What's the point of philosophy any more?

[The Grand Nudger]

But we aren't required to say may and the fact someone is capable of disagreeing with the correct position is irrelevant.

I say this as a person who agrees with you, completely, on whether or not we an be objectively certain of this and that... acknowledging the "may" is just being upfront about the limitations of not only our specific position..but also the means by which we arrived at it.    

Universal agreement is not a prerequestie for one particular answer being absolutely correct to agree with because it's correct. 0% of people could agree that X is X, 50% of people could agree that X is X, 100% of people could agree that X is X... it makes no difference who agrees with what, X is X.

Agreed, something I find myself reminding people constantly in discussions on objectoive moral systems..but since we agree on this and it isn't a point of dispute between us in this discussion....?

Something isn't dogma just because you say it is. Something has to actually be dogmatic for it to be dogma. There's nothing less dogmatic than starting from a sound premise.

Starting with an irrelevant conclusion is dogmatic, and saying that everything is true or all opinions are equal may be less dangerous, but it's equally absurd.

Dogma - a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.  

The irony, in you arguing against the assertion of your incontrovertible principles, is that you are argung against the dogmatic acceptence of a dictionary....and here I would actually agree with you in principle too...but here..it collapses as an argument for the incontrovertible.  Ah, but what about other dictionaries that say dogma is something else?  What about other systems of inference and implication that aren't based on our shared western framework?  What about another universe, where things are different..because, you know, things are different?

[polymath257]

Can you appreciate, at least, that the thrust of philosophy halts as soon as something is taken to be incontrovertibly true

No because that's nonsense.

Philosophy would only halt if EVERYTHING was taken to be inconvertibly true. And even that wouldn't matter if literally the correct answer to everything had somehow been discovered. That won't happen, no one is omniscient or capable of figuring out the truth or not about everything. But if someone was omniscient and did know everything, then they would be omniscient and know everything so it would be absurd to say they were dogmatic.

Someone THINKING they absolutely have the correct answer is different to someone actually absolutely having the correct answer because the alternative has really demonstrated to be impossible. There really are truths that you can be absolutely certain of, and in fact... they are *so* certain.... that in many cases the person doesn't even believe they aren't certain, they just think they don't. If you think you don't know that your consciousness exists, then you think you don't but you actually do. If you think you don't know that a square is a square, then once again... you're confused. It's not that you don't know it. You do know it you just don't know that you don't know it. If you are conscious of the reality of something, you don't magically become not conscious of it just because you think you don't. Just because you're deluded about what you experience doesn't mean that what you are experiencing is an illusion. Illusions and delusions are quite different. Thinking you don't see something when you do because you are conceptually confused is different to seeing something that isn't there because you are perceptually confused.

One problem is that there have been many times when people *thought* something to be impossible that later turned out to be possible. For example, Euclidean geometry was considered to be 'intuitively obvious' and that no alternative was possible. That is, until the consistency of non-Euclidean geometries was discovered. Also, even things like the law of excluded middle have been challenged when applied to infinite sets. And with good reasoning behind the challenge: not confusion.

So, you may know that a square is a square and a square has four sides because those are matters of definition. But the claim that a square has four right angles may be an incorrect deduction (it is false in non-Euclidean geometries). You may claim that 2 is a prime, but when you change systems to the Gaussian integers, that is no longer the case. It was long thought that a space filling curve was impossible (with 'proofs'), until examples were found. Similarly with continuous nowhere differentiable functions. I could go on and on with examples in math.

So, I disagree that it is so easy to demonstrate an impossibility. I also disagree that things like 'consciousness' are well enough defined for meaningful discussion to proceed. Some things that people have said are 'clearly true' about consciousness I simply don't find to be so obvious. This to the extent that I wonder if what I 'experience' is of a different type than what some others do. In that case, would what I 'experience' actually be consciousness? I don't know. It is definitional, and I don't quite understand the definition.

[Edwardo Piet]

And Khem, the crux of the worst part of it all... is by suggesting that absolute certainty is dogmatic regardless of reason you act as if reason doesn't matter in this case.

Which is ironically dogmatic on your part.

---

The irony, in you arguing against the assertion of your incontrovertible principles, is that you are argung against the dogmatic acceptence of a dictionary..

No dictionaries required.... in fact, people and sentient beings don't have to exist. Whatever a thing is it still is whatever it is. And English humans don't have to exist to write the words "a square object has four sides" to make square objects have four sides regardless of the existence of English humans.

Again, you don't understand my position.

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't know why you would think that.  OFC I think reason is important.  We ask questions..reason provides answers.....but it can provide more than one answer, an incorrect answer, or sometimes..flat out no answer.  

You or I casting our lot in with one answer (or one authority, even) out of many doesn't demand that we deny the existence of those other answers, authorities... or that we assert our answer is incontrovertibly true.

We think it is, because x and y and z...but hey..we could be wrong.

---

One problem is that there have been many times when people *thought* something to be impossible that later turned out to be possible. 

We've been refining our rules for some time in response to that, so that our system stops producing anomalous conclusions due to some issue of implication.  I mentioned this earlier when I was talking about future temporal events being the cause for past temporal events - but I;ll say it again.

Unless the current version of the system is the final revision and no improvement can be made..even the laws of implication are still fair game for heterodox positions.

[Edwardo Piet]

I say this as a person who agrees with you, completely, on whether or not we an be objectively certain of this and that... acknowledging the "may" is just being upfront about the limitations of not only our specific position..but also the means by which we arrived at it.  

If you are saying "may" in such a way that doesn't imply "may not" then you're not acknowedging anything. And if you are suggesting that there is a "may not" (what are these limitations that we speak of? I'm talking about X being X no matter what in any universe regardless of who does or doesn't exist to understand that truth)... then we don't agree completely.

You've done this before too, insisted that you're agreeing with me while saying things that imply that you very much don't. My position is that X is X no matter what... period. X is X means whatever a thing is it is what it is. No people or words required, we're using words to refer to a truth that is true regardless of whether words or we exist.

There are no limitations to truths that are absolutely certain. Unless we're talking about something else.

Sure there are many things that we may never know, but just because there are limits to knowledge doesn't mean there is limits to absolute logical truth. Either something is X or it is not X, whether we are able to figure out the correct answer is a different matter.

Agreed, something I find myself reminding people constantly in discussions on objectoive moral systems..but since we agree on this and it isn't a point of dispute between us in this discussion....?

It doesn't matter whether we hold the same opinion on objective morality. If you don't actually agree that X absolutely is X then you can't think that anything absolutely is wrong or right. We may have come to the same position, but how we came to that position is the difference.

Something isn't dogma just because you say it is. Something has to actually be dogmatic for it to be dogma. There's nothing less dogmatic than starting from a sound premise.

Starting with an irrelevant conclusion is dogmatic, and saying that everything is true or all opinions are equal may be less dangerous, but it's equally absurd.

Dogma - a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.  

Ah, but what about other dictionaries that say dogma is something else?

Completely irrelevant. That would just mean we were talking about something else.

---

I don't know why you would think that.  OFC I think reason is important. 

But you dogmatically hold the position that absolute certainty is dogmatic regardless of reason. I'm absolutely certain that absolute certainty itself is only dogmatic in some cases and the cases in which it is is due to a lack of reason for itself not a mere presence of itself for no reason at all.

I am aware that you think otherwise, but how you get to that position makes no sense.

[GrandizerII]

Similarly with continuous nowhere differentiable functions.

This is offtopic, I know, but I am curious about this one. Maybe, when you have the time, head to the maths thread and elaborate on that? Because I can't think think of a function like that at all.

[Edwardo Piet]

One problem is that there have been many times when people *thought* something to be impossible that later turned out to be possible.

Yes, but that's not a problem because they were wrong for a reason... and thinking that X is Y and then realizing it is X is different to thinking that X is not X when it must be.

The difference is they thought something was impossible... and they thought wrong. It doesn't matter what someone thinks when we're talking about X is X... people don't even have to exist for the opposite of that truth to be logically impossible.

I'm talking about the very basis of what even makes sense of logical possibility in the first place. Let us not be confused about the law of identity now...

For example, Euclidean geometry was considered to be 'intuitively obvious' and that no alternative was possible.

But when Euclidean geometry was considered to be intuitively obvious and that no alternative was possible, Euclidean geometry was considered to be intuitively obvious and that no alternative was possible, right? X was not X but was thought to be X... sure. But when X was thought to be X X was thought to be X and regardless of what anyone thought X was always X... right?

So, you may know that a square is a square and a square has four sides because those are matters of definition.

Well, to reach the truth we start with definitions but definitions are just a tool and by doing that we are pointing to a truth that is absolutely true regardless of definition. Or, more profoundly, we are pointing to THE truth, that ultimately everything stands on, not only regardless of our own definitions.... but regardless of even our own existence.

Sure, we use the word "square" to refer to "an object with 4 sides", but the word "square" and the words "object with 4 sides" don't have to exist for an object with 4 sides to be an object with 4 sides.... even we don't have to exist.

In fact, even if it were possible for existence itself to not exist (it isn't).... hypothetically speaking if a square did exist it still would be an object of 4 sides even in that case.

So, I disagree that it is so easy to demonstrate an impossibility. I also disagree that things like 'consciousness' are well enough defined for meaningful discussion to proceed.

Regardless of how different people define consciousness... subjective experience to a subject is an absolute certainty, and that just happens to be how many people define consciousness.

Someone may not correctly understand the nature of their own subjective experience, and there may be alternative definitions of consciousness that are easier to make sense of the nature of... but that doesn't change the fact that that's talking about something else. A subject knows they are conscious of their own subjective experience more than they know anything else (or equally to the law of identity... after all, being conscious of your own consciousness works via a similar principle... you don't have to know what X is to know that whatever X is it is X. And you don't have to know what your consciousness is to experience it)... regardless of how confused they are about the workings of it. And no arguments about something else more easily understood and testable and calling it "consciousness" can change that. Just as calling something splitable an atom doesn't change the fact that if there is indeed some infinitesimally small ultimately unsplitable building block of reality... it may not be called an atom anymore but if it does exist and is unsplitable then it does exist and is unsplitable.... and just because Lawrence Krauss has decided to call something "nothing" doesn't mean he's actually discovered nothing.

[bennyboy]

Philosophy is just the body of organized thought. How would that ever not be useful?

[The Grand Nudger]

But you dogmatically hold the position that absolute certainty is dogmatic regardless of reason. I'm absolutely certain that absolute certainty itself is only dogmatic in some cases and the cases in which it is is due to a lack of reason for itself not a mere presence of itself for no reason at all.

I hold the position that the assertion by authority of incontrovertible truth is dogmatic.  This is..supposedly, an a priori truth.  True by virtue of meaning alone.    You can take it or leave it, it's your baby.

That there is wide disagreement on the subject, including whether or not a priori truths even exist is a statement of fact.  As much as it may irritate your innate obsession with your own orthodoxy (except..when, you know..there's some a priori truth you want to argue against  )...it would be incredibly lazy of us to dismiss that body or pretend that no one had ever offered cogent criticism of the concept of a priori justifications or the insufficiency of the many classifications of a priori and a posteriori statements.

[Edwardo Piet]

I hold the position that the assertion by authority of incontrovertible truth is dogmatic.  This is..supposedly, an a priori truth.  True by virtue of meaning alone.    You can take it or leave it, it's your baby.

Asserting from authority is indeed dogmatic but arguing from reason is not, babycakes.