I gave an argument and you basically appealed to your "equality doctrine" and classed it as, "A standard way of looking at the world" - that as a way of dismissing or marginalizing it. What you should do instead is address the argument. — Leontiskos

I thought I did, but I'll try again.

We must also admit that, just as not all propositions are true, so too not all thinkers are equal. Making everyone equal prevents one from learning, because it prevents one from seeing that someone else knows something that you do not. — Leontiskos

Making everyone equal does not prevent learning. At least as a default assumption in a conversation -- I'll admit that hubris is bad, that headstrong students are often wrong, and other such mistakes -- but here we have to assume that we've all at least read some philosophy and the best way to proceed isn't teacher-student, but peer to peer. At least as a default.

Only upon agreeing to certain ways of arguing could we teach one another, I think? Even if that be "I am the student"

Okay, but is it true to view it as a problem or is such a view merely, "A standard way of looking at the world"? — Leontiskos

Here I'd be frustrating and say both/and -- but I'm still trying to find a place where we can actually talk rather than do the merry-go-round.

Okay good, this is precisely the point. "Superior" and "inferior" are relative terms for "good" and "bad." It is literally impossible to differentiate between good and bad without differentiating between superior and inferior. — Leontiskos

Eventually we'll disagree again on this. :D -- "what is superior, the beautiful or the sublime?" is the first question that comes to mind.

It's actually pretty obvious that there are universal standards for knowledge. Like truth, for instance. Knowledge is supposed to be true and not false. That's a standard for knowledge. What is the dogma that militates against such obvious facts? — Leontiskos

That's a good example, but not one I'm ready to go into in this thread. I'll concede that knowledge is true for the most part. It's that "for the most part" that I imagine we'll disagree. But I also think that so far out there that it'd take us so far astray as to start a new thread of thought.

We must also admit that, just as not all propositions are true, so too not all thinkers are equal. Making everyone equal prevents one from learning, because it prevents one from seeing that someone else knows something that you do not. — Leontiskos

I know this is a standard way of looking at the world, especially as a teacher.

We can't "make everyone equal" in the factual sense, but we can treat everyone equally in the evaluative sense. And, in fact, I think we learn more from doing that. It's the small voices, the different perspectives, the things thought false that usually bring about some new way to answer the old questions.

Democratic culture balks at the words "inferior" and "superior," but they are apt and useful words. — Leontiskos

I think this is more in your imagination than true -- capitalism is deeply hierarchal. "inferior" and "superior" are the words you wouldn't use on the basis of the faux-equality of liberal-capitalism, but the hierarchical relationship is there. And I'd equate, in our day and age, liberalism with capitalism.

"Superior" and "inferior" are used all the time when it comes to money and power -- maybe not in those words, but they'll say something like "I'm not so sure about that person in this respect..." -- whenever money or power are at stake "inferior/superior" is a concept, even if not named as such.

Some of my philosophical superiors on TPF would include Paine, apokrisis, and Pierre-Normand.

Heh. I like all of them -- we've had our bouts before and I know I'm different from each. But I thank them for their contributions to this website and my mind. They're wonderful posters.

@apokrisis and I have a longstanding difference that I don't know how to work through. @Paine and I simply get along, so far as I know. @Pierre-Normand pursued the profession where I did not, but we've had fruitful conversations with respect to philosophy before.

I myself don't care to be a superior. But I don't want to be considered an inferior, either, unless I sign up for it. I have to accept that I must be a student in order to learn from a teacher here. In the extreme: If I did not do so then every post would be part of my belief system. I think that's the sort of thing you've been noting as bad: where the standards are so loose that you can say anything at all to anyone at all at anytime for whatever reason.

Hopefully, in this description, you see I agree that's a problem.

If you look at my discussions with them you will see that I am very deferential and open-minded; that I am much more careful and precise in my reasoning. That discrimination between superiors, inferiors, and equals is very important if one is to progress.

I don't think it is very important as much as it's a habit of philosophy. It works, but there's other ways of doing philosophy. I think teacher-student is an important relationship, but not in the hierarchical sense exactly. Or, at least, here on TPF we have no choice but to try to build those relationships without hierarchy -- we really are just some strangers on the internet who happen to like reading philosophy.

This is why J discriminates between professional philosophers and non-professional philosophers. He sees that the former have more to teach him than the latter, and hence demand a more docile and teachable disposition.

Oh, I have no problem with people wanting to differentiate between the good and the bad. We have to at some point, right? Else we'll get stuck in paralysis.

I only think that in so deciding we don't express something so universal as "Standards of knowledge for all time and space and thinkers" -- seems a stretch now. A tempting stretch, but a stretch nonetheless.

That you grant yourself the ability to contradict yourself while denying others the ability to contradict themselves would be one example. — Leontiskos

I don't grant myself that ability, though. That's your interpretation which I'm attempting to demonstrate as false.

You have your stories about why it is I do, which you've posted, but I don't believe those stories are true.

I don't know how to respond to them, though.

These are the words of every headstrong student to their teacher. This mindset is precisely what precludes learning and knowledge. — Leontiskos

It does, you're right.

So here on TPF the only way a teacher-student relationship can develop is by some mutual understanding. What I've called trust.

I trust you are pursuing the truth, else I wouldn't put up with all of this frustration that you likely mutually feel :D

Earlier I said something about the teacher-student relationship -- mostly to note that on TPF we have to start at a position of equality even if you know you know more than the interloctor.

We are all equal here, and have to build ways of learning/teaching from that paradigm, rather than the usual paradigm.

And I hope I've demonstrated my willingness to be a student at this point. There are more examples than @Banno, tho he might be the only one who cares enough to chime in on that.

You put yourselves on a pedestal when in fact you require instruction. — Leontiskos

Where have I put myself on a pedestal?

That'd be a rule which I agree with that I wouldn't want to do. That is, I'd say putting yourself on a pedestal is a bad thing -- where I somehow gain immunity to criticism and you somehow are more vulnerable to criticism.

What instruction do I require? What would that do, other than make me agree with you?

:naughty:

Glad you see it as at least consistent.

Bullets are my philosophical breakfast :)

So falsifying your data so that you can gain fame and wealth is can sometimes good practice vis-á-vis good inquiry? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yup. Only sometimes. (in the logical sense -- in our phenomenological sense, many times)

There are parts of science that aren't exactly falsifiable, but are the conditions on which falsifiability is built. The conservation of energy strikes me as a possible candidate here. But Feyerabend's Against Method does a much better job of using Galileo and noting how by our standards we propose today, like falsifiability, if Galileo had been held to them then his worldview would have been set aside as impossible. The spheres had better predictive power than Galileo, at least by my understanding from that book. The instruments which Galileo were using were rudimentary and imprecise in comparison to the old instruments.

The important lesson there is that Galileo was a rules-breaker with respect to good epistemic practice, especially in his time, but his creativity and diligence are what made his theory last. (Though I think it being true helped us accept it over the various methodological problems we might pose towards Galileo's inference -- truth has a way of being persuasive even if you don't follow all the rules)

If there is a bad consensus and bad practices, they don't just work themselves out through discourse as a sort of random brownian motion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, definitely. Or, rather, they work themselves out through discussion -- but not in a sort of random brownian motion.

I don't mind a resolution by an appeal to principles -- I'm just skeptical of them being universal principles for all time and space and every thinker ever that has been is and will be. Not that you're putting something like that forward, exactly. The two thinkers I've named are Hegel and Marx that seem to fall into the world-builders trap. Maybe we could say that there are faults of individuals and faults of groups? Something along those lines?

I'm looking for an evaluative dimension to cross across the world-builder/dissector dimension, which I'm thus far taking to be descriptive (with the extremes serving as warnings)

Ahh, you see -- one must know a trade at least.

I generally think that's where our intuitive appeals will come from first -- the trade that one survives in is the home of a person's mind. I like to make the joke that the cobbler sees the universe like one big shoe.

It's exactly in that context that I think you can begin to see a sense of coherency -- when people are aligned towards some goal or other they tend to put aside the various nit-picks which philosophers like to investigate and try to focus on what matters to the mission (namely, of making a living)

But then different trades use different norms. And therein lies the difficulty, especially since each person's trade will feel very certain to them. It's a day-to-day reinforcement of a habit of thought so it couldn't not do so.

My solution, still, is in trying to listen to one another and build a relationship of trust. Note that this answers the question without giving particular details on how to go about it or which virtues are pertinent. I think that has to be settled amongst the practitioners of a particular trade (or, in the cases of science, a research program or what-have-you), and least of all by philosophers.

Right, so this is an appeal to a sort of virtue epistemology. Virtues are principles, so I can get behind that. However, I don't think "smart" and "experienced," are necessarily good virtues here. Consider the examples of Aryan physics, socialist genetics, phrenology, etc., which were created by intelligent, experienced scientists. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I wonder if "smart" and "experienced" were the criteria in these cases?

There's something common among these pseud-sciences -- namely that they have their conclusion in the name. There is an ideological filter by which one can become this or that scientist, or one must have the correctly shaped skull to truly understand phrenology, or whatever.

Rather than a set of positive principles for productive science I'd say there are some generally common markers for pseudo-science. The important thing here is to allow creativity on the productive side: If we don't know everything then we simply won't be able to formulate all the principles that we'll ever need to generate knowledge.

We can and will try. But I don't think we should be looking at pseudo-science as a basis for our philosophies of knowledge -- we have knowledge, and we know that's not knowledge, so our theorizing about knowledge ought to ignore them.

I'm not certain there's principles for identifying pseudo-science, but there is the notion of degenerative programs rather than generative programs -- in some way a science can become this echo chamber, as you noted. But as the process goes on we suddenly have a name "The crisis of reproduction in the sciences" and we can investigate "What's this then?"

With Nazi/Jewish science I think we see that as degenerative -- it excludes minds that could very well help the project for reasons that aren't scientific. They are obviously political. Same with socialist science and all the rest. There's an identity attached to them such that there's a person whose better than others on the basis of some trait -- but that trait is a social designation, or something which a practioner has to confer upon someone as one of the clean (like Freud's psychoanalysis)

Lastly though -- the most damning thing about these is that they have in fact been considered respectable at times. So even if a science is respectable that does not then mean it is true, or knowledge, or what-have-you because we come to respect things for reasons other than what makes a sound inference. So we have to check, in a particular case, if that is what's happening here or not -- but we won't have a rule ahead of time for the invented pseudo-sciences of the future. We'll have seen some and have a general idea of what to look for -- but to do the identifying it'll take conversations like this with shared norms of discourse. And human beings pretty much only do that when they trust one another.

His History of England, surely! — Banno

:D

Not quite―I disagreed with an assessment (which I was not accusing you of making) that Hume was merely a nitpicker. — Janus

Ahh OK. Makes sense to me. There's the critical side and the builder side. What do you have in mind when thinking of Hume as a builder? The Dialogues, or would you say he's sort of both like a lot of the philosophers that are the usual names probably will be?

So if Moliere contradicts/"dissects" despite his own incoherence, and @Banno contradicts/dissects for the sake of coherence, then I would say that the two of you are doing significantly different things. — Leontiskos

I think you're rather missing my point, but this is quite common for you -- if you can't understand why someone would say something then you conclude that they must be incoherent.

But it could be that you just don't understand someone, and they only appear incoherent to you.

Something we agree upon is that we can make inferences at this more local level. So insofar that I choose a logic for a situation and it's understood by the people for whom it's meant then we can make inferences. It just takes communication between people building a relationship rather than arguments in epistemology to do it. Or, rather, these discussions are the very same thing as doing epistemology -- but it cannot be done away from the group for whom it's meant.

I wouldn't say this is for the sake of incoherence. That's not a very hard goal to obtain.

@Count Timothy von Icarus

This essay is great to read. I don't have much that's worthwhile critically. I appreciate the method of having authors you reflect upon and then draw conclusions of contrast.

@Benkie captured my general feeling:

I really like this if not only for the reason that I barely get in touch with this sort of subject. — Benkei

And gave me a good lead in to mention the "something to think about"

After dealing with Hume; shouldn't the writer have spent some time on Kant's practical reason that seems to be a reformist model of reason? There may be other more modern writers who made similar attempts.

I like the method of contrasting periods of philosophy. I'm reminded of our recently passed MacIntyre throughout your essay. I do think, were we able to find a middle ground of talking through it, your essay could be strengthened with comparisons that are not Hume. I think he has way less significant influence on the modern mind than you attribute to him.

But that may be for another day. Overall this essay was wonderful, and I know I wanted to respond in the same idiom as the authors -- but I'm starting to find that a bit too much and am settling for a bundle of coherent thoughts when I finally get around to it.

But hubris is usually just bad. You need confidence in life, but not hubris. I’d say. — Fire Ologist

Definitionally, yes.

So I'm not quite satisfied anymore with that dichotomy... it was a first guess from the usual thoughts.

Hubris/Humility would naturally be read as Bad/Good, and that's not what I want to convey.

It does take humility. But not too much or you shrink from making the assertion. — Fire Ologist

That's closer. I'm not sure how to put it yet in neutral terms -- I want to somehow distinguish the categorical from the evaluative.

Much like George Dickie does.

Of course it is, and it is a standard that Moliere has ↪explicitly refused within this thread. The fact that @Banno's championing of coherence clashes with @Moliere's ignoring of coherence is itself proof that those who favor the so-called "dissection" approach to philosophy disagree even among themselves about whether coherence should be applied as a criterion. — Leontiskos

@Banno and I have a long history of talking on this very issue, as you can see in the aside where I gave Banno a theory of incommensurability -- an old topic between he and I, and one which I've gotten better at defending thanks to his nitpicking.

That the dissectors disagree with themselves is only consistent with dissection and disagreement and difference :D

Oh, I definitely agree there. I didn't mean skeptic like a/theism skeptic, but philosophical skepticism like Pyrrho, Descartes, Hume.

I certainly don't think either theism or atheism are superior with respect to claims to know and such. I agree with your arguments here.

Right, many of histories most bitter wars are ideological, so clearly debate can collapse into power relations. My concern about epistemic standards that are too loose is that they basically just fast forward us towards the collapse into power relations.

Talking is effective for different reasons, right? You have your old ethos, logos, and pathos, different sorts of appeals. But isn't a "good argument" one that tends towards truth, not one that tends towards conversion and agreement? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Where do you see your preference for dissection playing in here? — Count Timothy von Icarus

First, a clarification -- A defense of dissection, in the sense that it is not superior to the builders of philosophy, is what I've set out to defend.

More or less that the skeptical position isn't inferior to the non-skeptics in terms of philosophical excellence. Both are valuable. Also there's a sense in which this delineation is quite soft, so even stating a preference for one over the other is a difficulty. As we see earlier @Janus disagreed with my classifying Hume as a nit-picker, and @Hanover disagreed upon that. So far it seems to me that the idea is still quite hazy.

***
Actually we both liked @hypericin's essay -- maybe we could say there are elephants and ravensland-whales and crows (sorry hyper), as styles of philosophy.

I could defend the other side, too, and even have in this thread to some extent by referencing Plato as an obvious myth-builder -- but there is a particular habit in philosophy, like Hegel's and Marx's, which swallows up other philosophies into themselves. At this point that's the only real error that I think I can point to that I've been thinking through: sometimes the world builder builds so large that it becomes a giant, coherent circle that reinforces itself, and since Hegel-to-Marx demonstrates that we can turn Idealism into Materialism it seems to me that the coherent circle reinforcing itself doesn't exactly have a relationship to what's real at all.

Neither idealism nor materialism, in terms of metaphysics.

Now for a proper coherentist this wouldn't be a fault. But I just don't see the world that way at all -- for the coherentist who does this would be seen as a good thing, a reason to accept the account. But for myself I tend to think absurdity is a real thing, so coherentism is automatically ruled out -- rather than a marker of a good belief I tend to think entirely coherent accounts which reinforce themselves are somehow skipping over a problem to make the system appear smooth, when in fact it's not.

Ye olde appearance/reality distinction

***

For my part I tend to think of metaphysics not as knowledge but ways of organizing the world around us such that multiplicity doesn't overwhelm. I'm not opposed to the metaphysics. I don't think one can be, really -- metaphysical thinking abounds. I just doubt that the metaphysics are real, exactly. The minutiae, the strange, the different, the absurd -- these are what seem real to me.
****

Right, many of histories most bitter wars are ideological, so clearly debate can collapse into power relations. My concern about epistemic standards that are too loose is that they basically just fast forward us towards the collapse into power relations. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think that if we have to worry about epistemic standards being too loose in order to control power relations then we've already fallen into a battle of power relations where truth isn't as important anymore.

Not that this isn't practical, of course -- there are many social situations where we should not trust others' opinions on things. Power is in fact a part of the world that we have no choice but to contend with.

I think that if we have a good relationship, though, that the epistemic standards come to fore through that relationship. I want others to speak the truth so I speak the truth, and when we get that reciprocity from someone else then, and only then, do we have a trustworthy standard to which we can appeal.

So rather than standards or proofs I would offer relationships and trust -- if you have a good relationship of trust with someone then as we work together the standards will slowly take care of themselves as we tackle problems together.

Which is why it's easy for two traditions to clash. Both people have done a lot of work to the point that they are used to being listened to as an authority due to this or that argument or reason, and suddenly two well-informed people who think like that talk and they try to out-teach one another or show them up in some way and suddenly -- you see how that's a battle for power rather than truth?

But if we trust one another and we want the truth then we can set aside who is right and focus on "How did we get here?"

Talking is effective for different reasons, right? You have your old ethos, logos, and pathos, different sorts of appeals. But isn't a "good argument" one that tends towards truth, not one that tends towards conversion and agreement? If it was the latter, then it would seem that we are always dealing with mere power relations. That is, of course , the thesis of some philosophers though.

I am not sure if we have "succeeded" if we have successfully talked others into accepting our own false opinions though.

For sure, I agree there.

I don't see persuasion as divorced from truth, though. How else are we to craft an argument other than to make it persuasive? Are we supposed to make it sound bad in order to really make sure it's true?

While I can see an error in accepting a conclusion just because we like the conclusion, I would say that such a person wasn't interested in whether or not the argument was actually persuasive or not -- they just wanted to have something to say, like a chant in a rally.

Further, some of these debates are highly consequential. Consider the current debate over vaccines in the US. Or consider the example of a sui generis "socialist genetics" that led to famines that killed thousands, if not millions. The stakes in some debates are very high, and so I'm not sure "we talk and maybe we agree and maybe we don't" works in principle. That at least, isn't how things are often done in the wider world, again because stakes are often high. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, it doesn't work in principle. When Feyerabend says "Anything goes" he really only means at this highly abstract level where we are trying to divine the logical principles by which all knowledge is produced from the beginning of time and onto into the future. When that's the standard of universality that you're reaching for then upon examining classical cases of knowledge generation, such as Galileo's Two Worlds, you'll simply not find a common thread through all of them. The number of people that have tried different things and succeeded is so large that you'll always be able to find some counter-example to such a giant aspiration.

More or less the question cannot be answered. But what's interesting is that if we closely examine particular sciences then you start to see patterns at least within the same era. And it seems they work in a more local sense, and in terms of a smaller (i.e. not literally the whole universe of knowledge, past present and future) generalization we can succeed for a time. It's just that it's probably going to change in the future since that's pretty much what we've observed since the beginning of science -- constant change from one theory to the next.

That in spite of the fact that the stakes are, indeed, high. There's a reason we think about this stuff. It makes complete sense to ask and pursue the questions. I have no problem with such projects -- I just think there's a lot of them out there (and this is part of the confusion in living in our modern world)

A question here might be: "can people be taught to better evaluate claims?" If they can't, then philosophy is pretty useless, or at least general epistemology is. If they can be taught, then presumably there are principles for evaluating claims and narratives that are more general. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well I am mostly in favor of philosophy being useless. I wish it could be more useless -- but this is an aside.

I don't think that exactly follows because one can be taught something that doesn't have principles. Like @J's use of musicology I'd go to acting theory here, particularly Stanislavski, who is explicitly building a system that doesn't have principles. We learn to do, and sometimes we can learn how to evaluate claims, but in so doing we'll be attached to a particular tradition with its own evaluative tools.

This isn't exactly damning insofar that we understand that we can't learn without making some assumptions. But just like Picasso and Botticelli are both painters so there can be two philosophers that produce different works of art. (Indeed, I largely think of philosophy as a kind of wisdom literature, which is why I think aesthetics are actually very important for understanding philosophy, moreso than epistemology)

But all that to say I would answer "Yes" to your question, but not follow your inference. People can be taught. That doesn't mean there are principles for evaluating claims and narratives. It could be that we evaluate claims and narratives with other claims and narratives, and that would explain why it gets so confusing sometimes.

We rely on authority to settle a lot of these issues, e.g. doctors carry special weight in the vaccine debate. But obviously there is an issue of proper authority. Doctors don't have authority on vaccines just because they claim it, or because it is yielded to them, else there is never "improper authority" in cases where people recognize authority. The idea of a "proper authority" that is distinct from whoever just so happens to hold authority seems to me to require an additional standard, and probably one that is general in its principles since we must adjudicate proper authority across disparate spheres. — Count Timothy von Icarus

We do, but it doesn't seem to me that doctors really ask what philosophers think on whether or not a doctor is a good doctor. Similarly so with all the trades. I did note in brief earlier how the one thing you probably have to know is some kind of trade to live in an industrial world. So these are the sources of knowledge that we work with on the day-to-day. Sometimes philosophers' ideas trickle out into the world and you can see their influence, but their influence is -- properly I think -- restricted to influencing the mind through argument, narrative, ideas, and all the various tools of philosophy.

Rather than writing the standards by which some professions ought to proceed I think the philosopher is better as a point of reflection. Philosophy is a dictatorship, but a dictatorship without any power to enforce its whims -- at least when it's best.

And then also -- while there may be an elevated relationship between philosophy and other disciplines at the very least here, on TPF, the general assumption is that we're all equal. There are people of differeing levels and exposures of course like anything, but really the only way we here can resolve a dispute is by talking and finding some sort of standard by which we can agree. Else it's the clash of worldviews talking past one another.

What settles epistemic disputes? — Count Timothy von Icarus

We do. By talking. Sometimes negotations fail, though.

I don't think there's one way it happens. What settles a philosophical dispute? Isn't the volume of words on this site alone enough to demonstrate that there is no such settling, once and for all?

I think this is where the notion of research programs, or paradigms, or traditions plays an important role. But I think that this paring down of a problem is -- necessarily -- going to block out many things of concern. There is simply an overabundance of being, a constant overflowing of language such that language is always catching up, at a distance. And because there's so much in relation to our abilities we will necessarily have to focus in on some part of the infinite whole. We've been doing this since we could pass on knowledge through oral traditions. We have no say in what came before, only a valuable inheritance which, as it was then so it is now, is constantly in dispute.

But even this valuable inheritance is too much for us to comprehend -- even it is infinite in relation to one person's ability. And in order to learn a tradition or research program or paradigm one must listen to those who are doing the practice. These are what I'd call the a priori assumptions which define a practice, if we want to put it into philosophical language at least. There may have been someone for whom it was a posteriori, but for us who inherit what came before it's quite literally a priori, and often the way these things are taught they are taught such that we just have to accept them as true in order to move on.

That's a good habit for learning within a tradition.

I think that the negotiations fail more often not simply because we've been habituated to this teacher-student model by the practice, and then when we encounter someone whose different from us that habit kicks back in. But here we are equals talking about ideas, and not teacher-students or student-teachers, except insofar that we acknowledge such a relationship. For example, @Banno has helped me understand Davidson and Wittgenstein -- without his efforts on these fora I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have cracked that nut on my own.

Not to say I have a superior interpretation or something -- I just mean I finally got to the meat and felt like I understood something of what he was getting at.

And, really, I can say that about lots of philosophers and fellow posters here. So it's not like we can't learn outside of the teacher-student relationship.

But it takes some mutual respect and understanding that the other person, no matter how crazy they may sound, probably did arrive at their views by some philosophical process, and really the best we can do is tease out what that sequence of thoughts are.

But the dispute will, likely, continue beyond us -- it's a dispute we had no hands in creating, and here it lives on through us, so I doubt we're going to stop it here.

Metaphysics takes a leap involving hypothesis based on assumption. Hegel had hubris claiming he saw the Absolute and giving it a capital “A”.

But I also see hubris in Wittgenstein. He made a similar mic drop move, but from the opposite pole. — Fire Ologist

Good post overall.

I want to highlight this from it because it looks important to me.

I think we can all accept that one of the general lessons of philosophy is that hubris is to be avoided -- not necessarily for the causes of virtue, but at least for the causes of not looking stupid ;)

And I think I see your assessment here as a way of adding a second dimension to the distinction so as to have four categories -- World-builders/Dissectors and Hubris/Humility.

With the former I think I'd say these are categorical, not evaluative, descriptions.

But with the other I'd say these are evaluative, and to give a nod to Aristotle I think the mean between them would be where goodness lies. One can be too proud or too humble, and we can think of extreme examples to make the point, but there is a kind of practiced back-and-forth in philosophical dialogue where sometimes we make the assertion and sometimes we take it back or think there's something else there.

And really I think that's more of a choice we make case-by-case. The extremes are there as a warning, but the mean remains rather undefined.

If Banno's categories of "dissector" and "discourser" are just "metaphor," and all dissectors are also discoursers and all discoursers are also dissectors, then what in the world do you think the thread is even about? — Leontiskos

Ways of looking at, or doing, philosophy.

When I contrast the builder with the destroyer (and you recast that as the builder and the critic), it makes no sense to respond by claiming that the destroyer is a builder. You can't distinguish builders from critics and then turn around and say that there is no difference, because the critics are builders, too. If there is no difference then why in the world would we make the distinction in the first place!? — Leontiskos

To note two ways to philosophize.

You wanted to claim that the builders are superior to the destroyers.

Thus far -- which is a usual approach for me to philosophical disagreement -- I've maintained that both ways of philosophy are good. So my disagreement has only been against your notion that the builders are superior to the other side, whatever that happens to be. (And surely you can see how "building" is a metaphor, yes?)

Tagging @Count Timothy von Icarus -- In case you missed it, click on @Banno's post.

And I guess all I can do here is point to the basic liberal principles of accepting the differences that make no difference. If someone wants to be referred to as "they", why not just oblige? And were it makes a difference, to seek accomodation before violence.

And of course there is much, much more to say here. — Banno

Having more to say is better than having nothing to say, so cheers to that.

I am tempted to go a step further, and suggest that we assume commensurability. That, after all, is what the Principle of Charity implies. You and I are talking about the very same world, in which we are both embedded. — Banno

I think I can go that far. Not sure how to disagree, but I split your reply for a reason... :D

Our points of agreement overwhelm our points of disagreement. But our disagreements make for longer threads. — Banno

Assuming commensurability makes sense to me, at least as a philosophical norm. Else we'll likely talk past one another.

But I wouldn't want to rely upon the justification "our points of agreement overwhelm our points of disagreement" -- because it may lead to the same thing. This is the first time I've tried to express this, but there's this "other" side of charity whereupon the maximal charity doesn't hear the expression of difference. Or, perhaps, the more charitable act isn't to always interpret within your bounds, but recognize when there's a genuine difference -- that'd be the more charitable interpretation.

I like charity as a principle, a lot. Just there could be this other weird way of "swallowing" another's thoughts.

Heh, me too -- but I keep coming back :D

by now perhaps a little tired? — J

Only if we've stopped caring about doing philosophy and found our answers, I think.

Indeed.

Hegelian rhetoric can be brilliant, as in the mouth of that salivating Slav, Žižek. And our own Tobias, of course. — Banno

I go so far as to say the ideas are brilliant. I mean, someone had to try to build the complete system of German Idealism, right?

In a way his is the philosophy to pick up if you think you can have a ToE -- if you can definitively translate Hegel into your system as a worthy inference, somehow, then you might have a philosophical basis for at least claiming a ToE.

But not necessarily, as @Count Timothy von Icarus noted about Hegel being pluralistic in a way. And my general impression of Hegelian interpretation is pro-pluralist: all interpretations are valid. And I cherish any input @Tobias decides to give us.

But you see... there's that quicksand feel of being sucked back into the universality of Hegel's mind, as if a human in the 1800's could see all of time and know it.

Although, more seriously, it is interesting that few thinkers are interpreted in more diverse ways. But if Hegel can produce Magee's hermetic sorcerer, Pinkard's Aristotleian "naturalist," Blunden's proto-Marx, Kojeve's liberal, Dorrien's theologian, Houlgate's ontologist, Pippen's logician, Harris' semi-mystic, or the proto-fascist Hegels of yesteryear, he can hardly be monolithic. Rather, all have issued from what he put forth in virtual form, and they shall all sublate one another on their return to Hegel as Geist. But they are each moments in the Absolute Hegel. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But you see this is exactly the monolothic move -- to demonstrate how Hegel is actually appealing to whomever is talking about him, and how, in fact, they would agree with him only if they truly studied and understood his words.

I think it's monolothic in that it's a philosophy that swallows all philosophies, and one need only spend time studying Hegel to see the truth of that. In a way one cannot disagree with it -- they can only misunderstand it. :D

Right, for me the great philosophers' ideas and systems have aesthetic value. They present us with novel ways to think about things―and they are admirable just on account of their sustained complexity of inter-related ideas. — Janus

Definitely. I mean I think we do have to ask, eventually when we think we understand the philosopher well enough, "So is it true, though?" -- and that's what I'd call the against the grain reading.

But generally I see more value in the with-the-grain reading because the whole value to me is understanding different ways of thinking. I find it fascinating.

Truth is an underlying concern of mine, but the value of philosophy -- much like science -- really does include knowing what's we've said before whether it was true or false. One, those thoughts might prove true in a different environment, so they are worth preserving so as not to have to reinvent them wholesale down the line. Two, if we forget a mistake it's more than likely we'll commit it again, so it's good to look for these thoughts on their own even if they are false -- I wonder about the truth or falsity, but their value is so much more than that.
 

As to Chalmers and Dennett―the latter seems to me by far the more imaginative philosopher. I also see Hume as an immensely creative thinker and not at all a mere "nitpicker".

I'm open to reclassification on the basis of something. It's just a rough idea right now! :D And I'm attempting to classify such that it's appealing to all involved in the conversation -- rather trying to show that the idea is appealing as an idea for thinking through ways of philosophizing.

Attempting to use familiar names to get at what those differences might be is the method, but I don't imagine I have it correct.

If Language games are incommensurable, all sorts of problems ensue. So I think we have to go with Davidson here, and reject the idea of incommensurability in such things. — Banno

I think we have to make a case for, rather than assume, incommensurability between language games. I'd put the incommensurability on the side of intension, though, such that it's not an in-principle incommensurability -- insofar that people with two sets of assumptions listen to one another over time I think bridges can be built, and in fact usually they are not necessary at all. We simply mean different things by the same words and misunderstand one another.

But then there are times where it seems quite difficult to translate one explicit language game into another explicit language game -- insofar that we recognize that they aren't really doing the same thing then we would say these are not incommensurable. It's only an interesting sort of possible incommensurability when we have two language games of fairly equivalent persuasive power competing over both intensions and extensions of words.

Or something like that.

I think incommensurability needs to be bounded -- but there are times it seems to "fit", and insofar that it's not an in-principle incommensurability then it doesn't seem to contradict Davidson to me.

So the critic is actually a builder? That's your solution? — Leontiskos

Pyrrho didn't leave anything for us to critique. That's perhaps the most consistent sort of skepticism I can imagine. So, no, he had no need for them. The point was to counter them.

Also, I'd say that the builder metaphor can only go so far in philosophy. This going back to there being more than one way to do philosophy.

So the critic is actually a builder? That's your solution? "Critics don't need any builders, because they are builders too!"

You are conceding my point, namely that builders are necessary. You've merely conceded it by magically making the critic a builder. You are not contesting my point that critics cannot exist without builders. — Leontiskos

Do we die on the hill of a metaphor?

Suppose there were two people who like philosophy talking to one another and at the end of the conversation someone says "When you live in this house it will destroy you"

The once-contractor nods and goes about thier business.

Some time later the builder sees a path into the woods in the same place.

Before the builders there were people who just wondered about shit. It took the architectonics to come along and think that thought had to be a building to be worthwhile -- so indeed I do think it's the other way about, and sometimes we just want different things.

That's pretty much the way I see things between you and I. Philosophy isn't a wrestling match and we really can consider ideas without judging them as true or false in all cases -- we can provide caveats and exceptions and note difficulties along the way without it toppling all knowledge. In fact, in order to do so, we have to have some kind of knowledge to begin realizing that our categories don't hold up -- it's in the differences that we find true knowledge of the world, rather than their idealizations into sameness.

Well, naturally, I'd never dream to counter the phenomenologist which can see all of time-thought in the moment of the absolute...

The analytic tradition was merely the next necessary moment in the push towards Absolute Freedom.

What it actually addresses is the fact that there are two ways of philosophizing within the analytic tradition, and some do it rigorously and some do it sloppily. Those who are rigorous allow beliefs to fall as logic requires. Those who are sloppy maintain their views regardless of where they are contradicted, using analytic systems when it benefits their biases and ignoring the problems when it doesn't. — Hanover

I don't think the two ways are unique to the analytic tradition. At least I'd use Kant as a mixer between the two ways, and Hegel as the world-builder.

In early modern philosophy I find it hard to find another comparison for the critical grump. Hume leaps to mind but I'm wondering if that would not count as a continental since he's from across the aisle, when I'd say he's part of the Enlightenment tradition which seems to count as continental to my mind.

Right, reason becomes trapped in the disparate fly-bottles of sui generis language games. Man is separated from being, either by the mind, or later by language. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I tend to think that Wittgenstein's intent, at least, is to lead the fly out of the bottle. Noticing that a language game contains one way of looking at that whole world outside it is what I draw from that metaphor.

He is like the separated lover who can never reach his other half in the Symposium. Language, the sign vehicle, ideas, etc. become impermeable barriers that preclude the possibility of union, rather than the very means of union.

Well that fits with my sympathies. Along with...

Doing philosophy is a human endeavour. While it reaches for glory and joy, it stands in mud, puss and entrails. :wink: — Banno

Once one consummates philosophy I believe it ceases to be a certain kind of philosophy, at least -- and sometimes it becomes a science or something else rather than what philosophers care about.

But the philosopher is one who reaches for the erotic, rather than consummates it.

I think such remarks are self refuting and mischaracterise both mathematics and philosophy by falsely implying that they are separate language games. — sime

How would you group mathematics and philosophy into the same language game?

I'd say they are different in the sense that math is a science, and sciences differ from philosophy. That may not be enough to claim a separate language game, though -- it'd depend upon how we want to talk about language games.

(** philosophically archaic definition, so as not to be confused with the way the term is commonly used on this thread, yet consistent with the immediate subject matter.) — Mww

:D Hey, I'm the one defending the nit-pickers. I had you in mind in crafting the thought -- it's always a bit of an art in trying to simplify the greats to a manageable idea we can all work with and think through.

As an example of the monolithic style of thought I'd say Hegel takes the cake. No one seems to claim to understand so much as he does. In the Adorno reading group I'm reminded of...

Next he looks at an early criticism of Hegel by Krug, who "objected that if he really wished to do justice to Hegel’s philosophy he would have to be able to deduce the quill with which he had been writing." — Jamal

Hegel's response being "that's not relevant to philosophy" as a way of dealing with a possible counter-example.

Now it could very well be the case that this is a stupid thing to say in relation to another thinker, to have missed the point. And truthfully I think for any research program to be productive -- be it philosophical or scientific -- there are going to be some counter-examples that are simply ignored as not pertinent to what the thinkers are trying to get at.

But I think it worthwhile to note that Hegel's approach, though it feels like it encompasses it all, can be turned on its head and re-intepreted.

And, further, it's actually good philosophy to do so, sometimes. (Re-interpretation seems to require both the critical and the narrative)

In Kant? Isn't there apprehension prior to judgement? There is intuition/understanding/reason, which is clearly influenced by the three acts. He takes quite a bit from Aristotle. That's sort of Hegel's critique. "Oh look, I started presuppositionlessly and just happened to find Aristotle's categories." (I never found this critique of Hegel's strong, maybe the categories have held up because they are themselves strong).

Kant would deny truth as the adequacy of thought to being in the strong sense, or the idea of form coming through the senses to inform the intellect. I suppose the response here is that he rejects this because he presupposes representationalism and he has no good grounds for doing so (totally different subject). I'm also pretty sure he falls into identifying falsity with negation. So there would be other differences. I just don't know if the differences hold up without also accepting the fundamental axiom of "we experience only ideas/representations/our own experiences, not things," and of "knowledge of things in themselves," (as opposed to things as revealed by acting, actuality) as a sort of epistemic "gold standard" to aspire to. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Naturally it's tricky and subject to interpretation. Something that might be of value here is that Kant kind of does sit astride the line being explored here. I can say how I understand it, but mostly what matters in my summoning him is in his limitation on metaphysics. I recognize he takes a lot from Aristotle, but his modifications definitely put metaphysics into question as a science -- and I think it's a fair reading to say that the powers of judgment "underly" the categories.

"That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt...But, though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience. -- Intro CPR, Gutenberg edition




In the Kantian sense, sure, but "perception" isn't even the same thing as we normally mean it when we speak "in the Kantian sense" :D

The priority is of the forms of reason -- most importantly for our discussion here I'm thinking of Kant's critical turn on metaphysics, in particular. With respect to metaphysics Kant is the nit-picker, and with respect to scientific knowledge Kant is the world-builder.

When you say apprehension comes prior to judgment I can't help but think of Kant whose whole project can be read as "Judgment is the single fundamental unity to Reason in all matters philosophical" :D -- I'm not sure there's such a thing as apprehension prior to judgment at all. Hence theory-ladenness, though I wouldn't put it at the level of structuring our perceptions very frequently. More that our ideas give us an idea about what's important to consider, and this is a learned kind of judgment, and there was no such thing as apprehending before learning how to judge -- it was just ignorance.

So I wonder if the notion of a contrary can do the work you're wanting it to do here in demonstrating that falsity is posterior do to our state of knowing. Seems to me that we can explain our state of knowing in terms of Judgment, which in turn requires a notion of the true and the false, sort of like the categories. In the state of ignorance we lack any sort of notion of either truth or falsity.

I mean, I kind of get the idea, but where my thoughts go is that you needcan't have one without the other. I don't really think of falsity as a privation of being. If anything falsity has more to do with how we judge, and being cannot be privated by such things.

Considering it I can make sense of the notion, but given all of my stated perspectives. . . :D

Seems to me that once we understand what's true we also understand what's false -- at the very least the object is an object and the object is different from the foreground which is what makes an object an object and not just a wash of meaningless perceptions. To see any individual we have to be able to say when it is-not the background.

Other examples could be Wittgenstein or Kant -- anyone that sets a limit to philosophical knowledge would in some sense qualify as a skeptic, I think, in a softer sense. There's something we can't know, and it doesn't build up from our prior knowledge. Else that'd be a rather uninteresting philosophical skepticism: if we could eventually find out everything then are we really skeptics in a meaningful sense?