JS Mill, free speech, and creationism/global warming

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by nostromo


Good summary

Its from Wiki

I take credit only for the bolding.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Arrian
I liked Atlas Shrugged. In my defense, I was 16...

-Arrian

Me too. I much preferred The Fountainhead, though.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


The last tme I made the mistake of trying to read philosophy I was likely to find silly I ended up throwing Atlas Shrugged halfway across the room and cursing the ***** Ayn Rand...

Philosophy is a long and difficult process, and that's probably the reason it is so grossly misunderstood by the novice. It sure didn't help that you were reading Ayn Rand...

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Id be the last to suggest that you NOT look at more recent work in the phil of science. But from what I can gather, most such work is still largely either a reaction to Kuhn, or a development of Kuhn. AFAICT It would be far easier to make sense of contemporary debates on phil of science if you read him. And of course you could compare your own experience to what he says. Thats good empiricism. That would be particularly valuable Im sure.

I dunno, youre starting to sound like a fundie whos afraid to read Darwin.

Cmon. Ive read Nietsche. Be a man, you can read Kuhn, and your faith will be the stronger for it

An intro phil of science read-through would go: Popper -> Kuhn -> Feyerabend -> Lakatos. The trick is not to be seduced by Popper's beautiful simplicity before reading further.

[KrazyHorse]

You're so good at filosofy you managed to miss the following:

The last tme I made the mistake of trying to read philosophy I was likely to find silly

But thanks for playing.



Oh, and from what philosophy I've read (ancient as well as enlightenment...not too much modern philosophy), it's not particularly difficult. Generally it's just deliberately obtuse. Once you figure out how somebody's managed to twist definitions to meet his preconceived notions it's a breeze.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Arrian
I liked Atlas Shrugged. In my defense, I was 16...

I was just slightly older than that when I burned it.

--Not all copies; that would be surpression of thought. Just mine. For revenge! I hate that book!

[Arrian]

You paid for it? @ you.

I got mine from the school library.

-Arrian

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Arrian
You paid for it? @ you.

I got mine from the school library.

-Arrian

Thank you. That makes me feel soooo much better.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

Oh, and from what philosophy I've read (ancient as well as enlightenment...not too much modern philosophy), it's not particularly difficult. Generally it's just deliberately obtuse. Once you figure out how somebody's managed to twist definitions to meet his preconceived notions it's a breeze.

And this is where you fail... the value of philosophy is not truthfunctional. This is the hardest part to get.

[Arrian]

"Not truthfunctional"

-Arrian

[KrazyHorse]

And this is why we should remove any public funding currently going toward filosofy.

[Last Conformist]

Neologism has always been a favourite passtime of philosophers ....

[Kuciwalker]

WTF is truthfunctional?

[KrazyHorse]

Never ask a philosopher to define his terms. Once he does, his arguments are all obvious tautologies.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Never ask a philosopher to define his terms. Once he does, his arguments are all obvious tautologies.

Yup, and actually proving that and exploring the consequences is largely what philisophy was doing from Kant to Wittgenstein, who stated the above particularly strongly. Elaborating Wittgenstein, applying to problems from ethics to the notion of the self, was what anglo-saxon analytic philosophy then started to do.

However it was found that eliminating all philosophical logical questions as tautologies, didnt answer the questions humans come to philosophy to answer, and that it WAS in fact possible to address them, though not with "proofs" That is, IIUC, what Wittgenstein himself tried to do in his later works, and what existential philosophers have done.

And that, I think, is what was meant by phil not being "truth-functional"

There, phil grad student types, how was that?
Not bad for a rank amateur al regel echat("while standing on one foot"- IE an spontaneous fast summary)?