Philosophy Now Forum

Every time I requested Peter Holmes to provide the grounds for his philosophical views re his independent 'fact' [so no moral facts] he was unable to provide any answers.

From what he had been posting I believed he got his philosophical grounds re his stance of 'what is fact' from the early-Wittgenstein with his Tractatus.
It is said that Wittgenstein went through 5 phases of his philosophical development and the 3 main ones were;

• 1. Tractatus - Analytic, linguistic & philosophical realism
  2. Philosophical Investigation - Language game, breaking from his old ways.
  3. On Certainty - philosophical anti-realism

Whilst Wittgenstein had progressed from his 'old ways' in the Tractatus, Peter Holmes is still stuck with Wittgenstein's archaic thinking in the Tractatus, the internal essence [outdated] are listed below;

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/witt ... /#BiogSket
The Tractatus’s structure purports to be representative of its internal essence.
It is constructed around seven basic propositions, numbered by the natural numbers 1–7, with all other paragraphs in the text numbered by decimal expansions.

The seven basic propositions are:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein/
Ogden translation
1. The world is everything that is the case.
2. What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
3. The logical picture of the facts is the thought.
4. The thought is the significant proposition.
5. Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
(An elementary proposition is a truth function of itself.)
6. The general form of truth-function is [ṕ, Ḗ, N (Ḗ)]
This is the general form of proposition.
7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Pears/McGuinness translation
The world is all that is the case.
What is the case—a fact—is the existence of states of affairs.
A logical picture of facts is a thought.
A thought is a proposition with sense.
A proposition is a truth-function of elementary propositions.
(An elementary proposition is a truth function of itself.)
The general form of truth-function is [ṕ, Ḗ, N (Ḗ)]
This is the general form of a proposition.
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

The above are the propositions ["kindergarten" stuff of Wittgenstein] that Peter Holmes relied upon to argue his case.
When Wittgenstein realized his Tractatus was merely 'kindergarten' stuff [philosophical realism] he gave up philosophy in Cambridge to become a gardener and later a primary school teacher.

W subsequent returned to philosophy wiser. In the final stages of his philosophical maturity W became anti-realist [note On Certainty] and argued against Moore who was still holding on to the old ways of philosophical realism re an independent external world.

Meanwhile Peter Holmes is still grasping at Wittgenstein's kindergarten stuff to ground and argue his case re 'what is fact'.

Peter Holmes do you have a counter for the above?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 8:12 am "I am going to attribute your position to a philosopher's early work. Then I will produce professional criticisms of that philosopher's early work. I will then pretend that I criticized your position and that this is a response to your posts. Now for some reason the onus is on you."

Quite. And there was I sort of imagining the VA penny may have dropped - hence the respite. Ho hum.

VA. Cut the diversionary flak, and address the following. Which, to repeat.

1 If there are no noumena (things-in-themselves), then it makes no sense to say things are phenomena (appearances). We can't consistently both reject and invoke a distinction.

2 Non-moral premises can't entail a moral conclusion. So a moral assertion is 'stand-alone', unless it follows from another moral assertion, which is also 'stand-alone' - and so on.

Quite. And there was I sort of imagining the VA penny may have dropped - hence the respite. Ho hum.

As stated in the other post;
"Yes, its ontology. Currently I am doing a few courses in biochemistry, molecular biology, nutrition, etc. genetics, epigenetics from MIT and other Universities, that include topics in diseases notably cancer, thus the confusion."
I intend to link that above, where relevant, to morality that is inherent in the DNA and evolution.

Genetics and epigentics can explain why you and your likes are so dogmatic with 'kindergarten' stuffs. As I had been drumming, it all about some psychological issues, e.g. desperate fears on change of the status quo [common sense and conventional sense].

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Aug 03, 2022 9:44 am VA. Cut the diversionary flak, and address the following. Which, to repeat.

1 If there are no noumena (things-in-themselves), then it makes no sense to say things are phenomena (appearances). We can't consistently both reject and invoke a distinction.

2 Non-moral premises can't entail a moral conclusion. So a moral assertion is 'stand-alone', unless it follows from another moral assertion, which is also 'stand-alone' - and so on.

I have already responded to your question 1 above in this post,
viewtopic.php?p=587633#p587633
I don't want to go off topic here.

My claim is you are grounding your views on Wittgenstein earlier 'kindi' stuff, thus not being able to understand beyond your 'what is fact' to the more effective and realistic
'what is fact'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact

Do you deny you are not rely on W's proposition as stated in the OP?
If not, what are your source of reference to your philosophical stance on this issue.

Note we have 2500 years of Western Philosophy, surely you can pin point more precisely which aspect of it you are grounding your views on??
It would be cowardice on you to keep running away from my above question.

As I had stated, mine is grounded on Kantian philosophy [major] with support from Eastern philosophy [Buddhism and others] topped up with philosophical critical thinking.