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Article 3582 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: MUST Philosopy be a Waste of Time?
Message-ID: <1992Feb07.041836.5138@norton.com>
Date: 7 Feb 92 04:18:36 GMT
References: <1992Feb06.002746.16389@convex.com>
Organization: Symantec / Peter Norton
Lines: 187

cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:
> In article <1992Feb05.011716.8427@norton.com> brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder) writes:
> >cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:
 
> 1) Can a philosophical question ever be decided by empirical means? 
> 2) Does philosophy ever have practical benefits?
 
> The answer to 1 seems--to me, at any rate--to be clearly "no". 

Could you explain why you think so?  If not ultimately by sensory evidence, how
can you know ANYTHING, philosophic ot otherwise?
 
> To address the second issue, Brian says:

> >What I mean is that the conclusions of philosophy can have enormously good
> >and bad effects on individuals and societies.  This can be seen by looking
> >at the effects of rational epistemology at the end of the dark ages, 
 
> Could you be confusing cause and effect here? Is it possible that
> philosophy became more "rational" to suit the rational spirit of the times? 

How can you divorce the two?  Whether the idea is held by a professional 
philosopher or a shop keeper, the idea that "Reason is valid." or "Knowledge is
impossible." or "God is the determiner of the good." or "Altruism is the moral
ideal." or "Making a profit is morally virtuous." or "Intuition is superior to
logic." or "Living a moral life is possible." is a philosophical idea.  When you
say that the "spirit of the times" is rational, irrational, vicious, etc. how 
is that different than saying that "There were lots of people in some society
or other who had this or that philosophical belief."?
 
> >the
> >moral and political philosophy which lead to the founding of the United
> >States, 
 
> Certainly, the ideas of political thinkers like John Locke found their way
> into such documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution
> of the United States. Does that mean that these ideas caused the US to
> spring into existence, or shaped its government? One could argue that the
> causal chain goes the other direction: the new political philosophies were
> caused by social, economic, and political changes in Europe during the 18th
> century. I'm not saying it's so; I'm just saying that if you're going to
> assert that political philosophy has practical implications, then more
> argument will be required than just the assertion itself.

Your premise here seems to be "Philosophy is what philosophers do." as opposed
to the idea that certain ideas are philosophical and this is true whether those
who hold them are professional philosophers or bakers.  The fact is that Jefferson,
Adams, et al. had certain philosphical beliefs and on the basis of these beliefs
they created a government.  Had they been dialectical materialists, they would
have formed a different kind of government.  Additionally, had they been 
dialectical materialists, the philosophical beliefs of the general population
would have forced them out of power and someone else would have written a constitution
roughly similar to the one we got.
 
> For example, did Marxism cause the Bolshevik revolution and shape the Red
> Russian state? Superficially, it is difficult to deny that it must be so;
> but what if there had never been a Karl Marx? The revolution was, after
> all, the product of social conditions in Czarist Russia, and not of
> Communist ideology; might the revolution have occurred anyway in much the
> same way it did, and might the resulting state have been essentially
> collectivist, as it was? I don't know. 

OK, so what if for 50 years before the czar fell the russians had been reading
Jefferson, Sumner, and Locke...would thye have ended up with Lenin?  I don't
think so.  Again, I think you are presuming that philosophy and the ideas of
the population are two different things.  

> >as well as the effects of religious epistemology after Greece 
 
> I don't know what you're talking about here. Are you saying that the pagan
> Greek religions shaped Greek culture? Maybe. Maybe the other way around.

I was referring to the post-greek turn toward christianity.
 
> I said:
> >> Do you seriously propose that a question like, "does the universe really
> >> exist" can be decided by an _experiment_? This one I'd like to see. 
 
> >It's a very simple experiment.  Are you perceiving anything?  This message?
> >A workstation?  Anything?  If so, then the universe exists.  To deny it would
> >involve a self-contradiction since you denial must exist for you to deny it.
> >I didn't say that it was a big elaborate experiment involving test tubes and
> >cyclotrons.  But it is a conclusion based on evidence and thus falls loosely
> >into the category of empirical experimental observational conclusions.
 
> Hmmm--you seem to take Descartes' proof at face value ("I doubt, therefore
> I am".) In the first place, even if the proof is valid, it only proves that
> the subject exists, and not the world. (And that was the question.) Even if
> Descartes exists, the world might still be a hallucination, and any
> experiment that "proves" its existence might be equally hallucinatory.

Where do you think that halluciantions come from?  Do you think that a consciousness
conscious of only itself is not a contradiction in terms?  I do.  Additionally,
how can you conclude that simply because one has not provided contradictory 
evidence regarding an issue that the opposite should be considered "possible"?
That puts me in the position of trying to prove a negative.  My position is that
you as a defender of the position that nothing exists (or that maybe it doesn't)
must be able to provide some evidence of that, but that the existence of any
evidence of anything presupposes the existence of something.

By the way, I am NOT a cartesian rationalist!  I don't doubt reality.  I merely
point out that even one who does (for some reason) doubt reality necessarily
contradicts himself.
 
> >> And
> >> after you do that one, please resolve "Should I care about anything" in a
> >> similar fashion.
 
> >To fully explain my position in this regard would take more space than I
> >have since it relies on previously having developed a complete theory of
> >epistemology, 
 
> I don't see why.

How can I make any claim to have arrived at any knowledge (say, on some value
issue in this case) without a theory of knowledge?  If I say "I know for sure
that I should care about my career." you may say "But I'm a subjectivist who 
doesn't believe in absolute truths." and then where are we?  I have convinced
you of nothing.  If I had not worked out an epistemological theory myself, how
could I draw any conclusions at all?  I wouldn't have previously discovered
any method of deriving knowledge  or even if knowledge is possible.  Without
a theory of epistemology I could not fully know anything myself or convince 
you either.
 
> Hmm. You seem to be saying that living beings (like us) have a certain
> nature, and that this nature requires them to seek food and shelter (and,
> presumably, less tangible things like companionship, safety, etc.). If it
> doesn't seek these things (or fails to find them), then it dies. Therefore,
> these things are good for it. 
 
> This is really quite interesting; it reminds me of Plato's ethics.
> (According to Plato, a "good" man is a man who functions well, just like a
> "good" knife is a sharp knife.) The trouble with this view is that there
> seems to be an equivocation between two senses of "good" here: moral "good"
> and functional "good". When you say that whatever keeps a person going is a
> good thing, then you are conflating the two. (You might, of course, argue
> that there is no difference.)

That is a bit of a simplification, but that is essentially my position.  Of
course Plato's method of coming to that conclusion is differnt than mine, but 
you are close enough for general discussion..
 
> >That's how you get 'ought' from
> >'is'.  If you ARE a living being then you OUGHT to take certain actions
> >necessary to maintain your life.  If you don't you will no longer be a
> >living being.  If you desire to take the opposite position then you should
> >just stop talking lay down and die.  Your presence in this or any other
> >discussion entails of necessity a desire to live (even if for no other
> >reason than to continue arguing).
 
> Ah, but there are so many philosophical questions here. _Is_ preserving
> one's life always the highest good? Is it even good? Aren't there times
> when it's good to die? If so, can life be an unqualified good? 

If you define "life" more broadly as "life as the kind of being you are", yes.
Actually, I would state it a little differently.  The good is the achievement
of rational values, and that one's life is the standard of value.
 
> >> What is "value"? What do you value? 
 
> >A value is anything that one acts to gain or keep.  This general concept
> >invludes even irrational and self-destructive things one acts to attain.
 
> >What do I value?  My own life and everything that contributes to it.  
 
> >How do you answer these questions?  Do you just shrug them off as naive?  Or 
> >unknowable?  Or subject to voting? 
 
> How would I answer? Well, if a mugger says, "If you value your life, give
> me your money", then I will hand over my wallet. So presumably, I value my
> life. But if that same thief threatened my children, I would rather die
> than let them come to harm, so I must value their lives over my own. I
> also value (in no particular order) high mountains, old wine, enduring
> friendship, and lying in bed on Saturday mornings.

Are you saying that these are just arbitrary choices?  Or is there some idea
that ties them all together?  Is there such a thing as a wrong choice in this 
kind of issue as you see it?  I certainly think so.  You seem to be pointing
to the idea that all such choices are arbitrarily justified just because in 
you choose them.

 
-- 
-- Brian K. Yoder (brian@norton.com) - Q: What do you get when you cross     --
-- Peter Norton Computing Group      -    Apple & IBM?                       --
-- Symantec Corporation              - A: IBM.                               --
--


