Philosophy Now Forum

Thanks again, Immanuel Can!

Good question, that of “how things actually are”. Here are a couple of quotes that may be relevant here:

“We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. The real nature of things we shall never know”. Albert Einstein

“You can ask me to look for the truth, but you cannot ask me to find it”. Denis Diderot

Socrates said the beginning of wisdom is to define the terms being used in a discussion. Is there a right or correct or true definition of “good”? My definition seems naïve and limited in many ways, but I hope it can lead to meaningful discussion.

Facts can often be ascertained and then interpreted, but how would we look for the "actual" meaning of "good"?

Mike Strand wrote: ↑Sun Jul 01, 2018 11:21 pm Thanks again, Immanuel Can!

Good question, that of “how things actually are”. Here are a couple of quotes that may be relevant here:

“We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. The real nature of things we shall never know”. Albert Einstein

My pleasure. It's interesting talking with you about this.

That first one is an interesting quotation. But do you notice that despite its derivation from a great man, it's illogical and self-contradictory on a very basic level?

If "we know nothing at all," then what does "all our knowledge" refer to?

I think we can safely understand him to be using hyperbole in both the first and second sentences. And though his statements there may show laudable humility, they're also clearly self-contradictory.

“You can ask me to look for the truth, but you cannot ask me to find it”. Denis Diderot

This too is irrational in regard to its own premises, I would suggest. Diderot says we can ask someone to "look for" that which, he says, "cannot" be found, presumably. But one cannot be asked to do that which cannot be done. As Kant said, "Ought implies can." So I think we have to side with Kant, not Diderot there.

Socrates said the beginning of wisdom is to define the terms being used in a discussion. Is there a right or correct or true definition of “good”? My definition seems naïve and limited in many ways, but I hope it can lead to meaningful discussion.

This is a great way to proceed. I agree.

Facts can often be ascertained and then interpreted, but how would we look for the "actual" meaning of "good"?

Well, Hume has pointed out the fact-value distinction. Facts will not justify values, he says. So whatever we understand by "good," we will have to be looking at more than simply the empirical observations we have of the world.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 12:16 am

Mike Strand wrote: ↑Sun Jul 01, 2018 11:21 pm Thanks again, Immanuel Can!

Good question, that of “how things actually are”. Here are a couple of quotes that may be relevant here:

“We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. The real nature of things we shall never know”. Albert Einstein

My pleasure. It's interesting talking with you about this.

That first one is an interesting quotation. But do you notice that despite its derivation from a great man, it's illogical and self-contradictory on a very basic level?

If "we know nothing at all," then what does "all our knowledge" refer to?

I think we can safely understand him to be using hyperbole in both the first and second sentences. And though his statements there may show laudable humility, they're also clearly self-contradictory.

Whatever rhetorical flaws may or may not be in that quote, Einstein was reminding us that, despite our extraordinary bodies of knowledge, what we know is still minuscule compared with what there is to know. This is Mike's point.

Newton made a similar observation: I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

So I am agnostic about these things (aside from implausible anthropocentric male gods) just as a child is "agnostic" about the vast mysterious ocean while looking out from the shoreline. By the same token, logically speaking adults would remian agnostic about the things we are simply not in a position to know about from our existential position of clinging tightly to the surface of one world in a universe umptillions of other worlds in boundless space.

Mike Strand wrote: ↑Sun Jul 01, 2018 11:21 pm Thanks again, Immanuel Can!

Good question, that of “how things actually are”. Here are a couple of quotes that may be relevant here:

“We know nothing at all. All our knowledge is but the knowledge of schoolchildren. The real nature of things we shall never know”. Albert Einstein

“You can ask me to look for the truth, but you cannot ask me to find it”. Denis Diderot

Socrates said the beginning of wisdom is to define the terms being used in a discussion. Is there a right or correct or true definition of “good”? My definition seems naïve and limited in many ways, but I hope it can lead to meaningful discussion.

Facts can often be ascertained and then interpreted, but how would we look for the "actual" meaning of "good"?

You've described the problem well. Some people are attracted in the depth of their being to a quality of reality our senses cannot define. Plato describes it as above the divided line. If it is necessary then by definition it is good. The question is why the manifestation of good is necessary. Why is pure consciousness within which all potentials exist compelled to actualize them within the living machine we call universe? If it is necessary, then it is the fundamental good.

Greta wrote: ↑Mon Jul 02, 2018 12:49 am Whatever rhetorical flaws may or may not be in that quote,

Well, it's obvious there is at least one huge one.

...Einstein was reminding us that, despite our extraordinary bodies of knowledge, what we know is still minuscule compared with what there is to know. This is Mike's point.

Maybe. But it's relative, isn't it? We might know little compared to all there might be to know -- fair enough. But we know much more than we did, and very far from "nothing."

So the rhetoric there isn't completely convincing...or shouldn't be, anyway.

Mike Strand wrote:

Well, there could still be something in the dark room to be found, but not a cat. This moves me to prefer a practical, anthropocentric, even subjective definition, simpler for me to grasp and discuss.

The thing is whether you want there to be a black cat. Upwards and onwards.