Philosophy Now Forum

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Jan 17, 2021 10:59 pm Seeming as you are conceptualising "facts" as things external to the mind I'd really love it if you can show me an actual fact.

You're at least an epistemological solipsist, even if you don't known what that refers to. (Well, or at least you're playing one on this board.)

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:03 pm You're at least an epistemological solipsist, even if you don't known what that refers to. (Well, or at least you're playing one on this board.)

No I am not. That's just the way YOU have categorised me.

At least that helps me put you into a little box of my own. You are a categorist.

Somebody who can't think outside the box

Skepdick wrote: ↑Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:05 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:03 pm You're at least an epistemological solipsist, even if you don't known what that refers to. (Well, or at least you're playing one on this board.)

No I am not.

If only it hinged on self-admission.

Although why you'd shy away from embracing the term for your own view, who knows.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:08 pm If only it hinged on self-admission.

Although why you'd shy away from embracing the term for your own view, who knows.

It hinges on a decision procedure.

Is Skepdick atleast an epistemic solipsist? That sure seems like a yes/no question!

Now, I've said it (even though you don't believe me) that what I am is undecidable, but you went and decided anyway.

So. Please provide your decision procedure. If you can.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jan 17, 2021 1:04 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 8:36 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Fri Jan 15, 2021 2:43 pm 1 Yes, moral assertions have no truth-value, because they don't make falsifiable factual claims. Moral cognitivists are wrong.

2 Do try to think carefully. Only factual assertions - linguistic expressions have truth-value. So when you say 'there are moral facts ... with truth-values', you're referring to linguistic expressions. So you're 'sticking to the logical and linguistic perspective'. I, by contrast, clearly distinguish between features of reality and what we say about them. And I suggest you give it a go.

3 Outside language, features of reality obviously have no truth-value, because they're not linguistic expressions. So if by 'moral fact' you mean 'moral feature of reality', then your claim that 'there are moral facts ... with truth-value', is incoherent. It's just sloppy thinking.

You don't even you are sloppy in your thinking and ignorant in philosophical knowledge.

Your reference to "truth-value" is merely confined and conditioned upon a specific FSK, i.e. logic and linguistic.
The term 'true value' need not be monopolised by the linguistic and classical logical FSKs. All other FSKs has their own specific and relative "truth-value."

My reference re moral facts has truth-value cover verified and justified facts and can extend to logic and linguistic.

For example,
it is true, the noon sky at at time t1 at location l1 is blue.
whether it is true or not, the above fact has to be verified and justified via the scientific FSK.

It is the same for moral facts, i.e.
it is true, moral facts exist as mental states of inhibition in the brain.
whether it is true or false can be verified and justified via the scientific FSK and the moral FSK.

Ffs - think!

How can a feature of reality - outside language - have a truth-value? How can it be true or false in the way that a linguistic expression can be true or false? You're talking nonsense.

Ffs - Obviously you are wrong since you are the ignorant, dogmatic and bigoted one.

I won't say you are talking nonsense but you are ignorant in confining your views to merely kindergaternish perspectives, e.g. common sense and linguistic.

In the first place, as I had argued many times,
at a higher philosophical level,
there is NO "feature of reality"-in-itself outside language that does not have truth-value.
Whatever the 'feature of reality' it co-entangles with humans and do not exists independently by itself.

To confirm it is real, that feature of reality [fact, state of affairs, ] has to be verified and justified empirically and philosophically within credible FSK which has truth value.
E.g. the scientific FSK can confirm whether a claim is scientifically true or false.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:03 pm You're at least an epistemological solipsist, even if you don't known what that refers to.

There's more to be said here. It's not that I don't know what it refers to - it's that you don't know what it refers to either, even though you think I am an instance of "epistemological solipsist"; or in your language "I am a referent for 'epistemological solopsist'".

I read the article on epistemological solopsism, but then I also read the article on Epistemic constructivism; and the article on Model-dependent realism; and the article on anti-realism.

On a fuzzy match all four narratives reasonably describe my general attitude. I don't disagree with any of them. Of course, I could always nit-pick and deconstruct them down to the undecidability of their premises (how could I be any kind of solipsist when I stand on the shoulders of Turing, Chomsky, Shannon, Quine, Wittgenstein and so many others?), but I don't feel like it. In the gaps that remain one can still make the "brain in a vat" or "we live in The Matrix" arguments. The simulation hypothesis obviously appeals to my biases - which is why I default to a computational metaphysic. Turing machines are models of minds. Recursion/self-reference is computation; computational minds interpreting a computational reality may be a mind-projection fallacy and all that jazz...

So... exactly as I said before: I am no closer to deciding whether I am an Epistemological solipsist; or whether I am a Epistemic Constructivist; or a Model-dependent realist; or an anti-realist ; or whether my ability to find commonality with all of the above makes me a Perspectivist because every one of those characterisations is incomplete. In so far as I use those labels for myself it is only to aide my interlocutors' understanding.

While I continue being unable to determine what I am, that sure provides one more empirical datapoint for me being an ironist. But I can't determine whether I am one of those either...

He has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary he currently uses, because he has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books he has encountered;
He realizes that arguments phrased in his present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts;
Insofar as he philosophizes about his situation, he does not think that his vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not himself.
— Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p.73

Since all philosophies leave something to be desired, then I choose not to choose any of them. So I made my own. It doesn't have a name. It may not even be a philosophy. Nobody can really say if it is or isn't...

This guy wrote a book: The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design which was close enough to my thinking, so I'll use his definition...

Philosophy is the "art of identifying and clarifying open questions and of devising, refining, proposing and evaluating explanatory answers... so I have an open question in search of an explanatory answer.

What is a question?

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon Jan 18, 2021 6:01 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jan 17, 2021 1:04 pm

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Jan 16, 2021 8:36 am
You don't even you are sloppy in your thinking and ignorant in philosophical knowledge.

Your reference to "truth-value" is merely confined and conditioned upon a specific FSK, i.e. logic and linguistic.
The term 'true value' need not be monopolised by the linguistic and classical logical FSKs. All other FSKs has their own specific and relative "truth-value."

My reference re moral facts has truth-value cover verified and justified facts and can extend to logic and linguistic.

For example,
it is true, the noon sky at at time t1 at location l1 is blue.
whether it is true or not, the above fact has to be verified and justified via the scientific FSK.

It is the same for moral facts, i.e.
it is true, moral facts exist as mental states of inhibition in the brain.
whether it is true or false can be verified and justified via the scientific FSK and the moral FSK.

Ffs - think!

How can a feature of reality - outside language - have a truth-value? How can it be true or false in the way that a linguistic expression can be true or false? You're talking nonsense.

Ffs - Obviously you are wrong since you are the ignorant, dogmatic and bigoted one.

I won't say you are talking nonsense but you are ignorant in confining your views to merely kindergaternish perspectives, e.g. common sense and linguistic.

In the first place, as I had argued many times,
at a higher philosophical level,
there is NO "feature of reality"-in-itself outside language that does not have truth-value.
Whatever the 'feature of reality' it co-entangles with humans and do not exists independently by itself.

Look at the following words:

To confirm it is real, that feature of reality [fact, state of affairs, ] has to be verified and justified empirically and philosophically within credible FSK which has truth value.
E.g. the scientific FSK can confirm whether a claim is scientifically true or false.

Now, try thinking really, really hard.

Showing a feature of reality is real - that it exists, is a fact, is a state-of-affairs - is not a linguistic operation. It has nothing to do with language.

But to 'verify' or 'falsify' something is to show that it's true or false. So the question is: what kind of thing can be shown to be true or false? Can a feature of reality be - and be shown to be - true or false? Obviously not. It can only be shown to exist or not.

So the only things that can be shown to be true or false (verified or falsified) are factual assertions - linguistic expressions.

And, seemingly unaware, you acknowledge this when you say: 'the scientific FSK can confirm whether a claim is scientifically true or false.'

The use of 'verify' to mean 'confirm' is a nice demonstration of the myth of propositions at work, as in the JTB truth-condition: S knows that p iff p is true - which gets things back to front, and is, anyway, ridiculous.

But what matters is that your supposedly crucial condition - 'facts exist only within an FSK' - is irrelevant. Because, so what if they do? Showing that they exist is what matters, and that has nothing to do with language, and so nothing to do with truth and falsehood.

You say my approach is narrowly linguistic. But I'm just insisting on the difference and separation between the way things are and what we say about them.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:08 am Showing a feature of reality is real - that it exists, is a fact, is a state-of-affairs - is not a linguistic operation. It has nothing to do with language.

So SHOW me that you are thirsty, or are you going to argue that your thirst is not real?

Asserting "realness" is ALWAYS a cognitive operation. Otherwise you should be able to show us the property of your thirst which you dub "realness".

Or if you want an easier task... show us which property of your numb skull is its "realness"

What or where is cognition? Uh, oh! Dumb. Fucking. Philosopher.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 9:17 am
There's more to be said here. It's not that I don't know what it refers to -

What would be the basis of saying that I don't know what I'm referring to? How are you gaining access to my mind?

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:40 pm What would be the basis of saying that I don't know what I'm referring to? How are you gaining access to my mind?

The basis of me saying is the fact that you are making claims about a mind you have no access to.

My mind is a noumenon to you.

The second basis is the fact that I am in here, and I have no idea how to determine whether there is a referent for "mind". For all I know "mind" doesn't even obtain, but it seems like a useful vocabulary, so hey!

All models are wrong, some are useful.

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:51 pm
The basis of me saying is the fact that you are making claims about a mind you have no access to.

No, I was making claims about what you typed.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:08 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:51 pm
The basis of me saying is the fact that you are making claims about a mind you have no access to.

No, I was making claims about what you typed.

You are making claims about words on a screen?

There is no outside text

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:14 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:08 pm

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:51 pm
The basis of me saying is the fact that you are making claims about a mind you have no access to.

No, I was making claims about what you typed.

You are making claims about words on a screen?

Yes.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 3:22 pm Yes.

OK... have fun.

I'll go grab a beer while you study my words and claim stuff about them.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Jan 19, 2021 11:08 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon Jan 18, 2021 6:01 am

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jan 17, 2021 1:04 pm

Ffs - think!

How can a feature of reality - outside language - have a truth-value? How can it be true or false in the way that a linguistic expression can be true or false? You're talking nonsense.

Ffs - Obviously you are wrong since you are the ignorant, dogmatic and bigoted one.

I won't say you are talking nonsense but you are ignorant in confining your views to merely kindergaternish perspectives, e.g. common sense and linguistic.

In the first place, as I had argued many times,
at a higher philosophical level,
there is NO "feature of reality"-in-itself outside language that does not have truth-value.
Whatever the 'feature of reality' it co-entangles with humans and do not exists independently by itself.

Look at the following words:

To confirm it is real, that feature of reality [fact, state of affairs, ] has to be verified and justified empirically and philosophically within credible FSK which has truth value.
E.g. the scientific FSK can confirm whether a claim is scientifically true or false.

Now, try thinking really, really hard.

Showing a feature of reality is real - that it exists, is a fact, is a state-of-affairs - is not a linguistic operation. It has nothing to do with language.

But to 'verify' or 'falsify' something is to show that it's true or false. So the question is: what kind of thing can be shown to be true or false? Can a feature of reality be - and be shown to be - true or false? Obviously not. It can only be shown to exist or not.

So the only things that can be shown to be true or false (verified or falsified) are factual assertions - linguistic expressions.

And, seemingly unaware, you acknowledge this when you say: 'the scientific FSK can confirm whether a claim is scientifically true or false.'

The use of 'verify' to mean 'confirm' is a nice demonstration of the myth of propositions at work, as in the JTB truth-condition: S knows that p iff p is true - which gets things back to front, and is, anyway, ridiculous.

But what matters is that your supposedly crucial condition - 'facts exist only within an FSK' - is irrelevant. Because, so what if they do? Showing that they exist is what matters, and that has nothing to do with language, and so nothing to do with truth and falsehood.

You say my approach is narrowly linguistic. But I'm just insisting on the difference and separation between the way things are and what we say about them.

You are VERY ignorant of reality and is stuck with your dogmatic, bigoted and ultimately metaphysical world of illusions.

1. You are merely assuming a feature of reality exists as real, that it is a fact and is a state-of-affairs even before proving it exists.
Therefore you are begging the question.

2. This is the Philosophical Realists' stance, i.e. [mine]

• [Philosophical] Realism about a certain kind of thing, is the thesis that this kind of thing has [absolute] mind-independent existence, i.e. that it is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism

3. The most credible method to prove what you ASSUMED exists as real is to use the scientific FSK.
But what the scientific FSK conclude as real is merely based on POLISHED CONJECTURES which can be wrong at times with regard to what is supposedly real.

4. So what you had ASSUMED as real, i.e. a feature of reality exists as real, that it is a fact and is a state-of-affairs that is independent of the human minds cannot be proven AT ALL to be really-real and existing-by-itself.

5. Thus the only means a feature of reality as real, fact and is a state-of-affairs it that it co-entangled with human conditions via various FSRs & FSKs.

6. Whether the claim of reality is true or false can only be qualified to a specific FSR/FSK which is constructed by humans.

7. Your insistence and linguistic claim that a feature of reality is real - that it exists, is a fact, is a state-of-affairs, - is a linguistic operation. It has everything to do with the language you use. You are merely thinking of reality linguistically and ASSUMING an absolutely mind independent feature of reality exists as real.

Can a feature of reality be - and be shown to be - true or false? Obviously not. It can only be shown to exist or not.

8. To show whether a your ASSUMED feature of reality exists or not and verify & justify what you assumed is real, you will have to resort to 3, i.e. relying upon the most credible FSK, i.e. the scientific FSK which is merely a conjectures polisher and concluding with 'polished conjectures' [hypotheses].

9. Therefore your insistence a feature of reality is real - that it exists, is a fact, is a state-of-affairs, - is a linguistic operation only. You are merely making noises about the metaphysical illusions you ASSUMED as really real existing independently by itself.