From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!chalmers Tue Feb 11 15:24:53 EST 1992
Article 3519 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca comp.ai.philosophy:3519 sci.philosophy.tech:2062
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!chalmers
>From: chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: MUST Philosopy be a Waste of Time?
Message-ID: <1992Feb6.031729.14889@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Date: 6 Feb 92 03:17:29 GMT
References: <1992Feb04.060419.21963@convex.com> <1992Feb05.011716.8427@norton.com> <1992Feb06.002746.16389@convex.com>
Organization: Indiana University
Lines: 26

In article <1992Feb06.002746.16389@convex.com> cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:

>1) Can a philosophical question ever be decided by empirical means? 
>
>The answer to 1 seems--to me, at any rate--to be clearly "no".

You've said this twice now, but it's clearly wrong.  For instance, the
falsity of interactionist dualism is commonly held to have been
demonstrated (or at least shown to be unlikely) by the empirical
investigation of physicists and others, showing that there don't
seem to be significant gaps in physical causation.  Now, maybe
you'll insist that this just shows that the truth of interactionist
dualism can't be a philosophical question, as it's a contingent matter,
but here you would be disagreeing with a majority of philosophers,
and would therefore be wrong by your own standards.

Furthermore, even if one held (falsely) that philosophy only
investigates necessary, a priori, conceptual or analytic matters, the
conclusion still doesn't follow, as matters in all these classes can
be decided by empirical means -- e.g. the four-colour theorem was
decided by observing the behaviour of a computer.

-- 
Dave Chalmers                            (dave@cogsci.indiana.edu)      
Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University.
"It is not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."


