Most/Least Favorite Philosopher and Why?

[Berzerker]

Yes, but if the alternative is to starve then you aren't really free to disagree.

Freedom to starve is not a freedom worth fighting for or defending. The world does not naturally belong to anyone, property rights are a cultural fiction which we are free to change.

How about the freedom to start your own business instead? Oh, we wouldn't have that freedom under communism because some bureaucrat has decided what we will do. And what happens under communism if you refuse to work at the job assigned to you? Off to the gulag? Execution to educate others about the greater good? Starvation? Oh, welfare? That system has worked wonders on out-of-wedlock birthrates, the greatest factor wrt poverty.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
I reiterate, more deeply, my apologies.

As an extremely poor excuse, I would like to mention that I was induced to participate by your sentence

which I wrongly understood as referring to the reality, when it was obviously a deep philosophical assumption, probably located in the cart (or am I wrong again?)

He's got a point Agathon. You're calling the kettle black.

and Davout, so sauve...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
I reiterate, more deeply, my apologies.

As an extremely poor excuse, I would like to mention that I was induced to participate by your sentence

which I wrongly understood as referring to the reality, when it was obviously a deep philosophical assumption, probably located in the cart (or am I wrong again?)

Whatever... It's obvious you are trying to back out now you've realized you made a mistake. Nice try.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle


He's got a point Agathon. You're calling the kettle black.

and Davout, so sauve...

Nope. It's just a plain fact that these are different issues. If you want to argue that ends and means really are the same thing, then go for it.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Berzerker


How about the freedom to start your own business instead? Oh, we wouldn't have that freedom under communism because some bureaucrat has decided what we will do. And what happens under communism if you refuse to work at the job assigned to you? Off to the gulag? Execution to educate others about the greater good? Starvation? Oh, welfare? That system has worked wonders on out-of-wedlock birthrates, the greatest factor wrt poverty.

You don't have the freedom to exploit others. Other than that do what you like.

[Harry Tuttle]

8) Logical statements are only based on my sense of logic. Your so-called definitions and scientific fact are only an interpretation of your general world outlook of what is reality.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
8) Logical statements are only based on my sense of logic. Your so-called definitions and scientific fact are only an interpretation of your general world outlook of what is reality.

Then why are you bothering to post? It's clear that if your statments refer to some private reality, then no one else can really understand what you are talking about, since they don't have access to your private world and won't be able to know what your statements refer to. And the same goes with regard to yourself and other people's statements.

And the right dare to accuse the left of being relativists.

If you aren't a relativist then it's clear that people who live solely off things like investments and rents do not work (unless they choose to work for free). What's so weird or controversial about that claim?

edit: weren't you the guy who was accusing communists of denying basic logic a couple of pages back (Rand's A is A stuff). I mean, she is wrong about the foundations and implications of logic but that doesn't mean that people who disagree with her can't make simple identity statements.

[Agathon]

Note: people disagree with Rand over whether the truth of tautologies is due to something about the world. Most contemporary philosophers do not believe that logical statements are about the world because tautologies are true a priori. Most philosophers believe that tautologies are true independently of the way the world is and that logic does not describe the world at all. This conception of logic is basic to Russell and the early Wittgenstein, the two premier thinkers on the status of logic in the last 150 years.

Thus they wouldn't take the A is A thing as justifying Rand's Objectivist claim.

But they would agree with her that tautologies are necessarily true and that logical rules are the same for everyone.

[Agathon]

Here's why logical truths are not about the world.

let p and q stand for any proposition about the world you like. p and q are true or false depending on whether they match up with a state of affairs or don't - that's dependent on the world.

Now take the complex proposition "If p then q". The same goes for this one. But because it is complex, it's truth is dependent on the truth of both p and q and a set of rules that define material implication ("If.. then..." statements).

That rule is "If p then q" is true under all conditions except when p is true and q is false. Similar truth functions exist for "and" and "or" (and we can define these operations in terms of each other).

But take the valid inference (1) "If p then q"; (2) "p"; (C) therefore "q". The relation between the premises and the conclusion is also one of material implication (since if the premises are true, the conclusion must be).

This can be proved by formulating the conditional If ((If p then q) and p) then q

Following the rule for material implication it turns out that whatever values you assign to p and q the conditional always turns out true. So the truth of the conditional is indenpdent of whatever way the world is (since p and q and be both true or both false or one or the other and the conditional will still turn out true).

I believe that's why people think Rand is wrong.

[Harry Tuttle]

Yes, I'm sure metaphorical algebra factors greatly into their decision making.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Harry Tuttle
Yes, I'm sure metaphorical algebra factors greatly into their decision making.

And into yours.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Agathon


And into yours.

Quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, acts like a duck. That's about the extent of the mathematical implications brought on by the statement A is A.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Agathon


Whatever... It's obvious you are trying to back out now you've realized you made a mistake. Nice try.

Any reasonnable person would stop discussing with a Master using the authority argument : I am right because I am the Master.

Please consider the following as not intended to you.

If we accept the idea that all workers under a salary contract are exploited, and as exploitation is immoral, the salary contract is immoral, we expect the moralist to suggest another form of work which would be moral. The most serious attempt ever made to suppress exploitation (without suppressing freedom) is the workers associations (coop and mutuals) in which there were no non working shareholders or lazy incompetent capitalist of any kind.

This organization of work has proved to be viable for about one hundred hears or so, within serious limitations, and without never decisively proving that workers were less exploited in coop than in ordinary business. The recent quasi total collapse of that form of economy, not caused by an aggression of the capitalist world and despite a sympathetic attitude of the public opinion, raised the following moral question:
- if the workers under all systems are equally treated, there is no exploitation specific to the salary contract under capitalism;
- is the alienation resulting from the biological obligation to make a living the real content of a fictitious moral issue?

[Agathon]

Originally posted by DAVOUT

we expect the moralist to suggest another form of work which would be moral.

No we don't and you've made the same mistake again.

The moralist could suggest co operatives as the only truly non-exploitative form of production and the moral point would still hold. This is one goal to aim for.

Let's say for the sake of argument that co-operatives face some practical problems which involve frustration of other moral goals (say the avoidance of poverty). Lets say, again for the sake of argument, that people are just too innately selfish to make it work.

So we do the best we can to minimize egregious exploitation. That is just compromising one of our moral goals to further others. It does not involve the invalidation of the original claim. Moreover it does not logically require anyone to say that the original claim was false - exploitation may still be a bad thing, even if we can't avoid it.

All this means is that we have problems living up to all our ideals. But it has never been a good argument for murder that people can't help doing it.

The recent quasi total collapse of that form of economy, not caused by an aggression of the capitalist world and despite a sympathetic attitude of the public opinion, raised the following moral question

Have you declared war against the English language or something?

[DAVOUT]

It is the privilege of real idiots to do the same mistake again and again: thanks for reminding me my inalienable rights.

I ask you not to consider my fautive English as a lack of respect toward the language; it is just another evidence that non mastering the academic discourse precludes any possible discussion.

BTW, I would consider a favor that you tell me the correct expression for *quasi total collapse*.