Philosophy Now Forum

What are the facts of philosophy?
And what are their origins?

1. Plato was Greek

-Imp

Thales believed everything was made of water.

I have a huge cock. And a consciousness. And am conscious of my huge cock...

*Heh heh... Shush...*

Impenitent wrote:1. Plato was Greek

-Imp

What has that got to do with philosophy?

Or are you implying that Plato is synonymous with Philosophy? If so what is the basis of this?

Jaded Sage wrote:Thales believed everything was made of water.

Why is that philosophy? What was the origin of his assertion? Do you agree with it? If so why?

I think I'm the only one taking this thread seriously.

1. There is something. Parmenides.
2. There is thought. Descartes.
3. Everything else is theory laden. Hume.
4. Even if there is something responsible for the phenomena, Hume is right, all we can see is the phenomena. Kant.
5. Therefore, how you interpret information is determined by the paradigm you operate within. Kuhn.

uwot wrote:1. There is something. Parmenides.
2. There is thought. Descartes.
3. Everything else is theory laden. Hume.
4. Even if there is something responsible for the phenomena, Hume is right, all we can see is the phenomena. Kant.
5. Therefore, how you interpret information is determined by the paradigm you operate within. Kuhn.

That's actually what I said, kinda. Look again.

Dalek Prime wrote:That's actually what I said, kinda. Look again.

I suppose. But size is relative.

uwot wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote:That's actually what I said, kinda. Look again.

I suppose. But size is relative.

Okay, ignore the size interpretation. It's the paradigm I was operating under... (5. Therefore, how you interpret information is determined by the paradigm you operate within. Kuhn.)

A Seagull wrote:
Or are you implying that Plato is synonymous with Philosophy ? If so what is the basis of this ?

Did Alfred North Whitehead not once claim that all of Western philosophy was merely a foot note to Plato
Did he think there was no original philosophy after Plato or just that he was the greatest philosopher ever

uwot wrote:1. There is something. Parmenides.
2. There is thought. Descartes.
3. Everything else is theory laden. Hume.
4. Even if there is something responsible for the phenomena, Hume is right, all we can see is the phenomena. Kant.
5. Therefore, how you interpret information is determined by the paradigm you operate within. Kuhn.

I agree with you that those are some of the facts of philosophy and you summarise them nicely.

But why are they facts? Surely not just because Parmenides et al stated them? But then where do they come from?

How is it possible to conclude that "There is something"?

A Seagull wrote:
How is it possible to conclude that There is something

Absolute nothing can and does exist but only temporarily so since quantum fluctuations
in the form of virtual particles do not actually allow such states to persist for very long

A_Seagull wrote:...but why are they facts? Surely not just because Parmenides et al stated them? But then where do they come from?

How is it possible to conclude that "There is something"?

1. Because it is self refuting to state there is nothing.
2. By the same token, it is self refuting to think 'there are no thoughts', but as Descartes argued, it is possible that we are hallucinating or being deceived by an evil daemon.
3. Whatever hypothesis you propose as the explanation for the things you see and hear, it will always be subject to the problem of induction.
4. Whatever the source of the phenomena, it is beyond the reach of science to explain it. So, for instance, while we can detect quarks, leptons and so on, which we think are fundamental, we cannot currently directly detect the stuff they are made of. We can't see it; we can only think about it. In Kant's terms, it is not phenomenal, it is noumenal.
5. Using the same example; how and what we think about the stuff the universe is made of, depends on the model we have chosen to adopt. That is demonstrably the case.