But the problem is not just that intelligible, difficult questions were asked, like 'how many stars are in the sky?' — Snakes Alive

That's just an empirical question. It can be investigated by careful observation.

Rather, no inquiry was ever performed other than the conversations held, and even in this arena, where nothing was ever looked into and people apparently felt that nothing needed to be looked into, it was impossible to make any headway. — Snakes Alive

It's often enough the case that many examples are used. Lucretius used erosion as a justification for atomism. Metaphysics isn't just a language game. It's also looking around at our experience of the world and asking how things are the way they are, and whether our concepts about those things make sense.

The first set, it seems, has a puzzling status, where it is not just unclear whether they are true or false, due maybe to epistemic limitations, or vagueness in the language, or ambiguity, or what have you, but it is unclear whether they are meaningful, in the restricted sense that it is unclear whether they in principle determine any truth conditions at all. That is, as competent speakers of English, we typically do not know what would make the statements in the first class true or false, and so we cannot extract a 'descriptive' meaning from them. It is for this reason that metaphysicians are able to argue about the claims endlessly, even without any 'materials' for argumentation other than conversations they take part in – because if even the sense of the expressions are unclear, one can always deny or affirm a claim, by construing the words in a certain way or marshaling and endless array of supplementary hypotheses or hermeneutic and argumentative techniques, themselves undetermined or underdetermined for meaning. In other words, conversations about such metaphysical sentences are in principle endless, because they have in principle no way of being resolved, because their structure, despite being grammatically like a claim with coherent (if sometimes vague or ambiguous) truth conditions, do not have any such that the speakers can converge on. — Snakes Alive

A counter point might be that if you take any popular unsolved mystery, there will be endless argumentation spanning many different theories. Take Fermi's Paradox and the question of whether technological alien life exists as a good example of this. There are even debates over what to search for. The problem is that we don't know the answer, not that it's meaningless.

Now let's take one of the metaphysical examples you listed. What would it mean for there to be no physical objects? It would mean everything exists as an idea in someone's mind. What does that mean? Dreams are a good example. Everything would have the same fundamental status of dreams, except as different kinds of experiences. Experiences themselves would exhaust what a thing is.

All that social distancing....for what? — NOS4A2

I don't know, but everyone outside where I live has pretty much stopped practicing it. Inside to some extent as well. We'll see what happens. The spread seems to vary quite a bit. If this were NYC, people would be a lot more cautious. But things are opening up there as well, and I'm guessing all the protests have somewhat relaxed many people's concerns about the virus.

leepy Joe might get votes from Republicans, but don't think this means that they will go then all progressive. — ssu

Sleepy Joe isn't a progressive anyway.

Using the word know as Moore used it, is senseless, in fact, it creates bogus philosophical problems. Many so-called philosophical problems are just as senseless. The way we talk about free will and determinism, time, knowledge, and a whole panoply of other philosophical ideas, propositions, and words are also just as problematic. Once you come to understand what Wittgenstein is saying, or trying to do via his method, then many of the problems of philosophy simply vanish as pseudo-problems - many, but not all. — Sam26

I don't understand how Wittgenstein's method makes these problems go away. In our language game we say we have could have done otherwise. Thus, we're responsible for our actions. But then there are reasons to doubt we actually could have done otherwise. So what to make of that? It would seem our language game has created a paradox.

Or take Hume's critique of causality. We talk about causes all the time. And yet the actual cause never presents itself in experience. So why is causality part of our language game?

Is it really the case that philosophers are abusing language? Or are they pointing out the questionable assumptions used to create our language games?

Did skepticism originate with misuse of the Greek term for doubt? No, it arose because of illusions, hallucinations, dreams, madness, perceptual relativity, sophistry and what not.

The backdrop of reality grounds us, if this wasn't the case, then the skeptic would have an argument. — Sam26

True, but what is this reality? Is it the stuff of everyday experience which populates ordinary language? The skeptic finds various problems with this.

The problem with "showing" is the question of what is being shown? That our experiences of the world are veridical? There are many examples which call this into question. The ancient skeptics had multiple arguments to demonstrate that. Modern science provides even more.

The very act of sitting at a computer and typing shows my belief that there is a keyboard; that I have hands; that I am controlling my fingers; that what I type is saved to a hard drive, etc, etc. I don't even think about it, i.e., I don't think to myself and say, "Is this really a keyboard?" After all there is no reason to doubt it, and even if I did doubt it, would that doubt really amount to anything? That I am certain of these beliefs is reflected in what I do. We all act in ways that show our certainty of the world around us. Occasionally things do cause us to doubt our surroundings, but usually these things are out of the ordinary. I am referring to our sensory experiences, i.e., generally we can trust our senses even if occasionally we draw the wrong conclusion based on what we see, hear, smell, etc. — Sam26

This is either naive realism or pragmatism. All it establishes is that we have a consistent experience of a world. It's not a defeater for skepticism, because the skeptic begins here, and then goes on to point out everything that leads to the problem of perception.

SO to the methodological point: don't start a philosophical conversation with "First let us define our terms".
— Banno

24. The idealist's question would be something like: "What right have I not to doubt the existence of my hands?" (And to that the answer can't be: I know that they exist.) But someone who asks such a question is overlooking the fact that a doubt about existence only works in a language-game. Hence, that we should first have to ask: what would such a doubt be like?, and don't understand this straight off.

Moore's "I know I have a hand" needs to remove all doubt; but "I know" is not strong enough to do this. "I am certain" suffers a similar fate. But "It is certain..." does not. You might agree that I think I know, and still maintain that I am wrong; but if you agree that it is certain, then you cannot then say that I am wrong. (probably needs unpacking... complicity is achieved in the move from first person to third person). — Banno

This seems confused. The idealist doesn't doubt the existence of hands. They would agree that Moore can show that he has hands. What they doubt is the move from waving hands about, or "it is certain", to saying hands are physical.

The objection to this would be that "physical" is part of the language game. Yes, but physical means real, as in hands are material, not mental. And this is what Moore is trying to establish against the idealist. That his hands are proof of a material world.

Again the objection would be that is how the language game is played. Hands are used as being part of the material world. Sure, but this is means language is used in a naive realist manner. The idealist presumably has reasons to reject naive realism, and thus to suppose that everyday language is mistaken.

For the idealist, waving hands about doesn't mean your hands are physical, it just means you have a consistent experience of waving hands about. You don't get to make that epistemic leap just by pointing to an experience.

Biden can just run on, "You ain't black if you vote for Trump", and, "I promise you, the president has a big stick. I promise you."

I'm looking forward to the debates between the two of them.

That was an amazing and sympathetic post!

Here's a little more progress:

A proposal: tie federal funding of police departments to incidences of use-of-force complaints, as assessed by a third party civil rights (i.e. non police) department. — StreetlightX

That would have a big impact very quickly. But why would Trump ever do that?

US police kill more in days than other countries do in years. This is of course ridiculous, but not for the reasons you state. — StreetlightX

Not all countries. Brazil is #1 followed by Venezuela. In terms of rate per 10 million, there are 32 countries higher than the US.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country

Of course it's still absurdly high, but not the most murderous police force.

Facts don't care about your feelings — StreetlightX

Facts also don't care about your extremist, all or nothing way of thinking.

he US is orders of magnitude more barbarous than the rest of the world, when it comes to their cops, as reflected in their social policy, quite specific to the US. — StreetlightX

That's a ridiculous statement.

We should also remember that cops are also murdered. — NOS4A2

That is true. They do sometimes have to deal with dangerous situations.

Cops are racist and bad and overwhelmingly violent. — StreetlightX

Some of them, not all.

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced the decision to relieve Conrad on Monday afternoon during a news conference, where the deceased was identified as David McAtee. Conrad had been set to retire later this month." — StreetlightX

That's good news. Needs to be an independent investigation into what happened. And yeah, I noticed it was a black business owner.

Biden is hardly ideal. He's just not the inflammatory, race-baiting fool that the alt-right loves.

Another really dumb thing Trump is doing is making enemies out of governors and mayors.

The previous president would have. So would Hillary. Unfortunately, we don't have either. There's some mayors talking about reform.

Good list of demands. Imagine if Trump had started this out leading with this as an offer and expressing solidarity.

Of course he can't do that sort of thing.

Trump praising Tiananmen Square is the worst possible thing to say. How can he be so monumentally bad at leading? No way he survives to another term.

What?! Come on man. I'm sorry. Surely you meant they don't want anything destroyed. Right? — Outlander

A little bit of hyperbole. And probably it would mean a few broken windows and a dumpster fire here or there, and the occasional scuffle with police. People getting a little bit worked up at night is different than the systematic looting. But mostly not anything destroyed. The Minny police precinct and some squad cars was understandable at the time, long as nobody was inside.

Trying to be a reasonable about people being understandably pissed off. And sure a Target might get looted in a couple places. But keep the local stuff safe. Beyond that, yeah peaceful, no destruction. It seems like there are elements looking for an excuse to break shit on a much bigger level. That's where it crosses a line.

They have refused to protect and serve, sheepishly standing around as communities are razed to the ground. — NOS4A2

They have to follow orders from higher up, but yeah it seems they weren't doing much to stop the actual looters and fire starters. Just standing around provoking the protesters. I've seen it suggested that if they joined the peaceful protesters and stopped the looting, they would have been helped by the protesters to identify bad actors. The peaceful protestors don't want everything destroyed.

The Insurrection Act of 1807 is being seriously discussed . — 180 Proof

We'll see how that goes down.

One lat video form a black man disgusted at looters in long beach who he says had nothing to do with the protest at 0:49.

They weren't trying to send a message about Mr. Floyd ... This doesn't send a message. It doesn't say let's get socially involved.

Also good to see there's a list of demands for police reform protestors are coming up with. Some good ideas.

But to the main issue, maybe some of the people who shouldn't be police are getting exposed right now. There's been a few firings so far. Needs to be more. Maybe a lot more.

Anyone kneeling someone's neck has to go. Are you kidding me? Pushing a reporter into a fire, macing a kid? That shit has to stop.

Also any cop targeting a reporter. And the Louisville shooting, which is real suspect. No body cams were on, some black guy gets shot.

Columbia South Carolina mayor on setting a curfew because some people turned the protests violent:



He discussion upcoming police reforms. This can happen within the system. And then he concludes with:

For those of you not from our city, I want you take your asses home right now! — Stephen K. Benjamin

I guess the mayor has some reason for believing in those mythical outside agitators.

Anyway, fuck you for wanting to see my country burn because of your ideology. Support the majority peaceful protest.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoo on her disgust at violent protestors:

I'm hear to call you out for your recklessness and for your obscene disrespect to a righteous cause that you are trying to hijack. When you or anyone behaves in this way, we all lose. By giving the vary same forces of oppression we fight against the false validation that they crave. — Lori Lightfoo

Fuck it, I lied because I had to come back and start reading again. Glutton for punishment.

So the narrative is that arguing against the destructive part of the protest is to not care about addressing systematic racism. It's to be a worthless liberal, god forbid.

So what do our burn-the-shit down socialists have to say when black people are condemning the violence and advocating for peaceful protest?



So what is it? Is it just some worthless liberals in this thread focusing on the wrong thing?

We're not going to take it. We're not going to be repetitious. In every case of police brutality, the same thing has been happing. Y'all protest, y'alll destory stuff and they don't move. You know why they don't move? Because it's our stuff not their stuff. So they want us to destroy our stuff. They'e not going to move. So let's do this another way. — George Floyd

Then he goes on to talk about voting for change, like Obama did, who also said:

Let's not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.

The bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn't between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform." — Obama

So there you go. An argument for peaceful protest from the people being oppressed.

One last one and I'm done with this thread.



https://www.kbtx.com/content/news/George-Floyds-son-a-Bryan-resident-speaks-with-KBTX-at-Black-Lives-Matter-rally-570911061.html

Why should we care about people acquiescing to injustice or those actively defending it? — Benkei

Why should we care about anyone? I don't agree with this collective notion of guilt that demands violence. Also, it's not just privileged neighborhoods getting ransacked, in case you didn't notice.

Nice to know you don't care. Some of the places are also immigrant or minority owned.

It's possible to be both for reform and against violence.

For whom? — Benkei

Anyone who lives there.

You're missing the forest for the trees with your looters and insistence on peaceful protest. — Benkei

Also, I did make several posts offering ideas for police reforms, along with linking to some ideas.

It's not the real problem and it's not going to be anytime soon. — Benkei

It's a problem, as if only one problem can be real at a tiime.

Try reading the context of replying to someone else's post about the looting.

The thing is a few bad people can make a helluva mess giving the misconception that more foul play is at work than there is. — I like sushi

Right and the real problem is the systematic looters and burners going building to building causing all kinds of damage. I don't think they have much to do with protesting police brutality. They're either there to steal shit, or they're there to cause chaos.

Most of the protesters are peaceful.

Well Perhaps don't insinuate that I do. I have enough humility to argue on my own behalf, and not other people's. — unenlightened

Fair enough.

Why would you think that anyone thinks that black people favour violence? — unenlightened

Indeed, so don't argue for it on their behalf.

Woah 10 different black people. — StreetlightX

Better than just posting some socialist/anarchist justification. You'e not even American.

A lot of the people who are engaged in the riots are black people, so clearly Dennis Rodman doesn't speak for what all black people want. — Michael

Sure, nobody does. Question is do a majority of black people protesting, or black leadership involved in protests want a peaceful approach?