+Ron Cram

Though Spinoza came before Nietzsche, I think Nietzsche's 'death of God' doesnt apply to Spinoza's God, because Nietzsche's attack on God is a attack on a transcedent God, while Spinoza's God is immanent. So an argument could be made that Spinoza argues for a objective morality based on an immanent God, which survives Nietzsche's critique.

We come from a random process - evolution. Where does objectivity fall into a random process?

Evolution is not a random process, and no evolutionary biologist would say that. Gene mutation is random, natural selection is non-random.

You've mistaken my position, and that of the Logical Positivists for that matter. The claim, that this bulk of philosophical statements are meaningless, is not made on the grounds of having looked for some meaningful statements and found none. Were it made on those grounds you could justifiably say "well you haven't looked here, or you haven't understood the meaning here" and make the claim that we should read Nietzsche (or do so again, but more charitably). But that's not the argument that's being made. The argument is that philosophy, simply by virtue of it's means of investigation, cannot say anything meaningful in that way.

It is exactly the same argument. Logicial Positivsm accuses philosophical works of being meaningless, on the grounds that it doesn't meet the verification principle. Thus, Logicial Positivsm assumes criteria regarding meaning, and subsequently simply employs it. Everything that doesn't meet the verification principle, is meaningless.

You are doing the same. You assume criteria regarding meaning, and reject Nietzsche on the grounds that he doesn't meet your criteria (and to make things worse, all this without actually reading him). It is closed-minded. You have decided in advance what you assume to be meaningful, and subsequently only employ that assumption. The closed-mindedness of Logicial Positivsm is exactly the same as your Scientism.

As I said to Agustino, you do not need to know anything about the pronouncements of ballroom dancing judges to know that it doesn't have anything meaningful to say about ethics.

Do you honestly think comparing the capacity of ballroom dancing judges to say something meaningful regarding ethics, with philosophy, the discipline that has invented contemplation on ethics, is a useful comparison?

So Logical Positivists (or rather their descendants) are making the claim that the methods of philosophical investigation are such that in most contexts it can yield no meaningful statements. You feel quite at liberty to dismiss that proposition in derogatory terms despite that fact that you admit to not having read any of the arguments which support it, and yet you demand that anyone making the proposition not only read all the arguments against it, but all the results of the investigations which took place under the presumption that the proposition is false

Couple of points here:
(1) Not sure why you attribute this to me, but I have not said I did not read any of the arguments which support Logical Positivism. To be precise, I have invested time into Carnap and Schlick, so we could go into their arguments supporting Logical Positivism if you like.
(2) Nietzsche did not presume that Logical Positivism is false. Logical Positivism emerged around 1920. Nietzsche died in 1900.
(3) I am not assuming Logical Positivism is false, I understand that it is false. One of the key principles of Logical Positivsm was the analytic/synthetic gap. If you read ¨Two Dogmas of Empiricism¨ by Quine, you see that the distinction is untenable.

And I am sorry to say, but the fact you are not aware that since Quine, Logical Positivism is untenable, only shows how you have a big opinion on something you have invested little time in. Its what you read and learn in any first year bachelor of philosophy.

If the claim is that a text must only be meaningful to someone, in order to be taken seriously,

Philosophy is a academic discipline. Which text must be taken seriously is not only decided by the individual (i.e. you want to take Harry Potter seriously), you are also bound to the language game (in a Wittgensteinian sense) of the discipline. You presume there are only two kinds of critera: subjective and objective. I want to introduce Wittgenstein here, but I am afraid you are unaware of how, at least in acadamic philosophy, Wittgenstein replaced the subjective objective distinction when it comes to meaning, and that I will become trapped in explaining Wittgenstein and its current hold on philosophy to you.

Well, that's very magnanimous of you. If Hawking claims he's making a truth statement, I take it to be brave attempt to further our understanding, If Nietzsche claims he's not interested in Truth or falsity, I tend to think he's talking rubbish in order to immunise himself form criticism so he can spout whatever garbage comes into his head and not have to worry about whether it's actually true or not. But maybe I'm just cynical.

Nobody can force you to do philosophy that falls outside of Logical Positivism. And nobody can force you to invest time into understanding the position you are attacking. Thus, the discussion on Nietzsche becomes a dead-end, as we are not talking about the same Nietszche.

Interesting, How exactly does he reject correspondence theories if he's not interested in truth and falsity. Does he reject them because he doesn't like them much?

Yes, as Nietzsche wrote: ¨I shall abandon correspondence theories, as I dont like them much¨. It seems you have invested more time into Nietzsche than I thought, my apologies. Back on a serious note: Nietzsche rejects the value of certain notions, not based on the fact that they are false, but on the idea that they are dangerous to human flourishing. But I dont see how me explaining Nietzsche to you is helping this discussion.

No, he only does that with the answer to his question, not the question. He presumes that the question is a valid one, otherwise it is again like me asking if the speed of light really is 299,792,458 m/s. I don't undermine anything by asking.

Then you reject the method of Genealogy, which deals with questions to undermine the self-evident associations related to certain notions. And that is fine, you can reject Genealogy based on the idea that you believe questions cannot undermine anything. Yet this does exemplify what I understand to be Scientism, and why to me, it has a degoratory sense. Namely, because you have decided what is meaningful to you (critera you adopted from Logical Positivism) and refuse to see things from any other perspective. It is, in a sense, like clinging onto a language game (and one that hasn't been taken seriously in academic philosophy in a long time).

So have you read all of Alex Rosenberg's works? Peter Unger?, JJ Smart? Yet you seem quite happy to cast aspersions about what Scientism is, what it can and cannot grasp, the intentions and limitations of its proponents.

I have no idea who those people are. As I said, right now I am only reacting to what you are saying, who I take to be a Scientism-ist.

Dubblepost

And yet Hawking's claim "philosophy is dead" or Unger's claim that "philosophers proceed to write up these stories, and they’re under the impression that they’re saying something new and interesting about how it is about the world, when in fact this is all an illusion.", or when Rosenberg claims that "Science is the best tool to discover reality" ; these are propositions such that you could claim them to be false? What exactly is it about the context that you are using to divine whether a person is making a statement and claiming it to be 'true' or whether they are just... Whatever it is Nietzsche is doing... Making conversation?

Fairly straightforward, if Hawking claims that he is making a true proposition, I take him at his word. If Nietzsche is claiming that he is not concerned with 'truth' and 'falsity', I take him at his word.

Yes, how else will we know if it is 'understanding' and not just 'stuff we reckon'?

That depends on what you mean by understanding. I suppose understanding to you means something like correspondence with reality. Then yes, you are right (as you always are if you think exclusively from your own perspective). Though Nietzsche rejects correspondence theories (he has a different perspective, a thing which Scientism finds hard to grasp in general).

Nietzsche can't undermine a notion by asking a question, he can only undermine a notion by demonstrating it to be false. I don't undermine the notion that rain is wet just by saying "yes, but is it?".

From your Logical Positivist perspective, I suppose that is true. Though Genealogy is not Logical Positivism. Lets replace the example you used to clarify: if Nietzsche questions the justificational force associated with the notion 'truth', showing its contingents roots in history, he problematizes the justificational force associated with the notion 'truth' as being self-evident. Thus, asking a question using Genealogy can undermine at the very least the self-evident nature of a notion, which problematizes the notion in general.

Again, you are exemplifying what Scientism means to me. You think from a Logical Positivist perspective, have not invested serious time into understanding Nietzsche and Genealogy in general, yet make bold claims about Nietzsche. When he is doing something (asking Genological questions) that doesn't fit in your own perspective, you say that "Nietzsche can't".

Sound like questions to you? They sound an awful lot like a series of propositions to me.

I did not say there are no propositions. I said you reduce the history of philosophy to propositions. Just like you now reduce Nietzsche and Sartre to propositions by using quote's out of context. It is possible to distill propositions from Nietzsche's and Sartre's texts. The phrase “There are no facts, only interpretations” is not a proposition, as Nietzsche did not make the claim that this phrase is 'true'. The whole point is that he is avoiding making a truthfull proposition. It is something else than a proposition, when you read the phase in the context of the book as a whole.

The Sartre quote is a proposition as Sartre is trying to say something which he believes to be 'true'. I could now find a quote of Foucault to show you that Foucault is more interested in questions than answers. But my point is not that there are more philosophers which are more interested in questions than answers. My point is that there are philosophers in the history of philosophy, which were not interested in proposing propositions. Of which Nietzsche was one.

No, we act no differently now than we did before Principa Mathematica was even started. How can it possibly have contributed to our understanding of the world?

So only practical knowledge and theoretical knowledge which can be translated into practice can contribute to our understanding of the world?

So is the statement

“We do not consider the falsity of a judgment as itself an objection to a judgment; this is perhaps where our new language will sound most foreign”. — Nop

neither true nor false then? If so, why would we act in any way on it, what does reading it give us if it is neither true nor false?

That is the question which Nietzsche asks when undermining the notion of 'truth'. Welcome to the difficulties of philosophy.

And your opinion on, say, Rosenberg (a self-proclaimed Scientismist) is based on an effort to grasp his philosophy in it's own terms. Have you read his papers? Do you 'understand' them in their own terms? You seem quote happy nonetheless to reach the conclusion that Scientism approaches philosophy with "closed-mindedness". I'm curious as to how you think you can support that assessment after only a cursory look at the claims these people are making from your self-professed 'continental' perspective.

I have no idea who Rosenberg is. Did not say anything about him. I was talking about you and the statements you made in this threat, as I took you as a Scientism-ist.

Oh come, let's not plonk analytic philosophy into the muck and mire of scientism, even if some of its quarters have been guilty of peddling it. For the most part it has more dignity than that.

I agree, though Scientism does seem to leech on analytic philosophy. Figures such as Stephen Priest who do analytic philosophy, would not make the claims Scientism makes, yet Scientism seem to invoke analytic philosophy.

No, but;
a) That is clearly not the case. Philosophical literature is not a series of questions (at least not since Plato) it is either a series of propositions supported by arguments from axioms, or a series of counter-arguments to dispute a previous proposition.

Would it be fair to say that in making this claim, you reduce the history of philosophy and philosophical literature to analytic philosophy?

Russell dismissed Russell's paradox, that's the point. He set out to provide a justification for our belief in mathematics and failed (by his own admission) to do so.

So do you think that Russel´s attempt to ground mathematics in formal logic, has contributed to our understanding of the world, even though it failed?

Nietzche (and his supporters) think he had a sound justification for his philosophy which rendered other philosophies false. That's an entirely different claim. The if you want to put them on the same footing you have to describe Nietzsche as having set out to justify a certain type of Nihilism but failed by his own admission to do so. Then I would say they could both be dismissed on the same grounds, but that's clearly not what happened

What I see happening here is somebody interpreting Nietzsche from a Logical Positivist perspective. Nietzsche did not claim that his philosophy rendered other philosophies false, as Nietzsche isn't concerned with notions of ´truth´ and ´falsity´. This is expressed quite clearly in Beyond Good and Evil: “We do not consider the falsity of a judgment as itself an objection to a judgment; this is perhaps where our new language will sound most foreign”.

There is nothing wrong with doing philosophy exclusively from a analytical perspective, though there does seem to be something wrong with projecting your own analytical perspective into philosophies such as Nietzsche. In any case, to stay on topic, reducing meaning to what is understood from a analytical perspective sounds like Scientism to me, since you express a opinion on Nietzsche, without making the effort to grasp his philosophy in his own terms. In my opinion, the derogatory meaning Scientism has to me is related to the closed-mindedness with which philosophy is approached. If you asked me something on Quine, I would be hesitant to make a statement as I dont feel like I grasp Quine in his own terms. I would not project my continental orientation onto Quine. You seem to be fine with making a claim on Nietzsche without grasping him in his own terms, which adds to the derogatory meaning Scientism has to me.

Pseudonym, if the discipline of philosophy is characterized as being concerned with questions, not answers, would you dismiss the discipline of philosophy? In addition, lets say that hypothetically, Russels's paradox regarding set theory fundamentally cannot be resolved, would you be consistent and say that you would dismiss Russels's paradox, as you do with Nietzsche on the same grounds?

No. The vast majority of people haven’t read Nietzche and they don't seem to be doing markedly worse at living than the tiny minority who have. There are also some people who I have no reason to doubt the intelligence of (Bertrand Russell, for example) who have read Nietzche and still feel their understanding of the world to be completely unaffected by the experience.

If the discipline of philosophy is characterized as being concerned with questions, not answers, would you dismiss the discipline of philosophy? In addition, lets say that hypothetically, Russels's paradox regarding set theory fundamentally cannot be resolved, would you be consistent and say that you would dismiss Russels's paradox, as you do with Nietzsche?

Why do questions which cannot be resolved whose answers are unknowable need to be asked?

Do you see Nietzsche as a philosopher who contributed to our understanding of the world? Because Nietzsche's main contribution is asking questions that cannot reasonably be resolved. Would you dismiss Nietzsche based on this?

if you could refrain from appealing to authority

This seems like a silly thing to say, when you make claims to authority yourself: "but I'm certainly one of those many people, as is Bertrand Russell, for example, so it's not just an uninformed opinion", and: "yet when people like Heidegger write what many consider to be meaningless nonsense".

That said, I don't think my criticism of Heidegger relies on equating meaning with propositional content. I expect propositional content from a text claiming to impart some useful theory. Maybe you read Heidegger as poetry, in which case I've no complaints, but it's rarely taken that way, it's presumed that Heidegger is imparting some insight, so I expect to read a proposition there and I find none, hence the words have no meaning relative to their intent.

This is precisely what I am trying to illustrate. You assume that meaningfull statements have propositional content, and that without propositional content there is no meaningfull statement. This assumption cannot be taken as self-evident since Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, and thus you should at least engage with the arguments Wittengestein presents against this view. In fact, when you are not aware of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, you will not (and should not, in my opnion) be taken seriously on the topic of meaning, at least in Western acadamic philosophy.

Just so that I express myself clearly: what I see you doing is making a problematic assumption with respects to meaning, then you use that assumption as a criterion with respects to meaning, and you thus conclude that Heidegger is meaningfull nonsense. So in fact, you just assume the conclusion, since you assume the criterion.

So why is Dawkins' empiricism such a problem?

Because Berkeley rejects Materialism, and Quine rejects Immaterialism, both on the grounds that they engaged with the positions they reject. Dawkins doesn't.

Maybe he's decided that phenomenology is an unnecessary part of his model of the world?

That fine and a respectable view. But this is not Dawkins, since Dawkins doesn't engage with phenomenology: he thinks from the premise of Empiricism, and accepts and rejects things based on this assumed premise.

So you equate the meaning of words to propositional content. This is a position that has been considered highly problematic since Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, and in contemporary academic philosophy is widely considered to be untenable, both by analytic and continental approaches to philosophy.

This might be a clue to why people use Scientism as a negative term. If somebody claims that some utterance is meaningless because it has no ''propositional content'', it shows the lack of insight somebody has in the philosophical tradition and its recent developments. When Richard Dawkins (who I take to be a Scientism-ist) claims that consciousness works by processcing information similarly as computers do, and concludes from that that computers might one day become conscious, the problem is this: it shows that Dawkins thinks from the unquestioned premise of Empiricism, and having no insight on Phenomenology, Dawkins cannot conceive how philosophically problematic his own position is.

If Dawkins were to engage with Phenomenology and reject its insights, sticking to his form of Empiricism, that is fine. But Scientism seems to include a lack of engagment with anything that lies outside the unquestioned premise of Empiricism, and in this sense it seems a bit dogmatic to me. Similarly, when Heidegger is dismissed as having no ''propositional content'', there is no engagement with philosophy that questions premises from which somebody is thinking (Heidegger falls outside my way of thinking, thus it is meaningless nonsense; although it is exactly my way of thinking that Heidegger is putting to the question).

Why is it that when scientists make arguments against certain philosophical approaches they "pontificate", yet when people like Heidegger write what many consider to be meaningless nonsense, they are great thinkers? — Pseudonym

What do you mean by meaningless nonsense? Heidegger is a key figure in the history of philosophy, and is still one of the most influential philosophers today, as is exemplified by his relevance for contemporary cognitive science (cognitive science on skillful behavior, for example).

When you say meaningless nonsense, it sounds like you subscribe to a Logical Positivist view of linguistics and meaning. If this does not characterize your view, Iam interested in what you mean by meaningless nonsense.

Although this is pure speculation, it could be that Scientism provokes angered reactions because it operates in the public domain. Scientism and figures, such as Harris, are not really debated and taken seriously in acadamic philosophy (at least at my university), so non-academic philosophers might be more emotional when dealing with philosophy.

I agree we should avoid arguments around taxonomy. Personally, the antipathy I feel (and think) toward the approach of Scientism relates to my previous statement regarding terms such as Being, Embodied Cognition, Perception and Genealogy. In my opinion, the most philosophically interesting works are those that disregard any trace of scientific methodology, such as Phenomenology of Perception by Merleau-Ponty, Being and Time by Heidegger,
Being and Nothingness by Sartre, and On the Genealogy of Morality by Nietzsche. This is subjective, but so is any preference in philosophy, as philosophy is not science.

I agree that "we" seems a bit problematic there. But I dont think Scientism as we have used the term in this discussion is a branch of Physicalism. Scientism seems to assume Physicalism, but the claims are of such distinct nature that I cannot see any reason why Scientism should be seen as a branch of Physicalism. Physicalism makes a ontological claim, Scientism makes a epistenmelogical claim. Physicalism doesn't imply Scientism, and Scientism only assumes Physicalism.

He seems to have taken an entirely reasonable logical route to get from his Physicalism to his conclusion that science can determine what is moral.

What do you mean by ¨reasonable logical route¨? His form of Utilitarianism is philosophically quite problematic. The fact that Harris wants to reason and proceed by using logical thinking, doesn't remove the problematic status of his philosophical assumptions.

Properly grasping something in philosophy is necessarily to the extent of one's personal satisfaction. Arguments can persuade and not persuade, and the effect the argument has is defined by personal satisfaction. Subjectivity in this sense doesn't seem problematic to me, why do you think it is problematic (why is something ´suffering´ from subjectivity)? In addition, I dont think grasping something properly should be defined by using critera regarding ´properly´, as philosophy (e.g. Phenomenology) has, in my opinion, introduced a much more complex and beneficial understanding of ´properly´ grasping something (as is exemplified by Phenomenology of Perception). But now we are in a realm of opposing language-games, and I don't see much benefit in moving in this direction.

Now when you claim that Harris wishes to apply the scientific method to morality as a logical consequence of Physicalism, that is fine. But it is not the same as Physicalism. You could then say that Harris is both a Physicalist (Harris believes that everything is physical/supervenes on the physical), and Harris subscribes to Scientism (Harris believes scientific methodologies should be applied to morality). It makes sense to me to differentiate Physicalism from Scientism, if you can be a Physicalist without subscribing to Scientism (e.g. I can have the position that everything is physical/supervenes on the physical, and that certain aspects of the physical should be inquired by non-scientific methodologies).

What do you think about my opinion on why Scientism has an "excessive" use of science?

Also, it now seems to me that Scientism could be differentiated from Physicalism, in that Scientism makes epistemological and methodological claims that Physicalism doesn't necessarily make. Harris would like to base the inquiry into morality, in scientific methodologies, which certainly is not a claim that Physicalism necessarily makes. Epistemologically, Scientism (e.g. Richard Dawkins) seems to claim that all things will be explained by science, and thus by the use of the methodologies science is bound to. I dont see any such claim as being essential to Physicalism.

Regarding Positivism, you have quite an extentric interpretation of Positivism in my opinion, but that is not a topic I would like to discuss. What do you think about this attempt to differentiate Physicalism from Scientism?

If by Positivism you are referring to the movement of Logical Positivism, the difference between Positivism and Scientism seems to me that Positivism explicitly rejects all forms of metaphysics, while Harris seems to be fine with metaphysics (such as the metaphysics of Utilitarianism).

Physicalism is the claim that everything is physical (and in the case of morals, it supervenes on the physical). The Scientism of Harris seems to be corresponding to Physicalism, and I am not sure if there is such a distinct difference. What do you think?

Edit: to explain why I think it is an "excessive" use of science: questions regarding topics such as Being, Embodied Cognition, Perception and Genealogy should in my opinion, be contemplated without any methodological bounds, as Merleau-Ponty does in Phenomenology of Perception. When science tries to deal with these terms and corresponding questions, and when the inquiry is thus bound to scientific methodological bounds, we will not properly grasp what, lets say, perception, is.

Facing the risk that you might become as hostile to me as you seem to be against Wayfarer, I would like to throw you a coconut.

Lets take Sam Harris as an example of Scientism. Harris seems to claim that science isn't affected by the Humean notion that you can't get an "ought" from an "is". According to Harris, neurobiology is able to measure individual well-being, and thus is able to tell us what actions are moral and which are immoral. I dont know Harris that well, but it seems to me that he subscribes to some form of utilitarianism. The problem that I see with the ¨scientism¨ of Harris, is that it assumes problematic philosophical positions, while disguising it as ´obective science´.

It seems to be you who is obsessed with sex. I dont notice it in the streets, because its normal to me. To have sex is just a playful act to me, but it seems to be you who gives great importance to sex because you notice it everywhere and even make a topic about it on a internet forum.

Did not know we had Deepak Chopra on the forum

And what would that have explained? How would Descartes be able to communicate his philosophy with that?

One has to make the step of the logical necessary connection between ''I think'' and ''I am'', and only then somebody can understand that it should stop at ''I''.

With all due respect, I feel you have a poor grasp on the philosophy of Descartes.

Because the Evil Genius could have made things infinitely worse, or even could have refrained from creating us at all, therefore Descartes concluded that no Evil Genius reigns in the Universe. — YIOSTHEOY

This is not the argument Descartes uses to disprove the Evil Genius. Within Descartes' theory of ideas there is an species of ideas that are called ''clear and distinct ideas''. We have an ''clear and distinct idea'' of God, and therefore God exists. And since God does not decieve us (it is not in His nature), we can trust our clear and distinct ideas. This is called the Cartesian circle (God proves C&D ideas, C&D ideas prove God), and this is how he battles the Evil Genius. To ask an honest question: where did you get the argument that you (sorry to say, falsely) accredited to Descartes?

Instead however, Descartes comes up with his own proof of God, in that Descartes formulates the notion that if Descartes can conceive of a most virtuous perfect infinite Being then one must exist. — YIOSTHEOY

Again, not true. It was Anselm who developed this proof of God and Descartes took it from him. It is called the ontological argument for the existence of God. God is perfect, and since it is more perfect to exist then to not exist, God must exist. But again, not Descartes, but Anselm.

I would like to clarify that whereas Descartes was able to prove that no Evil Genius rules the Universe — YIOSTHEOY

Not really. The Cartesian circle argument has been well-esablised in literature on Descartes as an failure, since it is a form of circulair reasoning.

But I enjoy anyone who shares my enthusiasm for Descartes, so keep on re-reading Descartes!

You have an self-defeating argument. If you dont feel the force of a logical conclusion, then I dont understand why it removes the compelling force from solipsism. Because your conclusion that solipsism has no compelling force since logic is not compelling, is itself a logical conclusion and therefore you infact DO feel the force of logical conclusions.

Philosophy has failed, miserably. Skepticism has won; by a rather large margin.

Skepticism is a philosophical movement, so you are saying philosophy has failed while a sub-field of philosophy has won?