No. It's just the best thing we have to assess his claim. From that we have to compare Serena then to Serena now and compare Braasch then to the current world #700.

But even then, short of having her actually compete regularly ('cause upsets happen all the time) in the men's circuit, it's probably impossible to say. — Michael

So, allegedly the best thing we have to assess the claim is evidence that is consistent with the claim. Isn't that the essence of confirmation? (Weak confirmation, perhaps, but confirmation nevertheless.)

Do I understand you to be saying that these additional facts confirm McEnroe's comments?

It's about as pointless as saying Floyd Mayweather would be 7000th in the world if he fought as a heavyweight. — Baden

Given historical gender roles, are McEnroe's statements coloured with a derogatory meaning that is not present in the comparison between heavyweight and middleweight male boxers?

being McEnroe we kind of understand he does not intend offence. If someone else said it, it may have been different — TimeLine

What is his reputation and what role does it play in the interpretation of his comments?

If I'm confined to a hotel room with my son, and he wants to turn the television up loudly, and I want to read a book in silence, isn't that a personal conflict?

You lost me on the remark about judges being psychopaths.

No doubt the law relies on deterrence, but I don't think that is quite the same thing as operant conditioning. Autonomous regulation would be socially optimal, but unfortunately humans do not have a great track record with self-regulation. We are particularly bad at restraining our aggression and subordinating our desire for power and resources (not unlike monkeys).

Most conflicts are caused by one person having something that the other person wants, not perceptions. — T Clark

Or caused by two parties each of whom want something, and the things that they want are mutually exclusive or otherwise incompatible.

Rules can be broken, laws can't. — Anthony

Juridical law and physical law are obviously two completely different and unrelated topics. I understood this thread to be directed to questions about the former. Law in its original meaning referred to the human activity of behavioral regulation by an authoritative power, and was later applied by analogy to certain physical or other constraints found in nature. The metaphor makes sense if you view the physical constraints in nature as promulgated by God, but otherwise the comparison is rather weak.

Also, the (juridical) law is more than merely rules and the interpretation of those rules. A more modern approach to the law is based on broad principles and the judicial or administrative elaboration and application of those principles to particular fact scenarios.

Skepticism. I would have predicted Humanism.

Some other comments have already alluded to this, but theological agnosticism does not entail metaphysical agnosticism. It may be worth mentioning that theological agnosticism also does not entail atheism. I can be a theological skeptic in the sense that I don't think the existence of God can be demonstrated with evidence, and yet I might still be persuaded that belief in God is practical, reasonable or perhaps preferable.

I've always found pragmatism fascinating due to its status as kind of the first major American philosophy. American culture is extremely pragmatic, right? We value what works in the "real world" over theoretical speculation with little to no actual pragmatic effects. It feels like SUCH an American school of thought. — Brian

I agree that pragmatism does reflect something of the ingenuity and intellectual frugality that formerly differentiated America from some of its cultural competitors. There is also something embedded in pragmatism that speaks to the relativism that American is also known for. Specifically, the pragmatist theory of truth is utterly subjective.

truth is not just useful belief, but a useful fictitious belief. ...crucial to a more postmodern type pragmatism that we see more recently in schools like that of Rorty. — Brian

I appreciate the point you are making here, but is not the latter view something more akin to instrumentalism? Strictly speaking, "fictional truth" is an outright contradiction, no?

It is easy to ignore a law but people will obey laws often completely unskeptically. I think that in order to make a law happen you have to join in a game and play a role (based on whatever societies current narrative is).

I believe that the idea that laws are to regulate society is far to benevolent an interpretation. I don't think that we have utopian societies in which laws simply regulate it for everyone's benefits. So I suppose I would personally describe a law as a linguistic tool that can be utilised in many different ways.

I don't think laws need to want to control people. A lot of them are simply pragmatic such as the traffic lights, to avoid chaos. Laws or rules can be like a framework for functioning. I think that when laws are reified (made as though concrete) then they become coercive and irrational. — Andrew4Handel

You are free to disregard any particular law if you think that obedience to it is a voluntary game, and you are prepared to live with the consequences. A more nuanced view would be to accept that some laws are more deserving of our obedience than others. In a constitutional democracy, at least, there are some implications for this. For example, a law that is unconstitutional is invalid, and should be struck down by the judiciary. Alternatively, a law that is validly enacted might nevertheless be unjust to such an extent that disobedience would be morally justified. In this latter example, it may take persons who are willing to suffer punishment and indignity to demonstrate the injustice of a law.

No doubt, some laws are arbitrary conventions in the way you describe. Some highway traffic laws are a good example (e.g. it hardly matters which side of the highway we drive on, left or right, as long as we can all agree to follow the same convention).

Another purpose of the law that has not yet been mentioned is to resolve conflict between competing interests. Much of the civil law is devoted to this function.

For better or worse, the Constitution specifically identifies the military as the responsibility of the federal government. — T Clark

My thoughts exactly. Congress has the exclusive authority to make a declaration of war. Philosophically we can easily see the justification for it. The constitution can be viewed in one aspect as a treaty between the States of the Union.

It's obviously a complicated topic, but I think you're on the right track. The democratic rule of law provides not only for the authority to regulate specific activities, but also the placement of limitations on the arbitrary exercise of that authority. An additional feature is that the authority to regulate is exclusive to the State (or its delegate). As well, a legal system normally would include a system of penalties and an enforcement body.

Pragmatism is a uniquely American contribution to philosophy that was first articulated in the latter part of the 1800's and the early part of the 1900's. As a school of thought, it emerged from the ideas of four principal characters: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey. Though it is difficult to summarize, one key idea pragmatism is known for is its theory of truth. According to pragmatism, the truth of a belief is determined not according to its propositional content, but rather according to its expediency in the achievement of practical results. In other words, the truth of a belief is determined according to its practical usefulness in the attainment of a desired outcome; a "true" belief is a "useful" belief.

Pragmatism was briefly fashionable, followed by a 50 year period of obscurity and, in more recent times, a modest revival.

With that said however, I do have some level of skepticism as to where one should draw the limits on this ever expanding list, and the logistical, economic, and practical problems involved. Any thoughts? — rickyk95

There is some tendency to invoke human rights indiscriminately by individuals who believe they have been treated unfairly. As a legal concept, however, all rights are subject to reasonable limits. In Canada, where I'm from, there is a part of our Federal Constitution known as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The provisions within the Charter place limits on governmental authority where that authority is used to unreasonably interfere with individual liberties. The key word is "unreasonably". In actuality, governments restrict the liberties of the people all the time. Legal relief is only available in clear cases where the governmental restrictions cannot be "demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society" (that's the way it is expressed in the Charter).

We owe a duty of fidelity to those groups with whom we share thick moral relationships (e.g. family, friends, and core communities). To apply the obligation to all of society would be an overextension and would be setting oneself up for inevitable disappointment and feelings of betrayal.

1. No, "nothing" is the missing complement of everything.
2. No, of course not. — jorndoe

... from a logical point of view.

To my way of thinking, bias is rooted in self-preservation and vested interests. Once a person has committed to something, be it an idea, a social group, an occupation, or any other investment of time and resources, the notion that those choices could be wrong becomes threatening. The natural reaction to a threat is to defend ourselves by whatever means is necessary to avoid a catastrophe. Generally speaking, we are naturally averse to the destabilizing effect of having to correct our choices or reverse our commitments.

A brute fact is something that exists without explanation. That could be God, the universe, logic, etc. — Marchesk

Must we postulate brute facts? Can we not more modestly admit that reasoning commences with foundational axioms?

Better public relations, you mean. Yes, you're right, reputation can be gained or can be lost through admission of wrongdoing, but in the case of those individuals, I really think they're better off denying any unethical behaviour. — Noblosh

In my submission, it would be vastly better if all arms traffickers could admit that there is something wrong with what they are doing.

Ask not what your forum can do for you. Ask what you can do for your forum. — TheMadFool

>:O

And to that I would add:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day participate in an online forum where they will not be judged by the colour of their font, but by the content of their posts.

Yes it has very much enriched the past 48 hours of my life.

Individuals like this never want to admit unethical behaviour..
— geospiza
I think that's reasonable, they would have nothing to gain from it. — Noblosh

Right, nothing. Except for maybe redemption and self-respect. But those things aren't important :-}

If someone were to answer your every question with the same sentence/phrase/word e.g. ''I am Groot'', what would go through your mind? — TheMadFool

I would probably think that their ability to speak english was impaired. I certainly wouldn't conclude that "I am Groot" is the only thing worth saying.

Perhaps my words were poorly chosen. I only wanted to say that there's a similarity between the two (the movie and real life). — TheMadFool

No, I don't think your words were poorly chosen. I'm just trying to drill down to the specific nature of the similarity that you see or the analogy that you are making. On the surface I don't see a great deal of similarity between a science fiction tree-man and the cosmic reality of the universe. But there is obviously something behind your post that you wanted to express. I am trying to understand what that is.

So what do you think? Is a word a skill you learn? Or is it just another piece of propositional knowledge? Is it maybe even more natural to take words as tools, and the skills we learn are specifically tool-using skills? How do you think the dual (knowledge-that and knowledge-how) aspects of language fit together? — Srap Tasmaner

Words (i.e. utterances of language) are neither a skill nor a tool. Language is an ability we possess that enables us to communicate. Communication is a skill. Some of us are more skilled than others. I'm terrible at communication, for example.

Adnan Khashoggi, pimp, thief, fraudster, international arms salesman, has just died. He said:

What did I do wrong? Nothing. I behaved unethically, for ethical reasons.
— Khassoggi

Is that even possible? — mcdoodle

It seems like a straightforward contradiction to me. Individuals like this never want to admit unethical behaviour. Think Donald Trump. I think the statement you quoted arises for the speaker more from a political imperative than a philosophical one.

What interests me is there's a real world twin to the imagined story described above:

...To whatever question man asks, the universe replies ''Mathematics''. Groot! — TheMadFool

There is certainly some reductionism going on here. There is something else in common between the two examples you have cited: in Guardians of the Galaxy the author has anthropomorphized a tree, while you have anthropomorphized the universe!

Could you expand on what you intended by the phrase "a real world twin"?

I can detect at least four different issues raised in this thread:

[1] whether the word "science" is so hopelessly vague that it is devoid of communicative value;
[2] whether the disunity within science is so complete that any association between scientific disciplines is misleading or false;
[3] whether the deployment of scientific language for rhetorical purposes is ethical; and
[4] whether or not there is anything remedial we can do about issues 1-3.

Are there additional issues I have missed, or would anyone frame the issues differently?

With respect to issue [1], I would submit that context is key. The word "science" is utilized differently in different social situations. Its communicative effectiveness will vary depending on the situation. There is also a historical dimension to consider. Once upon a time in Europe mathematics was considered to be a science, and much of what we would recognize today as science was referred to as "natural philosophy".