The only reason to snarl at science is because accepting it would challenge an indulgence into the subjective. If that is the case then you do not pursue truth, you pursue self.

"9-11, I'd like to report an incident."

"What is it?"

"Someone on the internet made a broad, general assertion and failed to justify their metaphysical assumptions!"

:brow:

I never said science was suited for every task. — Jeremiah

So, why not talk about the 'truths' that science is apt at answering instead of the ambiguity of what kind of 'Truths' it can answer? As everyone seems to think that not all 'truths' can be answered by science.

Let me know when you figure out what truth is.

Thing is, I agree that science is super important if you want to practice philosophy; but the kind of platitudinous posturing that you're engaged with here is worse than the worst kind of philosophy; it's vacuous pseudo-intellectual signaling empty of any content.

Yet the only thing I have seen you post in this thread are insults. So I can only assume you don't want me to take you seriously.

Let me know when you figure out what truth is. — Jeremiah

Yeah, well, I tend to think science is capable at arriving at facts, not truths.

I agree with that.

There's not much here to take seriously. You're looking for a circle-jerk, nothing more.

So, since you agree with that, then instead of the false equivocation about 'truths' that is being made and befuddled other members, we can maybe deflate the issue and talk about getting the facts straight.

That is not true, but you are just too busy trolling to see it. I am sorry my views offend you.

Science can never gives us truth, as it was never designed for such a task; however, it can give us the tools to narrow our aim closer to the mark. The rest is up to us.

Agreed. Hence, my next logical question, is, 'what are facts'?

I have no confusion of what facts are but I don't really feel like haggling over it. However, I would like to point out that facts are not the only contribution science makes. I am a student of statistics, a science that does not deal out facts. Facts are a result of science, but more importantly science is a method.

I have no confusion of what facts are but I don't really feel like haggling over it. — Jeremiah

But, you confused 'truth' for 'facts' in the OP. If I want to make a valid logical deductive argument, I had better get the facts straight if the issue is about something empirical. Like the fact that Hesperus and Phosphorus are both the evening star.

However, I would like to point out that facts are not the only contribution science makes. — Jeremiah

So, what other contribution does science make apart from discovering new facts? Genuinely interested.

I am a student of statistics, a science that does deal out facts. — Jeremiah

Not quite following you here.

Facts are a result of science, but more importantly science is a method. — Jeremiah

Yes, so if science is a method that optimally derives facts and not truths, unlike philosophy, then why conflate the two?

I did not confuse facts and truth in the OP, and if you check there was a mistype in the post you just quoted; you were just faster on the reply than my ninja edit. Furthermore science is not a method that "optimally derives facts", it is a method for exploring the reality we find ourselves in.

I did not confuse facts and truth in the OP, and if you check there was a mistype in the post you just quoted; you were just faster on the reply then my ninja edit. Furthermore science is not a method that "optimally derives facts", it is a method for exploring the reality we find ourselves in. — Jeremiah

Fine, I won't get into semantic squabbles and just straight out ask you the hard question. Namely, if science is a method at arriving at 'truths' (as you seem to assert), then what method, purpose, or function does philosophy serve? The same thing, or something different?

Namely, if science is a method at arriving at 'truths' (as you seem to assert), — Posty McPostface

I clearly said just a few post up: "Science can never gives us truth, as it was never designed for such a task."

In science your aim should never be to find the truth, with such an approach you can lose objectivity. Things like philosophy and religion those are the tools to bridge that gap, science is there merely to inform.

Things like philosophy and religion those are the tools to bridge that gap, science is there merely to inform. — Jeremiah

Agreed, so science serves an epistemic purpose, utility, function of informing oneself, when making valid inferences. I don't think I can boil it down anymore than that.

So, what is this 'bridge the gap', which you mention?

That part I don't care about, as it is a pointless argument. What's important is that people put in the effort to become informed.

That part I don't care about, as it is a pointless argument. — Jeremiah

I think it's pretty important, at least psychologically or not, for many people. This entails, the desire to better educate oneself, which are necessary steps to fulfill your conclusion hereabouts.

That is not true, — Jeremiah

Of course it's true. Your OP is nothing but a series of moralising distinctions designed to affirm the vague and trivial notion that an understanding of science is important for philosophy. I mean, look at this crap:

"Some philosophers seem to stop along the road and take rest under a shady tree instead of forging ahead into the burning sunlight along a path that pushes closer to truth. "

"Too many modern philosophers too much want to cling to their POV, their subjectivity, their opinions; they want to lay around in the shade of the tree and talk instead of pushing ahead"...

Exactly who is going to disagree with this? Exactly who is going to say 'oh hey, that's me!'. But of course this is just the kind of cultish bullshit where everyone on 'our' side is 'good' and the 'other' side is 'bad', and of course that you find yourself on the side of the good guys is just a happy accident, how convenient. Self-fellating garbage, half-heartedly disguised.

I disagree, I don't think it is important, and it only leads to people overly using quotation marks. What is important is that people put in the time and effort to actually become informed; beyond that I don't care how they choose to bridge that gap.

I am sorry, but you are clearly nothing but a troll.

But, that gap will always exist, for as long as we can tell.

Then we can only do our best, which means being informed as much as we can.

You seem to be stuck on the distinction between what philosophy actually is and what it is sometimes presented to be. Philosophy is about ideas, ways of categorising and connecting all the 'facts' that science (or simple empirical observation) delivers us. The act of 'doing' philosophy, is the act of presenting one of these ideas to others. Imagine the idea is a new piece of clothing you've designed, you then have three ways to present it;

You can simply make it available in a shop and if people like it, they'll buy it, if not they'll walk out. We presume, in this scenario, that people buy clothes simply on the basis of some gut instinct about what they like based solely on the look of the thing. The fashion designer need do no more than present clothing.

Alternatively we could work on the idea that people have reasons for selecting one piece of clothing over another, but that these reasons remain subjective. In this case a fashion designer might want to 'present' their clothes in the best light depending on the client and open them up to testing. They might allow people to try them on, feel the cloth, compare them to other clothes they like etc. There's still no 'right' or 'wrong', but the clothes have to be tested by the prospective buyer against their own criteria, which means the fashion designer has to make the available for such testing.

Finally there is objective testing. If the clothing in question is an item of fireproof protection which must resist temperatures of 1200C, then the clothing could be subjected to 1200C and should come out unharmed. This is a method available to people who all agree what '1200C' is, what 'unharmed' is and that both can be reliably measured.

You seem to think that philosophy is either type one or type three, either plain opinion which people simply select by preference or objectively testable for its proximity to 'Truth'. In my experience, philosophy is far more often of the second type. Philosophical ideas are tested, but they are tested using the subjective testing methods of the people who are considering adopting the idea. In order to do this, you need discussion, interrogation and critique, but you should not expect any of this to reflect anything other than the personal testing methodology of the one doing the interrogation. They're 'trying on' the idea to see if it suits them.

The purpose of 'actual philosophy' then, probably should be to provide a forum for people to 'try on' ideas using whatever criteria they personally feel marks an idea as one they might like to adopt.

The problem people experience is that such a forum is not as open as it would need to be to function this way. In an ideal world, anyone would be able to 'interrogate' any idea by whatever criteria they prefer their ideas to meet and the owner of that idea (like the fashion designer) simply does their best to answer that interrogation, to present their offering in the best light to that particular client.

Unfortunately this is rarely what happens. People presenting ideas resent the fact that others might dismiss them based on their own criteria. Fashion designers who've spent weeks perfecting the drape of a particular shirt get really pissed off when customers simply say they don't care two figs about the drape and just want to know if it's washable at 60C. Likewise philosophers (or those espousing a particular philosophy) tend to anger quickly when the long and complicated justifications they've constructed by one particular set of criteria are dismissed as irrelevant by someone interrogating their idea by a different set.

The opposite also happens on sites like this. People deliberately interrogate ideas they have no intention of even 'trying on' simply for the intellectual high of being able to shoot anything down if you judge it by standards it was never even designed to be judged by. Anyone can expose the painstakingly designed silk shirt to 1200C and then say 'see, it doesn't even stand up to the standard fire-proofing test'. Likewise someone could put an item of fireproof clothing on a model and metaphorically rip it shreds for it's poor fashion design. This kind of thing makes people feel intellectually superior, a feeling which most people enjoy.

There is no such thing agreed thing as 'Actual Philosophy', there's the presentation and interrogation of ideas by whatever methods the critic and philosopher might agree on, and then there's the game some people play of finding whichever method of interrogation makes any given idea look like meaningless rubbish. Personally, I've indulged in both. Some ideas are important enough to need serious interrogation, but the game is undeniably great fun.

Outstanding post. Also a good, serious piece of philosophy.

Regarding option (2), the subjective test, I'll quote Frank Ramsey for the umpteenth time: too many philosophical disputes have the form

A: "I went to Grantchester yesterday."
B: "No I didn't."

I think it's important to recognize this, but I think there's something else to the role of intuition in philosophy, that thing we use as evidence. It needn't be "purely" subjective, in the sense that a native speaker's sense of their native language isn't purely subjective.

As a native speaker, you have a double position of expertise: on the one hand there's just the breadth of knowledge you have about usage; but your speech also contributes to determining what the norms of speaking this language are. That doesn't quite make your pronouncements on usage infallible, but it does mean you are not exceeding your authority in speaking for the entire speech community.

I think there's something quite similar in philosophy. When discussing Gettier, for instance, a philosopher will be inclined to say, this does or doesn't look like knowledge to me. I don't think such pronouncements are purely subjective, or intended to be the expression of personal taste. The idea is to speak on behalf of your epistemic community, to reflect its norms, which you also participate in shaping. In effect, it's something like "This is what we call 'knowledge', isn't it guys?" And such a statement gets to function both as a reference to a norm and an encouragement to define that norm in this way.

So, subjective, yes, but in a very special way.

Absolutely. If it's not stretching the fashion designer analogy too far, I'd say that what you're describing is the equivalent of something like fit. We all have a similar, not entirely subjective view on whether an item of clothing fits. Something too small or too big is obvious to anyone, and all designers will produce clothing within those parameters. That doesn't mean that 'fit' automatically gains the status of objectivity, it's still too open to opinion at the finer scales, but it's something like objective.

Peter Van Inwagen talks of the agreement of our 'epistemic peers', which I think is similar to what you're describing. What's interesting is that he goes on to warn of the dangers in accepting that proposition. If an idea can be held by any of our epistemic peers, then we are bound (by the same principle we used to raise our subjective opinion to a higher epistemic status) to accept that the idea has some merit. No longer can we claim that the power of agreement amongst our epistemic peers confers a truth-like value to what we think and at the same time dismiss as nonsense an idea sincerely held by a minority of them.

Arguments therefore too often dismiss the concepts, which in the end are all too easily rebuked, and rarely interrogate the sincerity with which the ideas are actually held, which I find more often to be the weak point in many questionable positions.

That doesn't mean that 'fit' automatically gains the status of objectivity, it's still too open to opinion at the finer scales, but it's something like objective. — Pseudonym

This is good, and I'm kicking myself for not sticking with your fashion designer metaphor, because it raises the issue of "fashion" in the other sense, changing tastes over time. I remember when I discovered there was such a thing as fashion, in this sense, in philosophy, and I was not exactly shocked but certainly disappointed.

So yes, "Does this fit?" is exactly the question we ask, and we ask it both of ourselves -- it's a feel -- and of others -- "How does it look? Does it look good?" And though we might aspire to a fashion we'd be willing to call "timeless", that doesn't quite mean what it says on the box.

No longer can we claim that the power of agreement amongst our epistemic peers confers a truth-like value to what we think and at the same time dismiss as nonsense an idea sincerely held by a minority of them. — Pseudonym

This runs deep, and I'd want to pull in Grice here somehow. I'm coming back to this as soon as I have some time. Where does PVI talk about this?