude could permit some way in making "false physics" mistaking ourselves for a century, because this thought let to consider only the results whatever the process in which they are done.
(Sorry Gingko if you think I am too critic against Wittgenstein.)
-In my deep thought:Ctk wrote:Thank's NielsBohr and Gary for your responses
I have a question for everyone, when I was creating this thread I was thinking on a epistemology class I took, although it was quite simply. I have a major problem with it, which is based on the words used in the class. You can check it in this link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_ ... IB_course) (hopefully it is alright to post wikipedia links)
1) The confusing words used in epistemology
So my main concern is with words such as "justice" "knowledge", "truth" all this words seem very broad and inaccessible to the average person and there seems to be no consensus as to what they mean. In addition, do philosophers or aspiring philosophers actually go in the world thinking I am going to find out what the word "knowledge" means? As a human being I think there is a process of reasoning which goes from the concrete experience to the universal, wouldn't a way of doing philosophy be reflecting on my past experience whenever I have learned(a word that I prefer) a objective fact about the world like multiplication. In my opinion, the process of reasoning needs to be informed either by concrete experience or by basing your view on object like in a story of Medea when she commits and unjust act, and then people can argue about this concept of what justice is in the context of the story. The reason why this epistemology subject bothers me is because they ask questions like "talk about a knowledge issue" and in my opinion that is very decontextualize and difficult to understand, like knowledge issue of what? About who? What does knowledge issue even mean?
In contrast I really liked my greek philosophy class because it provided this ideas with a context, for example, in Euthyphro when Socrates talks about piety, it is easier to understand where Socrates is coming from, since his ideas are grounded on a particular event whenever Euthyphro will forgive his father.
truth (or Truth if you want, I don't make much difference), is only recognized thank to the faith. I do not explain myself how a construction as logic could have a way in recognizing some elementary truths in theirselves.
-The knowledge is only this process of recognizing the truths.
-Justice can be even more complicated without context. But I think you can take the referential of "some laws" as such, in answering that "justice" is only the conformity to a set of laws (ordered & tided up, as a mix of articles would not have any sense).
About your next ideas of this point, I think (Wittgenstein is about to matter about "concrete" ideas) and that you are half-true, but also half-false, and I'll explain you why:
-Yes, this is famous that some logical construction cannot be done without any context.
-No: there is no "objective fact". Facts are some events in a limited time. They have no meaning in themselves. Remember this.
-So, if you do not have a context, as it is the case about "knowledge issues", this is to you to justify in simply giving your mental context!
Once it is done, all the doors open to you !
In this example, you can write that the positive issues are the improvements in technologies, what lead to a better sanity, for example.
In the negative issues - you can think that I have a biased view due to my faith - nevertheless, you have already an example easy understandable in the Bible: Knowledge can lead humans to rise in a "Babylone" tower, was is not far to be the case in nowadays physics - leading people to misunderstanding the others as their own colleagues.
-Abstract thinking is - according to me - far from reality, but nearer from your own thoughts - what doesn't mean that they are in contradiction of reality. This is the interest in abstracting. Nobody have the access to "The reality". But everyone have access to his own thoughts.Ctk wrote:2) What is the difference between abstract thinking and philosophy?
For instance, philosophical problems tend to derived from a particular to a universal(at least from the works, I've read). For example, George Yancy is a Africana philosopher and in his book he talks about concepts like the public sphere and the african american codified self. In other disciplines(unless we count literature) I don't see this kind of thinking in which a person analyses a event and starts attributing concepts to the event he interprets. Is this doing philosophy? Like for instance, Marx says that philosophers interpret reality, is analyzing an specific situation and attributing it universal characteristics a trait of philosophical reflection? Or is it simply abstract thinking?
In the contrary, philosophy can be much concrete, as ethics.
-If that can "reassure" you, I (also) think that your teacher is crazy - I had such a "philosophy teacher" who disgusted me from this branch for some times - this is not philosophy. Anyway, in english, this is not polite to answer only "No". You should justify your answer.Ctk wrote:3) This leads me to my third question, is there a strict demarcation of what counts as doing philosophy?
When I took the epistemology class I had a strict teacher who thought in absolutes, either something was to case and or it wasn't. is this philosophy? For instance, in the context of religion he said either God is real or he is not? Whoever, I ask myself is this philosophy a way of thinking in which there is only one correct answer on the foundations of our understanding or the world. Is God real or not? Is there free will or not? At least in my other class I have come to think of philosophy as not an activity of absolutist thinking but rather the idea of a superstructure a way to interpret reality, which does not necessarily need to impart judgment on if this is true or not but rather to observe and comment on what there is.
And as I told you above, it is not possible to abstract all contexts. Moreover, physicists as Newtons with others demonstrated that absolute space - as absolute time thank to Einstein - are not absolute. This is not enjoying in our quest, a priori.
(But Einstein wanted to tell that there are "relative absolutes", as a notion of Interval in physics (space-time interval), is absolute.)
-I personally think that you have better understood philosophy than your teacher.
