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A_Seagull » January 31st, 2019, 10:11 pm wrote:If what is written in philosophy is not belief or opinion, what is it?
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A_Seagull » February 1st, 2019, 2:52 pm wrote:Opinions from others that fit in with one's paradigm might be considered to be 'expert' opinions, while those that do not might be considered to be worthless or fantasies.
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edy420 » February 2nd, 2019, 4:56 am wrote:How do you define lost?
I think if you know exactly what your beliefs are, then your not lost. It’s when you don’t understand your own beliefs, that is when your are lost.
It seems your using it in another context, perhaps as a generalisation of the human species?
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A_Seagull » February 1st, 2019, 8:11 am wrote:I encountered this in another thread "It's a completely lost mind that thinks everything is a belief or an opinion."
. (thanks Charon.) Not wanting to hijack another thread I have started a new one.
If what is written in philosophy is not belief or opinion, what is it?
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hyksos » February 3rd, 2019, 5:37 pm wrote: The dream of Analytic Philosophy was that if we could identify the precise meaning of every utterance, then we would be well on our way to establishing their truth and falsity with the same precision that mathematics seems to have with theorems. In particular, we could end-around this problem about all philosophy being mere opinions and beliefs.
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A_Seagull » February 3rd, 2019, 4:41 pm wrote:
In order to make progress with the relationship between language and the phenomena of the real world, there needs to be a model for the logical processes that allow the phenomena of a 'cat' to be created.
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Serpent » February 4th, 2019, 10:18 am wrote:A_Seagull » February 3rd, 2019, 4:41 pm wrote:
In order to make progress with the relationship between language and the phenomena of the real world, there needs to be a model for the logical processes that allow the phenomena of a 'cat' to be created.
Why? The real things - phenomena, language and concepts - already exist. The relationship was drawn when creatures began communicating with one another. Two long, loud shrieks stand for "approaching snake"; a long, quieter shriek stands for "snake departing".
From time to time it's necessary to update the dictionary and clarify the more esoteric concepts, but the link between words and the physical world, and the link between vocalization and written symbol, are solid.
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A_Seagull » February 3rd, 2019, 10:31 pm wrote:Like so many aspects of philosophy, it depends upon what one wants from philosophy. If this is not an area of philosophy that interests you... that is fine.
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Serpent » February 4th, 2019, 3:55 pm wrote:A_Seagull » February 3rd, 2019, 10:31 pm wrote:Like so many aspects of philosophy, it depends upon what one wants from philosophy. If this is not an area of philosophy that interests you... that is fine.
I don't know what you want. What it is you want language to do more or differently than it already does? You can't have any branch of philosophy without a language that's precisely understood, at least by the philosopher. Language was here first: philosophy may describe its functions, possibly (at a stretch) expand its function, but can't rationalize its function without recourse to the very thing it's examining.
The message is a product of the medium.
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A_Seagull » February 4th, 2019, 2:31 am wrote:From my perspective language is for communication, nothing more. (That can include communication from oneself at one time to oneself at a later time.)
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Serpent » February 5th, 2019, 3:30 am wrote:A_Seagull » February 4th, 2019, 2:31 am wrote:From my perspective language is for communication, nothing more. (That can include communication from oneself at one time to oneself at a later time.)
Nothing more? Like what more?
Communication is the transmission of information between living entities. If you add the later-devised languages, like musical notation and mathematics, language conveys all the meaning there is.
Show me a philosophy without a language.
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If what is written in philosophy is not belief or opinion, what is it?
Perhaps it could be claimed that there is an illusion of certainty
does it follow that if one only has beliefs and opinions that one is necessarily 'lost'?
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charon » February 6th, 2019, 2:42 am wrote:Seagull -
I wish I'd seen this earlier! Never mind.If what is written in philosophy is not belief or opinion, what is it?
It depends on the writer.Perhaps it could be claimed that there is an illusion of certainty
There's definitely the illusion of certainty, like the man who thinks he's Napoleon. He's quite, quite sure of it and he'll argue with you!does it follow that if one only has beliefs and opinions that one is necessarily 'lost'?
No, because there are rational beliefs and irrational beliefs. I believe, when I go to the doctor, that he's not going to poison me. Or that the train I get on will actually take me to the right place. Those are fairly rational beliefs.
Put it the other way: what is a fact? A fact is something real, actual, like this forum, the sun or moon, etc. They exist, they're real.
But an opinion about a fact is not a fact. I can believe the moon is made of cheese. There's no evidence for it, I just happen to believe it. I'm afraid a lot of religious beliefs come into that category.
The point is to distinguish between the two. Whether one is 'lost' or not depends on the importance and value one gives one's beliefs. Beliefs are not fact or reality, they're something the mind has constructed. The actual fact isn't affected one way or the other by any belief. The moon remains exactly what it is whatever I happen to believe about it.
So belief is non-reality. When reality is left behind and beliefs take over then one becomes lost. That's a good definition of insanity, the mind which has escaped from reality into a world of non-realities, with all the trauma that creates.
Philosophically, it's the same. We can think realistically and logically about issues of life. Nothing wrong with that (we're doing that now) but when non-realities take over then we've gone awry.
It's a question of distinguishing intelligently between the two. Does that answer it?
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Not entirely.
How can you distinguish 'intelligently' from 'non-intelligently'?
The difficulty arises as our Napoleonic friend might well consider that he (I think we can assume it would be a 'he') has intelligently and rationally come to the conclusion that he is indeed Napoleon.
What is required to break the impasse and distinguish between the real and the fantasy is a method or process by which what is considered to be 'real' can be inferred.
It is unlikely that such a process would arrive at a definitive separation between fantasy and reality but is more likely to arrive at a statistical likelihood of one and not the other.
Then one might label those things that have a strong likelihood of being real as 'truths' For example one might consider that the world around us is 'real' and not some virtual reality, and label this as 'true. This would provide stability to ones beliefs and avoid the distress of feeling lost.
This would provide stability to ones beliefs and avoid the distress of feeling lost.
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normative presumptions including that of believing that the external world is real
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charon » February 9th, 2019, 12:26 am wrote:Seagull -normative presumptions including that of believing that the external world is real
Where will you start? How will you distinguish between the real and the unreal?
I'd take something which we absolutely know is unreal, like a nightmare. We wake up sweating and begin to realise it was just a dream. While we were in the dream it was horrific but what we were dreaming about wasn't actually happening.
The moment we realise it was a dream and not real we're in touch with reality. Would you agree to that? The moment the realisation hits us that it was a dream and not real, that is reality.
You're saying we have to question things, especially things we tend to take for granted. Absolutely, but where will you start? With the external world or with oneself? We could start with this forum. You're reading this, it's on the screen in front of you.
You could start by wondering if any of this is real, if the person who wrote this is real, if you are real, if anything is real... does that go anywhere? Say you decide none of it is real. Is that real?
You see the point? Is any decision about reality real? Where does it end?
What I'm saying is that doubt and questioning is good but it must be sane, not insane. The insane can imagine anything, any crazy delusion their minds have cooked up, but it's all nonsense. The sane will see that, the insane won't.
So there IS such a thing as reality but only in the absence of delusion. But how does one discover one has delusions?
What do you say?
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charon » February 9th, 2019, 3:46 pm wrote:No, that's just an idea. Ideas aren't the answer.
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A_Seagull » February 9th, 2019, 12:20 am wrote:charon » February 9th, 2019, 3:46 pm wrote:No, that's just an idea. Ideas aren't the answer.
Perhaps not, but as suggested in the OP: in philosophy, ideas are everything.
An atom is an idea, even reality is an idea. Without those ideas no one would have any idea (or knowledge) that they existed.
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Isn't there a reality which exists independently of our ideas about it?
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