/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6935468]

>My claim is that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, just as there are right and wrong answers to questions of physics

>Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim Algebra, we will see that there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality.

>Despite our perennial bad behavior, our moral progress seems to me unmistakable.

Has anyone ever actually come up with solid arguments against this guy (inb4 muh Hume), or is hating on him just a meme?

[Anonymous No.6935480]

Saying inb4 Hume isn't some magical spell that protects Harris from the is/ought distinction.

[Anonymous No.6935486]

>>6935468
of course there is that kind of moral theory

it's of the Thomistic kind

[Anonymous No.6935495]

>>6935486

So in other words, according to you, moral theory is bullshit sophistry?

[Anonymous No.6935500]

>>6935468
What argument did he made that we would need to argue against? He did nothing but make unsupported assertions.

>My claim is
>We will see
>Seems to me

[Anonymous No.6935501]

>>6935495
>it's sophistry because it has big wurds
no.

[Anonymous No.6935503]

>>6935468
>My claim
I never saw any arguments/proofs by him

tell me what arguments he puts forth

[Anonymous No.6935506]

Morall progress? What does he mean? That americans came up with new ways of justifying warmongering?

[Anonymous No.6935510]

>>6935468

Has anyone read his book about ethics? Is it true he just did another Felicific calculus thing?

[Anonymous No.6935514]

>>6935510
he thinks moral philosophy makes the world more boring, why do you think he ought to be taken seriously?

[Anonymous No.6935516]

>>6935501

No, it's sophistry because it's meaningless in the real world. Thomist philosophy in total has exactly zero pratical applications, both in knowledge and ethics.

Unlike what Ed Feser told you, it actually isn't being taken seriously by anyone, not even in philosophy, which is quite an achievement, and certainly not in any serious science

[Anonymous No.6935517]

>>6935468
>moral progress

[Anonymous No.6935519]

>>6935468

hume: (whispers) is.... ought....

—exeunt—

[Anonymous No.6935527]

>>6935516
>act and potency, a theory that explains the existence of change in the world, is meaningless in the real world
looks like you should move out of the Pre-Socratics, kid

[Anonymous No.6935530]

Harris gets destroyed by Nietzsche, along with anyone else who tries to come up with an atheistic moral system.

[Anonymous No.6935533]

>>6935527

Name one field of physics in which a single Thomist theory is still being used today

[Anonymous No.6935541]

>>6935530
As well as anyone who tries to come up with a non-atheistic one

[Anonymous No.6935544]

>>6935517

[Anonymous No.6935548]

>>6935533
literally all of them would become more intelligible with a thomistic metaphysical background (aristotelian works too, but thomism is just developed aristotelianism)

[Anonymous No.6935553]

>right and wrong

stopped reading

[Anonymous No.6935555]

>>6935548

So in other words, you can't name a single one.

Thanks for clearing that up

[Anonymous No.6935558]

>>6935468
>he thinks the ontologically first person can have a ontologically third person grounding

[Anonymous No.6935560]

>>6935555
>physics doesnt make use of the reality of change
nice quads tbh

[Anonymous No.6935566]

>>6935541
Well if God is real then Nietzsche is wrong, but if God isn't real then Nietzsche is right. Harris thinks God isn't real, so he gets to take Fred's veiny dick up his ass.

[Anonymous No.6935585]

>>6935560

Way to completely change my question and put words in my mouths I never said.

Are all thomists as bad at arguing a point as you?

[Anonymous No.6935586]

>>6935566
Nietzsche still right even if God exists actually

[Anonymous No.6935602]

Judeo-Christian morality talks about how to make punish your wife/slave/etc.

[Anonymous No.6935605]

>>6935585
i never said that modern physics is working on a thomistic metaphysical background, but that they ought to. So good job on being a hypocrite.

And the fact that they believe in the reality of change implies that they are working on something similar to the act/potency theory, whether they realize it or not, or draw the appropiate conclusions for it

[Anonymous No.6935614]

>>6935602
Sounds right to me.

[Anonymous No.6935625]

>>6935544
>They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality.

>when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of morality, we merely witness the effects of the dominion of the Christian value judgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion

[Anonymous No.6935626]

>>6935605

>i never said that modern physics is working on a thomistic metaphysical background, but that they ought to

That would be the biggest waste of time ever, as Aristotlean physics have long been surpassed by Newtonian physics, and even Newtonian physics are hardly used anymore, at least not in any recent studies.

So in other words, the program you propose was outdated by something outdated. Your suggestion is like going to the headquarters of Ford and then proposing we put a steam engine on them horse carriages

[Anonymous No.6935630]

>>6935626
physics isnt the same as metaphysics, billy

[Anonymous No.6935642]

>>6935630

And I wasn't talking about metaphysics. I was talking about applications in science, you know, that stuff that you can actually test and doesn't rely on sophistry and bullshit semantics

[Anonymous No.6935651]

>>6935586

This anon gets it.

[Anonymous No.6935652]

>>6935642
oh so why did you reply in the first place? why make an argument on something no one was talking about?
you dont talk about how The Hunger Games are shit on a thread about Nietzche, anon

[Anonymous No.6935656]

>>6935642
>sophistry and bullshit semantics
and we're back on "le big bad words" again

[Anonymous No.6935688]

>>6935656

No, where back to the core why Aquinas isn't taken seriously by anyone, because what he says is meaningless in the real world. His entire philosophy is a meaningless language game. He uses concepts he doesn't define consistently to get to a conclusion he set in advance. Nothing he ever wrote about is independently verifiable, all of it depends on you already agreeing with everything he believes in.

Basically, Thomism is an example of a way of thinking where claims are 'proven' with more claims. It doesn't solve any problems or contradictions within a proposed idea, it further complicates it. It also certainly won't do as a valid explanation for anything in reality, as reality is never even addressed in the first place

[Anonymous No.6935718]

>>6935688
>Nothing he ever wrote about is independently verifiable, all of it depends on you already agreeing with everything he believes in.
welcome to theology (^:

[Anonymous No.6935720]

>>6935688
I think you just don't have a knack for metaphysics m8

The only reason you feel tricked by Aquinas is because you agree with his first principles & find the argument swiftly going the opposite way you thought it would. The graceful thing to do is to reject the first principles somehow, but instead you're taking issue with the logic, which is Aquinas' home-turf. You're losing the "meaningless language game" and it's your own fault.

[Anonymous No.6935725]

>>6935720
>You're losing the "meaningless language game"
i hope you're trying to be clever rather than just ignorant

[Anonymous No.6935728]

>>6935725
No, I'm trying to be ignorant

[Anonymous No.6935731]

>>6935651
How is Nietzsche right about God if God is actually omnipotent and omniscient?

[Anonymous No.6935732]

>>6935468
>Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim Algebra

Does he realize that Muslims invented algebra?

[Anonymous No.6935733]

>Has anyone ever actually come up with solid arguments against this guy (inb4 muh Hume)
Yes, Hume did.

[Anonymous No.6935740]

>>6935728
cool same here

[Anonymous No.6935748]

>>6935731
you should look up what "god is dead" actually means

>>6935732
given the rest of his intellectual output, doubtful

[Anonymous No.6935754]

>>6935748
I know what it actually means and it only reinforces my point. The reality of an absolute moral arbiter invalidates Nietzsche's need to find a new framework of human existence.

[Anonymous No.6935758]

>>6935688
>Nothing he ever wrote about is independently verifiable
do you mean empirically verifiable? why does the truth value of something rests on being empirically testable? do you reject the law of inertia on these grounds?
>Thomism is an example of a way of thinking where claims are 'proven' with more claims.
most of the thomistic philosophy follows from the theory of act and potency. If you accept the theory the rest follows. And there is no reason for denying it.
If youre complaining that his philosophy rests on certain principles, then welcome to Science, lad.

The rest of what you wrote is false, since anyone who actually understands Thomism can see that Aquinas' philosophy is empirical in nature, and therefore gives an accurate picture of reality. And that his concepts are completely alien to modern thought shows how much modern philosophy has deteriorated. (There are several books which organize the concepts of Scholastic philosophers in a nice, readable way)

[Anonymous No.6935767]

>>6935754

Nietzsche's claims regarding the death of God were not metaphysical founded, they were historically and existentially founded. So whether or not God's ontological status is or is not, is irrelevant to Nietzsche's historical or genealogical method. Moreover, it is irrelevant to Nietzsche's analysis of the human 'condition' in relation to its values. We are still thrown upon ourselves in relation to historically condition values, and I imagine Nietzsche would still stick to his adage to that we must kill the "shadow" of God.

[Anonymous No.6935771]

>>6935688
>reality is never addressed
He's dealing with reality at a really basic level. You're just blinkered by your scientistic epistemology. Aquinas deals with general features of reality, like actuality and potency, change, being and causality, at least as far as natural theology goes. This means he's dealing with the metaphysical preconditions of empirical investigation, which must be presumed by empiricism and, if proven, proven by other methods (i.e., metaphysics, through logic). Just speaking for myself, he does this quite convincingly, even if one doesn't start out agreeing with him. Even if one is a theist, Aquinas effectively argues for many quite controversial elaborations on theism.

Now, certainly, if a priori you rule out any method capable of reaching his conclusions, and insist on adopting methods ill-suited to discovering ultimate reality and no others, it's no wonder you don't get Aquinas. But then your rejection of his metaphysics is even more baseless than Aquinas's theological conclusions.

[Anonymous No.6935835]

Lol at all the philosophy fags defending their bullshit views in this thread: Fucking hilarious. Whatever makes you feel more intelligent and important I guess.

[Anonymous No.6935843]

>>6935758
>being this deluded
>my sides

How's that arts degree going anon?

[Anonymous No.6935853]

>>6935771
Reality is an abstract concept which cannot be properly defined. Anyone who postulates on the nature of reality using language games is a fucking charlatan, it's like you have never heard of Wittgenstein.

[Anonymous No.6935901]

ITT: one rational human being vs. A bunch of naive philosophy students who haven't progressed to Wittgenstein yet, plus a few shit posters.

[Anonymous No.6935907]

>My claim is that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions
Then you're an idiot.

[Anonymous No.6935910]

>>6935901

Later or earlier Wittgenstein?

[Anonymous No.6935913]

>>6935901
obviously the rational human being is at the top of your hierarchy but where do the shitposters lie?

>>6935910
late of course. early wittgenstein is only (but very) useful as a foil for late

[Anonymous No.6935926]

>>6935758

>The rest of what you wrote is false, since anyone who actually understands Thomism can see that Aquinas' philosophy is empirical in nature, and therefore gives an accurate picture of reality.
>thomists actually believe this

Only the first few propositions about things changing can be empirically verified. The rest is just baseless religious speculation Aquinas pulled straight from his ass

[Anonymous No.6935943]

Lmao ockham slapped that fat friar up

[Anonymous No.6935950]

>>6935926
>Only the first few propositions about things changing can be empirically verified. The rest is just baseless religious speculation Aquinas pulled straight from his ass
just like science today

[Anonymous No.6935956]

>>6935950
>being this anti-intellectual

Why do people hate science? Is it because it makes their philosophy degrees more pointless as the decades roll by?

[Anonymous No.6935967]

>>6935956

I think the opposite. I think more than ever do we need rigorous philosophy to clarify certain scientific issues, e.g. issues regarding the problem of uncertainty with QM, and thus, whether or not improbability is an actual ontological property of particles or merely a quantitative limitation of our experimental tools. Questions concerning the whole scope of science in terms of a philosophy of science beckon to be asked and brought into a pluralistic interchange between scientists and philosophers. So no anon, I don't think that is the case. More than ever do we need legitimate and rigorous critical thinking in order to sort questions within science as it grows ever more into weird and queer domains.

[Anonymous No.6935996]

>>6935926

>The rest is just baseless religious speculation Aquinas pulled straight from his ass

And yet when ever an Thomist argument is given, it is never actually shown to be false through deductive reasoning. Instead the idea of an argument itself being a valid means to knowledge is rejected for "muh empiricism". Then one must ask how the fedora in question feels justified in making the argument that Thomas cannot be taken seriously because he only argues and does not do science, when they give no empirical scientific evidence for their argument against him.

So my question for you is this: Where is your empirical evidence to justify the claim that only empirical evidence can grant us knowledge ?

[Anonymous No.6936038]

>>6935956
the point is not to hate anything, the point is to take science for what it is in stopping sanctifying it

[Anonymous No.6936044]

>>6935967

Guess which part of your post made me realize you've no idea what you're talking about.

[Anonymous No.6936047]

>>6935996

>And yet when ever an Thomist argument is given, it is never actually shown to be false through deductive reasoning

>muh sustaining efficient causes
>they exist guys, I swear!


>Where is your empirical evidence to justify the claim that only empirical evidence can grant us knowledge ?

I too took epistemology 101

[Anonymous No.6936053]

>>6935651
This anon gets it too.

[Anonymous No.6936070]

>>6935996

>So my question for you is this: Where is your empirical evidence to justify the claim that only empirical evidence can grant us knowledge ?

Name the number of rockets build solely through deductive reasoning

[Anonymous No.6936075]

You point his arguments boil down to rationalizing Western violence

[Anonymous No.6936080]

>>6935586
no he isn't, he says "God is dead" - even if this is a cultural/sociological statement that "Europe has apostasized from the faith", this is still wrong insofar as it implies some kind of historical determinism where you have to be going along with the times, "oh, I can't be a Christian, because God is dead in Europe and I am a European", it's like saying, "I can't believe in God because it isn't fashionable anymore", or, "I can't believe in God because the people around me don't". It's an Hegelian/Marxist view of history that Kierkegaard complained about, a divinization of "the times".

[Anonymous No.6936089]

>>6936070

Name the number of rockets built without any deductive reasoning.

[Anonymous No.6936098]

>>6936070

That isn't empirical evidence though, that's a statement. How many rockets have been built solely through the statement "Name the number of rockets build solely through deductive reasoning"?. I asked for empirical evidence, not meaningless word games.

[Anonymous No.6936102]

>>6936098

Before someone comes in to correct me. Ok, my mistake, it is a question that implies the statement " The number of rockets built through empirical science counts as evidence that only it can give us knowledge". Still the problem remains, naive empiricism is always self refuting.

[Anonymous No.6936125]

>>6936089
Uh, all of them? You know that science and engineering aren't within the realm of airy-fairy philosophical word games right? You think Einstein was thinking about 'deductive reasoning' when he was building the first rocket?

[Anonymous No.6936137]

>>6935468
>Despite our perennial bad behavior, our moral progress seems to me unmistakable.
>everyone has a phone
>Coltan comes from Congolese mines
>Made in Chinese factory with suicide nets
>sold for 1000 times production value to benefit oligarchy of businessmen
>wars are being fought for economic interest, bombs kill more than the most gruesome battles of yonder could ever dream of
>literally nuked cities
>bankers play monopoly with the world
>people don't give a single shit so long as they have food, a roof and reality tv
Sure, we're a little ''nicer'' to each other, it's not hard to be nice when there's nothing to fight about. But this guy better come up with some justification for his claims. It seems to me we've just exported our slavery/extortion so we don't have to look at it as much. Nothing's really changed.

[Anonymous No.6936323]

>>6935519
>hume: (whispers) is.... ought....
An incompetent philosophy lecturer was teaching a class on moral properties.

"Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship the is/ought problem. You must accept that it's fundamentally impossible to get an 'ought' from an 'is' using empiricism.

At this moment a brave atheist, with a PhD in neuroscience and who had over 45 million youtube debate views stood up.

"Raping a child is wrong/bad/negative."

The arrogant professor smirked quite Scottishly and smugly replied,

"On what basis, you stupid STEM-tard? Raping a child is a descriptive statement. You are prescribing a normative value and implying it 'ought' to be a negative thing."

"Wrong. The entire debate resides inside a semantic framework with the concept of normative having no relevance. All we have are 'IS' statements based on empirical observation, and various forms of the verb 'TO BE'. There 'IS' a Child; the Child 'WAS' raped; a governing body 'HAS' decided that it's a punishable offense; you 'ARE' crying about 'oughts'; and you 'ARE' ignored while punishable offenses 'ARE' influenced by empirical observation, economic trends, social pressures and other forms of 'IS'. Your so-called normative 'ought' has been demolished because we can and do form policies and decisions inside inter-subjective semantic models, and individuals voice their own subjective 'IS' statements to collectively influence the framework."

The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and copy of A Treatise of Human Nature. He stormed out of the room crying about what he ought to do. There is no doubt that at this point our professor, David Hume, wished he had embraced New-atheism.

The previously faux-Christian contrarian students erupted into applause and declared that moral values are officially in the hands of science. An eagle named "the scientific method" flew into the room and perched atop the copy of "The Moral Landscape" and shed a tear on the hardcover. The last sentence of "the God delusion" was read several times, and the Pope declared that morality does not come from God.

The professor lost his tenure and was executed by Hume's guillotine the next day.

The brave student's name? Ham Sarris.

[Anonymous No.6936327]

>>6936323
Perfect.

[Anonymous No.6936345]

Homosexuality is a sin.

[Anonymous No.6936409]

>>6935956
tbh you're right, most philosophers are envious that they're treated as jokes, because speaking quite frankly, philosophy is the way people who have too much time and sit on their assess all day justify their actions and should not be taken seriously by anyone that isn't a fucking clown.

[Anonymous No.6936432]

>>6935548
>metaphysics
No.

It's a useless add-on. Physics makes as much (if not more) sense with it as without it. It's addition wouldn't be parsimonious.

[Anonymous No.6936436]

>>6936137
chinks slaughter and eat dogs so it's ok tbh
what goes around comes around hah, also indians worship some really, really fucked up shit
i saw a documentary where an indian boy was born with a butt in his chest and people said he was a god and even gave him some offerings
it's so fucking obvious that their misery is the result of their religious beliefs.

[Anonymous No.6936447]

>>6935758
>no reason to deny it
No reason to accept it and physics and chemistry already explain "change". The burden of proof lies with you. I don't accept this baseless premisse and thus nothing follows from this "act-potency" framework.

[Anonymous No.6936460]

>>6936447
>explain "change".
NO, they offer one decomposition of phenomenon into cause and effects

actually, there are several causal decompositions, each one being tied to one particular model.

[Anonymous No.6936505]

>>6936460
Yeah, because change is a transition from one state to another.

Different models will offer different basic principles that are used to explain why things happen the way they do, but these are abstractions that make reality intelligible.

You can understand chemistry as apllied physics, newtonian physics as physics applied to macroscopic reality, biology as chemistry applied to organic compounds, etc. These make their particular subjects more clear than physics, the study of how the universe works, can because it is so broad. But the fields must be compatible with each other.

[Anonymous No.6936591]

>>6935517
I didn't come to /lit/ to read

[Anonymous No.6936700]

Sam Harris is probably the dumbest person discussed on /lit/

[Anonymous No.6936713]

>>6935468
>Has anyone ever actually come up with solid arguments against this guy
Has this guy ever actually come up with solid arguments to back up his claims?

[Anonymous No.6936757]

>>6935480

[Anonymous No.6936762]

>>6935468
>no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim Algebra
>who is Spengler

[Anonymous No.6936763]

>>6936125
Einstein was heavily influenced by philosophers like Parmenides and Schopenhauer. Just google it.

[Anonymous No.6936773]

>>6935480
He openly admits the shortcoming of neuroscience is that it will always, at best, have correlative reasoning between the objective and subjective. While this might be a theoretical issue, it isn't a practical one. It wouldn't be the first time that we say "Good enough." when it comes to scientific reasoning.

[Anonymous No.6937513]

>>6936432
not even you can believe that bullshit, do you?
why do you think there are many scientists who deny free will, causality, etc on a physic basis?
because they are working with an unsound metaphysical background.
>>6936447
no they dont, they merely say what is change at a more complex level and that change happens. If you really look closer it's act-potency all over again (that's because it's a metaphysical theory, which is more fundamental than every scientific theory, insofar as they depend on it)

[Anonymous No.6937539]

>>6937513
>why do you think there are many scientists who deny free will, causality, etc on a physic basis?
Because free will is not well defined and/or they are plebs who can't fathom processes which are neither causal nor random?

[Anonymous No.6937576]

>>6937539
>>6937539
and they cant fathom those processes because of the mechanistic philosophical background they take for granted.
That's why when someone tells you "Science says X" they really mean "Scientists say X", and modern scientists dont know shit

[Anonymous No.6938666]

>>6935480
>>6936773
Indeed...

>>6935500
yeah I noticed that too..well i guess that's as devoted as one can seem to their own ideas in Western society..to remain mild-mannered and only make assertions, not concrete statements, is the status quo within Western philosophical communities..it almost seems like an opposition to extremism seen in other parts of the world

>>6936700
this is how i feel lol i'm reading the actually bulk of this thread and thinking "yeah, this is what I came here for, Sam Harris is a douche"

[Anonymous No.6939649]

>>6936125

Your argument seems to be

Deductive reasoning cannot grant us knowledge.
Aquinas only uses deductive reasoning
Hence Aquinas cannot give us knowledge.

The problem here is that your argument is an example of deductive reasoning. Anyone who can actually make a coherent argument uses deduction on some level or another.

Also Newton,Einstein, and Heisenberg were all very interested in Philosophy through and through. Science requires the application of both a priori mathemical proofs, empirical observation, and induction. The interplay of these elements and the epistemic principles that constrains their uses and justifies the claim to knowledge that one is granted by their conjunction is ultimately grounded on deductive reasoning.

You should actually learn a bit about the idol you worship.

[Anonymous No.6939981]

>>6939649
>>The problem here is that your argument is an example of deductive reasoning.
not him

but here it is rather that YOU chose to cast whatever he talks about into a deductive sequence of statements

perhaps it fits well, but that does not mean that his messages are indeed deductive: they are seen as deductive, once you say that you care enough about deduction to see them through deduction

perhaps whatever he says can be rephrased in a more empirical way, in stating that ''deductive logic is so far unproven empirically''


>>6939649
>The interplay of these elements and the epistemic principles that constrains their uses and justifies the claim to knowledge that one is granted by their conjunction is ultimately grounded on deductive reasoning.

science is ultimately empirical until its penultimate step , not rational.
you begin with empiricism, you break down your perceptions into causes and effects, you mathematize whatever you can and want, it leads to a plurality of models [each one having plenty of sequences of causes and effects], you obtain theoretical predictions through deduction, you go back to empiricism.

the following ''rational'' step , is actually not supported by any reason, but purely by faith:
if the predictions through deduction satisfy us, we call the models leading to these predictions as knowledge [without any motivation thus far]

[Anonymous No.6940034]

The guy that disregarded the entirety of the Western ethical tradition because he thought the word 'deontological' was boring and for no other reason?

[Anonymous No.6940041]

>>6935566
Calling Nietzsche a philosophical atheist is a great way to show that you're a pleb.

[Anonymous No.6940047]

>>6936080
try reading Nietzsche

[Anonymous No.6940211]

>>6939981

You can't prove anything empirically though. That's not how empiricism works, you collect evidence and presume something to be more likely because there is more evidence for it. Empiricism and induction can only give us probabilities.

It is also not just the linguistic form that makes it deductive, it is the thought process behind it. It does'nt matter if the thought is jumbled. He is arguing that because deductive argumentation does'nt correspond to reality and Aquinas arguments use deductive reasoning, that therefore Aquinas' arguments don't correspond to reality. That is deductive reasoning any way you slice it.

The Philosophy of nature that Science is based on certainly begans with rationality, it is the rational support that is given for empiricism. We notice that empiricism often helps us manipulate material objects, we judge the ability to manipulate material objects as a sign that we have knowledge of the objects, so we conclude that empiricism grants us knowledge of objects. It is in this step before we even begin practicing Science that Science is grounded on deductive reasoning.

>the following ''rational'' step , is actually not supported by any reason, but purely by faith:

No, it's supported by logic, which gaurentees that we can actually have knowledge and make sense of our subjective sense data and come to objective knowledge by applying logic and reason to it.

It is the idea that our sense perceptions correspond to reality at all that we must always hold on faith, if one questions the claim to truth that which cannot be coherently conceived of otherwise, let alone be experienced as being otherwise, how can someone trust something as subjective and fragile as our sense perceptions?

[Anonymous No.6940554]

>>6940211

>You can't prove anything empirically though.

That's the very definition of proof. If you disagree, you very obviously aren't educated in a hard science.

[Anonymous No.6940572]

>>6940211
>>6940554

Y'all are talking past each other. You should each give an account of what you mean when you say "proof." This should clear up most of what you're disagreeing about.

[Anonymous No.6940577]

>>6940572

I'm a third party, bud.

[Anonymous No.6940586]

>>6940577

Well, you're still missing the other's point.

[Anonymous No.6940591]

>>6935967
>solving scientific conundrums with pontification, postulation, and verbiage instead of equations

Top kek.

[Anonymous No.6940593]

>>6940586

I really don't care. I skimmed. All I care about is that single statement, which is a completely stupid thing to say.

[Anonymous No.6940618]

>>6940554

"Proof" entails the finality of the knowledge arrived at. It also requires necessarily true axioms as its starting points. You can have a mathematical or logical proof, and you can have a proof based on deductive reasoning that holds conditionally on the empirical facts reasoned from so to begin the proof. But empirical facts can only ever be contingently true because they are not true in every possible situation. Strictly speaking the "proof" part only ever comes about apart from empiricism when we are either dealing with a logical proof like If A then B, if B then C, so if A then C, or from us taking an empirical fact as if it were necessarily true and then deriving what must be the case if that empirical fact is true.

[Anonymous No.6940634]

>>6940618

I refute it thusly.

[Anonymous No.6940693]

>>6940211
>t's supported by logic,
>>6940211
>No, it's supported by logic, which gaurentees that we can actually have knowledge and make sense of our subjective sense data and come to objective knowledge by applying logic and reason to it.


show me the logical steps then. Show me the deduction which goes from
''my little model offers a few predictions via a few mechanisms through causes and effects''

to
''my model gives us knowledge about the reality''


>>6940211
>how can someone trust something as subjective and fragile as our sense perceptions?

in saying that people asking this suppose beforehand some reality/objectivity typically unreachable or only approximable

[Anonymous No.6940723]

>>6940693

>P1: My model has predictive power.
>P2: Predictive power is the judge of whether something corresponds to reality or not.
>C: Therefore my model gives us knowledge of reality.

If the premises are true so is the conclusion, anyone who wants to make an actual knowledge claim with Science have to assume this syllogism or one like it. As I mentioned, >>6940618 , a Proof that involves empiricism can only be conditionally true.


>in saying that people asking this suppose beforehand some reality/objectivity typically unreachable or only approximable

That's fair, that is the attitude of some of the founders of the mechanical Philosophy that lead to modern Science, like Robert Boyle. But the fedoras who I am debating in this thread think that empiricism qua empiricism gives us "reality" where anything else is just "meaningless word games". So there is the context of the debate to pay attention to.

[Anonymous No.6940752]

>>6940618
>from us taking an empirical fact as if it were necessarily true and then deriving what must be the case if that empirical fact is true.
which is pure faith


>>6940618
>logical proof like If A then B, if B then C, so if A then C,

yes and those are always analytical knowledge. the experimental input in those ''proofs'' is at the very beginning about the choice of the logic, choice which is most of the time motivated as ''it is intuitive to ME'' ''it makes sense to ME''

1/it is a choice to rely on deductive logic, to care at all about logic

2/ once you settle your choice on logic as tool to get knowledge [that is to say, whatever the logic gives you is knowledge = your chosen perspective will DEFINE knowledge and call whatever remains as NOT KNOWLEDGE] it remains to choose your logic amongst the many.

3/ each logic comes equipped with rules of inference/deduction

4/once you have chosen your logic, you must chose the field of study

5/once you chose your field of study, you must chose the axioms/hypothesis/experiments to begin the study

Of course, there is plurality of persons choosing such or such logic. There is not an agreement on what logic [=rules of inference] is best according to whatever purpose [as if there is an agreement on the purpose itself]. The rules of inferences are just based on ''I like them'' or others phony ''necessity'' ''it cannot be otherwise'' aka ''things that people say when they try to seek an underlying argument to motivate their stance, but fail miserably to persuade themselves, even less others''.

[Anonymous No.6940756]

>>6940752

So we are left, and we never departed from, a bunch of perspectives, a bunch of logics. And as you said, once you care about ''explaining'' the phenomenon form an initial empiricist stand, since empiricism is all that there is, you can only rely on
-induction on experiments [=faith in some atomic cause generating your bunch of seemingly identical experiments and ''explaining'' the repetition of the phenoma]
-deductive logic [once you have a chosen a logic in formal or natural language, each logical step will be more or less persuading following people, especially in natural language]
-then claim that whatever are outputs from your deductive logic, they will be relevant, especially if their are confirmed experimentally later on


the leap of faith is then
-that there is a reality [typically the atomic cause above]
-your little model gotten through deductive logic explains the phenomenon
-the phenomenon is some approximate of reality [the realists love this]
-the model describe what goes on ''in the reality''

[Anonymous No.6940770]

>>6940723
>>P2: Predictive power is the judge of whether something corresponds to reality or not.
right this is pure faith

>>6940723
>a Proof that involves empiricism can only be conditionally true.
indeed

>>6940723
>empiricism qua empiricism
what do you call empiricism ''qua empiricism'' ?

You are right that there is a context and the subject of the syllogism above is another subject.

[Anonymous No.6940792]

>>6935732
>>6935748
See, I start to think that maybe /lit/ has a serious point against Harris and then shit like this happens where /lit/ just absolutely fails on understanding a very simple statement.

[Anonymous No.6940823]

>>6940756
>>6940770
not the anon youre responding to, but the only thing youre doing is asserting "we cant kno nuffin", care about arguing for such?

[Anonymous No.6940870]

>>6940752
>>6940756

What is your definition of faith?: If it is to believe something regardless of evidence against it, or to just believe something unquestionably then it is not faith. You may lean one way epistemically, find contradictions in that way, and decide that the other way is better. This isn't "pure faith" so as long as one has reasons and justifications, what ever the characteristic of a good justification may be.

You are also hitting a subtle contradiction here. While you are suggesting the complete subjectivity and faith "basedness" of knowledge and logic(s), you are adhering to certain rules that you yourself are taking to be absolute. E.G. you claim that because logical operation must first start with a choice to care about logic, and must be followed up by several subsequent choices and subjective intuitions, that we cannot take any logic as absolute, and that faith is the grounds of our knowledge claims. But this itself counts as an absolute claim, one that we are supposed to believe based on your own voluntaristically defined counter-logic. You claim that "it cannot be that we can really know by logic, but must hold it on faith", but such a claim is itself a knowledge claim, that you really do know that no one knows, as the voluntaristic beginning and process of choice of logic(s) entails subjectivity and faith.

But it is special pleading for you to claim that we take your inference that voluntarism= subjectivity= faith, when your own inference would only be the result of your own voluntary choice for counter logic and your own faith that the inference holds.

>>6940770

>empiricism ''qua empiricism''

Empiricism only insofar as it is empiricism, without the addition of anything else.

[Anonymous No.6940996]

>>6935468
>just as there are right and wrong answers to questions of physics

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Atheists are even stupider than creationists

[Anonymous No.6941053]

>>6940996

>stupider
>er

k bud

[Anonymous No.6941075]

>>6935468
>Has anyone ever actually come up with solid arguments against this guy

Have you read your green text?

>just as there are right and wrong answers to questions of physics

Everything in physics is wrong. Physics consists of only predictive models with observations showing their level of agreement or limiting their domain of validity. Nothing is ever proved nor refuted. We can't reverse engineer the source code of the Universe.

>Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics

The Vatican observatory would like to have a word with you

>Despite our perennial bad behavior,

"original sin"

See, even atheists believe in it.

>our moral progress seems to me unmistakable.

The coming of the Kingdom of our Lord thanks to the spread of Christianity.

[Anonymous No.6941099]

>>6941075

>argument from authority.jpeg
>Everything in physics is wrong.
>there is such a thing as Christian physics
>original sin
>The coming of the Kingdom of our Lord thanks to the spread of Christianity.

Yep, it all checks out as a fatal case of christfaggotry.

I bet you also believe Aquinas *literally* proved God

[Anonymous No.6941252]

>>6941099
>>Everything in physics is wrong.

It is, stop reading popsci.

[Anonymous No.6941318]

>>6936323
You'd think this would get more replies.