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> I asked, “ Can you name a single positive result in all of philosophy that there is any consensus for across the field?“. I’ll take your answer as a no. Moly

> I asked, “ Can you name a single positive result in all of philosophy that there is any consensus for across the field?“. I’ll take your answer as a no. Molyneux's Problem. Even then, so what if the asnwer is "no"? What would that mean? Solving a problem is not an indicator of progress, anyway. More solved problems are listed here: https://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/02/examples-of-solved-philosophy.html https://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/02/examples-of-solved-phi... >Often they’re extremely counterintuitive and difficult to communicate in any way except mathematically. You're talking about specific claims, not kinds of claims, which I was discussing. The claim that something has been observed to work in a certain way in one situation and therefore must work that way everywhere is a kind of claim. That's the universalist principle. Physics, like all sciences and possibly all knowledge, is victim to the Munchhousen trilemma[0]. >No, it would probably mean that philosophers were all full of shit. So if results are inconvenient to you or against your intuition, they're invalid? "Gravity is inconvenient, so physicists are full of shit." On what basis can you argue that intuition is shaky, when you use it yourself for that result? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma

philwelch 7y ago
> The claim that something has been observed to work in a certain way in one situation and therefore must work that way everywhere is a kind of claim. That's the universalist principle. Physics, like all sciences and possibly all knowledge, is victim to the Munchhousen trilemma. Sure. None of which has stopped physicists from being able to make some basic assumptions like universality, move on, and deliver results. > So if results are inconvenient to you or against your intuition, they're invalid? "Gravity is inconvenient, so physicists are full of shit." In the hard sciences, there are right and wrong answers that can be validated with experiment. Or at least there are better and worse answers. In mathematics there are right and wrong answers. This enforces a type of rigor on the field that makes it highly unlikely that the entire field is full of shit—the phonies and second-rate theorists typically have a hard time making it very far. So they all end up in the humanities, where nobody can really tell for sure who’s right and who’s wrong and intellectual fashionability can rule the day. So far, some parts of philosophy have resisted this mediocritizing influence and maintain high standards of intellectual rigor compared to other humanities fields. But in the counterfactual circumstance where academic philosophers just write off physics as nonsense that’s no more valid than astrology, it’s far more likely that trolls and fools managed to drive the last reasonable people out of philosophy.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  >None of which has stopped physicists from being able to make some basic assumptions like universality, move on, and deliver results. Great! But just because you operate on an assumption, it doesn't mean the assumption is valid. Einstein, for instance, went to his grave believing quantum mechanics was false. This was in no small part due to his metaphysical commitments. The same applies today to the nature of time, dark matter and various QM interpretations. >This enforces a type of rigor on the field that makes it highly unlikely that the entire field is full of shit—the phonies and second-rate theorists typically have a hard time making it very far. We're discussing the field of philosophy and its goals in abstract here, though I will note that along with the hoaxes in some social sciences (which mostly aren't hoaxes in philosophy), there have been some in the harder sciences too. You need logic for mathematics. Given a logic system, mathematics is internally consistent. Philosphy works in much the same way with both logic and conceptual frameworks. Although it can be hard to prove, say, moral realism, it is possible to verify claims within moral realism to be logically consistent or not. Much the same goes for logic. I discussed this with my mathematical example a couple of posts to you previously. You don't get a free pass from logic or argumentation if you hold up a card that reads "philosopher". My only point in this discussion was to pass along the idea that philosophy is (or at least in many cases is) about as consistent as mathematics in the sense that we procede from axioms, and given those axioms, we can verify the truth or falsity of a preposition. Philosophy produces results in a different way, like the Fibonacci sequence or a fractal. The only difference is that philosophy has no fear of challenging, replacing, or adding axioms. That's comparatively rare in mathematics today. >it’s far more likely that trolls and fools managed to drive the last reasonable people out of philosophy. That's one reading; another reading would be that a theory we've been working with for a long time has just been found not to hold up. Physics, like religion, can still maintain its usefulness in such a scenario. Popper's criteria for separating science from pseudo-science would have (apparetly unknowingly to him) included both physics and astrology as scientific.

philwelch 7y ago

> The claim that something has been observed to work in a certain way in one situation and therefore must work that way everywhere is a kind of claim. That's the universalist principle. Physics, like all sciences and possibly all knowledge, is victim to the Munchhousen trilemma. Sure. None of which has stopped physicists from being able to make some basic assumptions like universality, move on, and deliver results. > So if results are inconvenient to you or against your intuition, they're invalid? "Gravity is inconvenient, so physicists are full of shit." In the hard sciences, there are right and wrong answers that can be validated with experiment. Or at least there are better and worse answers. In mathematics there are right and wrong answers. This enforces a type of rigor on the field that makes it highly unlikely that the entire field is full of shit—the phonies and second-rate theorists typically have a hard time making it very far. So they all end up in the humanities, where nobody can really tell for sure who’s right and who’s wrong and intellectual fashionability can rule the day. So far, some parts of philosophy have resisted this mediocritizing influence and maintain high standards of intellectual rigor compared to other humanities fields. But in the counterfactual circumstance where academic philosophers just write off physics as nonsense that’s no more valid than astrology, it’s far more likely that trolls and fools managed to drive the last reasonable people out of philosophy.

claudiawerner 7y ago
>None of which has stopped physicists from being able to make some basic assumptions like universality, move on, and deliver results. Great! But just because you operate on an assumption, it doesn't mean the assumption is valid. Einstein, for instance, went to his grave believing quantum mechanics was false. This was in no small part due to his metaphysical commitments. The same applies today to the nature of time, dark matter and various QM interpretations. >This enforces a type of rigor on the field that makes it highly unlikely that the entire field is full of shit—the phonies and second-rate theorists typically have a hard time making it very far. We're discussing the field of philosophy and its goals in abstract here, though I will note that along with the hoaxes in some social sciences (which mostly aren't hoaxes in philosophy), there have been some in the harder sciences too. You need logic for mathematics. Given a logic system, mathematics is internally consistent. Philosphy works in much the same way with both logic and conceptual frameworks. Although it can be hard to prove, say, moral realism, it is possible to verify claims within moral realism to be logically consistent or not. Much the same goes for logic. I discussed this with my mathematical example a couple of posts to you previously. You don't get a free pass from logic or argumentation if you hold up a card that reads "philosopher". My only point in this discussion was to pass along the idea that philosophy is (or at least in many cases is) about as consistent as mathematics in the sense that we procede from axioms, and given those axioms, we can verify the truth or falsity of a preposition. Philosophy produces results in a different way, like the Fibonacci sequence or a fractal. The only difference is that philosophy has no fear of challenging, replacing, or adding axioms. That's comparatively rare in mathematics today. >it’s far more likely that trolls and fools managed to drive the last reasonable people out of philosophy. That's one reading; another reading would be that a theory we've been working with for a long time has just been found not to hold up. Physics, like religion, can still maintain its usefulness in such a scenario. Popper's criteria for separating science from pseudo-science would have (apparetly unknowingly to him) included both physics and astrology as scientific.