What do you think “the one true philosophy” means above and beyond the conjunction of all philosophical claims that are not in error? — Pfhorrest

In my opinion there cannot be one true philosophy without complete knowledge of the whole. I don't think that is possible.

Surely you can have only one such set of claims, since it’s the set of all such claims; and being true is being not in error; and “a philosophy” is a set of philosophical claims. — Pfhorrest

The problem is, we have no way of determining what that set would be and that it would be complete. What we have are competing opinions which are taken to be true by those who hold them or at least seem to be true or better than the alternatives.

Sure, we can’t ever be certain what the complete truth is (about anything, not just philosophy). But in judging some things to be in error and others not, we act as though there is some complete truth that we are fallibly approximating, which lies in the limit of our process of figuring out which claims are not a part of it (i.e. which claims are in error).

Philosophy is a process, not a concatenation of true statements.

My judging something to be in error does not mean that we are approximating the complete truth. And neither does your's or anyone else's. It is part of the question of whether philosophy makes progress. I don't think it does.

In his lectures on the Phenomenology, Jay Berstein gets into this subject. He is talking about the logic of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac and a student points out that the logic is meaningless to an unbeliever.

His point was that philosophy can give us justification for our beliefs, and lead us to new beliefs, but it isn't going to tell us what to believe. I don't think philosophy is changing anyone's stance on abortion for instance. Rather, it's a tool for justifying that stance and testing the assumptions that underlie it.

What more do you think there is to approximating the complete truth or making progress other than ruling out the things that are in error?

Unless you think everything is categorically in error, so finding one particular thing to be in error is no progress as everything already was.

Philosophy is a process, not a concatenation of true statements. — Banno

“Philosophy” the mass noun, like “lets do some philosophy”, is different from “philosophy” the count noun, like “this is my philosophy, what’s yours?” The mass noun refers to an activity or process, like you say. The count noun refers to some collection of opinions. “The one true philosophy” would be a philosophy in the count noun sense; it makes no grammatical sense to be referring to philosophy in the mass noun sense.

What more do you think there is to approximating the complete truth or making progress other than ruling out the things that are in error? — Pfhorrest

I do not think there is such a thing as approximating complete philosophical truth.

Work on philosophy – like work in architecture in many respects – is really more work on oneself. On one's own conception. On how one sees things. (And what one expects of them). (Wittgenstein, Culture and Value)

I do not think there is such a thing as approximating complete philosophical truth.

Work on philosophy – like work in architecture in many respects – is really more work on oneself. On one's own conception. On how one sees things. (And what one expects of them). (Wittgenstein, Culture and Value) — Fooloso4

Still you think it is nevertheless possible to be philosophically in error. If philosophy (the mass noun) is that kind of self-work, a philosophy (the count noun) would thus be a way of being, and a philosophical error would be a flaw in oneself. Then we’re back at the same situation with regards to progress: if one’s traits can be flaws, then either all traits are inherently flaws, or by identifying and removing flaws we approach a state of flawlessness, which flawless state of being would on such an account be identifiable with a completely correct philosophy.

So much the worse for philosophy as a set doctrine. — Banno

In the dasein, the is-ness is not doubted, but encouraged, while the non-is-ness is discouraged. However; existence is futile, and the is-sing is superseded by non-is-sing, inasmuch as if everything is futile (since all existence is futile), therefore non-existence ist preferrend to the dasein.

Funny. A male person watching a double-oh-seven movie will not fit himself with thoughts of unworthiness of existence when he looks at the two-dimensional colour images of Claudia Cardinale. Therefore we may conclude that some is-sing is indeed and in existence a dasein.

This can be easily extrapolated into NO nonexistence being superior in value to any non-non-existence, that is, if the pain of torture is preferred to dying, then what governs the non-futility of existence? There is no hard-and-fast delimiter to life and no-life, but man still thinks in terms of black-and-white when it comes to the division between life and death.

The only solution I see is the sense and sensibility of pride and prejudice. One must disallow himself the privilege of non-dying, and he must submit his will to the conglomerate of his life experiences. Whether such choice is wise or futile, or just skimming along like a pebble on the surface of the body of water it's skipping on, we must force our focus on the non-trivial, as well as on the trivial, at the same time and in the same respect; this is the only quagmire human beings need to worry about.

I do not think there is such a thing as approximating complete philosophical truth. — Fooloso4

Right. You either got it right bang on, or you are missing the goal posts by a mile.

Socrates' approaches to philosophical truths, since they were only approximations (v.o. the epistemological impossibility of discovering the true and existing forms, thus never actually feeling the pulse of Gaia, so to speak), is futile in more senses than chasing the dream of the two-headed water buffalo (fairy tale figure in Buddhist folklore).

In my approximation the belief of the self in his own worldview is the closest to the truth anyone can get. Whether it is a god, or determinism, or expanding physicality, or materialism, or ... or neokleptomania, (the Kleptomaniacal school of Holikarnassosi Hortacles, taught that a true philosophy can be built by stealing bits and pieces from the existing teachings from concurrent schools of philosophy, and then combining them into a new, hitherto unimagined yet coherent unit, was finally debunked by the post-modernists. The Kleptomaniac's failure was explained by saying they did not know 1. What parts precisely to steal, and 2. How to reassemble the disparate parts into a holistic unit, but they insisted it was possible, if only taking infinite time to try out all different combinations, which in effect proves the existence of the infinite future, and therefore also the infinite past, not to mention the infinite presence), or nihilism, or ophthalmology, or solipsism; no matter what, if one believes to be true what one believes, then it becomes a fact, and furthermore, wisdom, life force and a huge number of all kinds of other things, too numerous to mention.

My judging something to be in error does not mean that we are approximating the complete truth. And neither does your's or anyone else's. It is part of the question of whether philosophy makes progress. I don't think it does. — Fooloso4

Indeed. The knot of Gordius. Occam's Razor can be utilized here; cut the knot with one decisive swing of the razor. Declare that truth is variant, yet its approximations are solid, when you consider that the degree of accuracy of the matching of reality to any philosophy, which philosophies in the known world are only extant in minds, depends on nothing else but on what a person's strength of belief puts it on the scale of 0 to 100.

Kleptomaniacal school of Holikarnassosi Hortacles, — god must be atheist

I got a good laugh from this!

You are extraordinarily well read! I am quite sure that no one else here has ever heard of the Kleptomaniacal school of Holikarnassosi Hortacles. They kept their activities well hidden, for obvious reasons.

One thing I wonder about is what they did with all the extra parts.

The knot of Gordius. Occam's Razor can be utilized here; cut the knot with one decisive swing of the razor. — god must be atheist

Those friggin' Phrygians. But the solution is simply yet ingenious.

One thing I wonder about is what they did with all the extra parts — Fooloso4

There is a newfangled Hungarian joke that is applicable here. It was made in the Communist times, and as you probably well know, Hungary was one of the satellite communist countries of the Russian Soviet Union.

Ferenc Nagy, a worker in a bicycle factory is complaining to his friend:

"I am working in a bicycle factory, where we make bicycles for the Russian market, yet I can't afford a bicycle for my son."

The friend says: "Why don't you steal some parts every day, and put it together at home, and make a bicycle for little Pisti?"

"I tried that," replies Ferenc, "but no matter how I put it together, the final piece is always a tank (an armoured vehicle)."

So the apostles of Hortacles probably put together a Marxist propaganda agitation with the parts, no matter how they tried to fit the pieces together, and they were NOT going to publish that.

Philosophy is a process, not a concatenation of true statements. — Banno

This reminds me of one of true statements uttered by a Canadian politician, Pierre Trudeau, who was the prime minister of Canada (the head honcho) for a long time. He said, "Canada is not a country, but a loose association of shopping malls." This is so true. Our country is vast in area, yet relatively sparsely populated; our national unity lies in all of us buying the latest fad products, not in some dignified heroic past deed of the nation or some outstanding figures of it.

In his lectures on the Phenomenology, Jay Berstein gets into this subject. He is talking about the logic of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac and a student points out that the logic is meaningless to an unbeliever.

His point was that philosophy can give us justification for our beliefs, and lead us to new beliefs, but it isn't going to tell us what to believe. I don't think philosophy is changing anyone's stance on abortion for instance. Rather, it's a tool for justifying that stance and testing the assumptions that underlie it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Brilliant. Maybe the only absolute truth of philosophical enquiry unearthed by man.

Just wanted to let you know, that most of my here preceding posts in this thread are a tribute to your post here quoted.

I am forced to revise my stance in the foregoing, inasmuch as one's strength of his belief in the truth of his belief is sufficient to make him believe his belief is the absolute truth.

While that still stands, the debate of truth between two philosophical directions is still of interest by logical considerations to the person if neither of the two directions are part of his own belief system.

Let's put it this way:

P(hilosopher) beleives in A.
The strength of his own belief that A is the truth makes for him A true or not totally true. All other beliefs: B, C, D, etc. are immaterial for their validity even if logically sound.

However, P can make decisions between B and D, C and E, etc., for their soundness in logic and reasonability.

In more concrete examples: an Atheist is capable of making reasoned judgments which philosophy is true, and which is not, as long as his Atheism is not challenged. If it is challenged, then he declares that philosophy that challenges his atheism, however reasonable it may be, tp be unreasonable.

Atheism will call Christianity unreasonable, and Sun Worship, too, etc.

But an atheist can make a solid judgment on the possibility of fitness to describe by chance reality as it really is, by such philosophies as solipsism, or nihilism, or ismism, because they do not hurt his atheistic beliefs.