Do scientists have special access to certain truths that no one else has?

Perhaps everyone is an equally good philosopher, but how could that happen?

If everyone’s opinion is equal concerning philosophical issues, then the belief “everyone’s opinion is equal concerning philosophical issues” is no more justified than the belief that “some opinions concerning philosophical domains are better than others.” If one person knows something is true and someone else only thinks she knows, then their opinions are not equal. Whether or not everyone’s opinion is equal is a philosophical issue because the nature of knowledge is a philosophical issue.

If philosophers have no expert access, then ask everyone to prove complex arguments are valid who have never taken a logic class. You will find out how difficult it is to do it without the proper expertise.

It’s worth pointing out that in this post you only consistently attack the second of these three beliefs. The first belief, in particular, remains unscathed. This comes out most clearly in the section on ethics: to say that you are an *expert* on the wrongness of gratuitous torture is crazy. Nearly all non-philosophers have exactly the same access to this truth as you, just as they have exactly the same access to truths like “other people have mental activity”. There is no such thing as expert access to such truths.

Edit: Also, if we don’t really know anything about morality, then the belief that “God is all good” becomes meaningless. What would it mean to be good?

When using the POE as an objection to God, I generally use a version of the argument that points out it’s being inconsistent with God’s benevolence rather than his moral goodness. Even if there were no such thing as moral truth, there is still kindness or the lack thereof. The actions and nonactions of the Christian God are not consistent with his being of a caring nature. By framing the argument in this way, one can avoid having the discussion derailed by a diversion into metaethics.

If you don’t accept the axioms of logic, then nothing has ever been proven about anything.

I also don’t agree with many things Hume says. He rejects that we have a reason to believe induction can be reliable. If you really don’t think so, then you have to reject science. Do you really think it is rational to reject science?

There are different ways to read Hume. Under one reading he is saying “we have no reason to believe x, unless we can give a good argument for x.” A slightly stronger reading is that “we should reject x unless we can give a good argument for x” or “x is unjustified unless we can give a good argument for it.” We need to decide what exactly his “philosophical position” is. I would say the second two readings fail to be a justified, and they are probably self-defeating. If they were true, there would be all sorts of problems. For example, we wouldn’t even be justified to believe in logical axioms.

Scientists do tell us about laws. That’s part of the job. Hume does argue that we don’t know anything about causation. He doesn’t think causation is something we can observe, so he argues that we have no more reason to expect bread to be nutritious than poisonous. That sounds absurd to me. I know that bread will be food rather than poison somehow. If he can’t figure out how we can know something like that, that’s his problem.

Good article. If you know of anything that has been proved in a field considered to be philosophy…I wouldn’t believe it to be a genuine proof–based on thousands of years of failed efforts–but I’d like to hear of it!

Thank you very much for a well written and explicated post here!

SoundEagle can demonstrate in a similar way with the story of three blind persons probing the elephant: one probing the leg insists that the elephant is like a pole; the other probing the tail insists that the elephant is like a string; and the one probing the ear insists that the elephant is like a fan. Only the person who has probed the most or who is sighted can be regarded as the most informed, enlightened and correct about the elephant, which symbolises the reality or truth. And only this person is in the (best) position to judge, discern, decide, choose and understand.

Yes, it would be interesting to see how the scores correlate statistically. A journalist who cared to look into this could do that easily. And it’s not some esoteric test used for internal purposes or something; it’s a test that almost every graduate student in the country has to take and it clearly has a problem, so it would surprise me if nobody would be interested in writing about it.

These things are not necessarily true by definition. We had to discover what counts as a human, what makes something a person (capable of ethical action), and what makes something water.

I already mentioned the causal theory of reference. That view is clearly compatible with these claims about metaphysics. You can read about it here: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reference/#CauThe

Again, that boils down to logical impossibility:

A human is, by definition, a being with the capacity for rationality.
X lacks the capacity for rationality.
Therefore, X is not human.

Do you know any examples of the metaphysically impossible that is not all logically impossible?

A rather appalling example, by the way, since it defines the severely mentally disabled as nonhuman (to be clear, I’m appalled at Aristotle, not you).

This is what I said about taxes when actually applying his theory:

The government taxes all profits 10% to help poor families buy the necessities of life. Anyone who doesn’t pay their taxes can be punished. Was any right being violated? Nozick would say, “Yes,” because taxation is a violation of our property rights, just like any other form of coerced redistribution.

I had things like food and clothing in mind. Those are the necessities of life. Not the police or military. That’s another issue.

Please get your facts right before relaying them to other people.

That sounds like you’re implicitly defining water as water-H2O and anything else with exactly the properties of water as water-notH2O.

That is how most people define it now. And there are causal theories of reference as well. We’ve been talking about water and using it. We then examine it closely to see what it’s made out of at some later point. We then say, “Okay, water was H2O all along.”

Can you give another example of metaphysically impossible? I’m not really seeing the difference between it and logically impossible.

Logically impossible things are also metaphysically impossible. “P and not-P” is logically impossible and metaphysically impossible.

Other examples of metaphysical possibility are what Aristotle called “accidental characteristics.” Aristotle thought “essential” characteristics were “metaphysically necessary.” It is metaphysically possible for someone to have an arm removed, and to still be a human or person, but it is impossible for a person to lose their capacity for rationality and still be a person. Aristotle thinks rationality is a necessary part of being human/a person.

It seems to me that it resolves into a matter of logical impossibility:

water-H2O cannot be water-notH2O

Can you give another example of metaphysically impossible? I’m not really seeing the difference between it and logically impossible.

Here is the essay: http://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/analytic/Putnam1973.pdf

I don’t see why that would be metaphysically impossible. At least, I don’t think one could know it is. Consider, for example, virtual worlds. One could program what individuals in the world observe as having all the properties of what we, and they, call water and it wouldn’t be H2O.

I’ve thought about this problem often; it’s clearly prevalent in contemporary society. I believe ‘argument’ has become a dirty word for four reasons.

First, non-philosophers use ‘argument’ in a different sense. For them, arguing is what people on Jersey Shore and Fox News do–they shout at each other. And they’re not wrong to believe this. In one sense, arguing does imply borderline hostile communication with others. But more importantly, the primary function of arguing, in this sense, is not to illustrate a point through a rational deliberative process; rather, it is to communicate what seem to be very basic (loud!) emotional reactions that are not predicated on any premeditated rational line of reasoning. I don’t believe either the philosophical sense–the one we both accept–or the non-philosophical sense is more correct, so I’m reluctant to dictate that others not use argue in the non-philosophical sense. But the existence of two seemingly very different uses certainly complicated the matter.

Second, it just seems that people are very poor reasoners. Plan and simple. Few have even a working grasp of basic logical form (modus ponens, tollens, reductios, and so on). So even if we could get others to clearly understand the distinction between both senses, it wouldn’t be the case that people would reason any better. Ironically enough, there is a similar problem with ‘logic.’ People believe that being logical merely entails making sense, and surely that’s a possible consequence of logic, but it’s not how philosophers relate to the word. It’s no wonder why understanding common fallacies is absolutely imperative for philosophers–fallacies often have strong intuitive pull and ‘make sense.’

Third, people mostly seem to hate arguing with those they most disagree. This isn’t some new idea, but it is interesting. People don’t like hearing stuff that forces them to revise their tightly-held beliefs. I just read a post today on Mother Jones (I think–I posted about it on my blog) about two studies that were published this week regarding the causal relationship between an individual’s brain being physically one way, and the effect it has on her political tendencies. Conversely, the individual’s political tendencies appear to affect the individual’s brain’s physical composition. So there’s this really interesting two way causation that goes on. But the real takeaway was that some people’s lack of tolerance of different beliefs might (MIGHT) in some cases be a consequence of this. It’s not altogether exculpatory, but it certainly underscores the importance of tolerance being a virtue. Many preach tolerance, but few act on it.

Finally, people really aren’t encouraged to engage in rational debates. Period. It’s certainly true that philosophers have an increasingly job finding gainful employment as a philosopher. This indicates that people value commercial products more than the humanities. (OK, that’s perhaps overly simplistic, but it’s not altogether false either.) I spend almost everyday reading and writing. I choose to do this. But others rush off to their jobs in offices, restaurants, and construction sites, and when they get home all they just want a damn beer (me too!) and to watch The Office (me too!) in their pajamas (me too!). There isn’t enough time in the day for most people to care about this stuff. And what makes matters worse is the fact that most contentious issues are often complex. They include various layers of nuance that require careful navigation.

I realize that people use the word “debate” and “argument” in ways that can be rude, but some people think philosophers are being rude.

“We still have the philosophical vocabulary, but the meanings of the words within everyday language is being corrupted.2 Philosophers know what these words are supposed to mean, but most people associate the wrong ideas to these words. Although thinking philosophically is natural for human beings, it is now widely considered to be “offensive,” and thinking philosophically is much more difficult and strange when the philosophical vocabulary is missing.”

Corruption of Philosophical Language

You might want to see “Modern Metaethical Philosophy.” http://ethicalrealism.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/chapter-2-modern-metaethical-philosophy/

I also wrote, “A Nietzschian Argument from Disagreement.” http://ethicalrealism.wordpress.com/2010/04/12/a-nietzschean-argument-from-disagreement-an-objection-to-moral-realism/

I have written other essays about Nietzsche that are not currently online. I could write more about my understanding about his worldview as well.

I don’t know a lot about philosophy focused on life affirmation other than what you’ve already read about it.

Are there any other life affirming philosophies besides the three you’ve described?

Also have you written any more about Nietzche besides the writings you’ve listed in this piece? I would greatly like to read them.

I believe ‘Chaos Theory’ is going to answer the question whether the cosmos is eternal or not. And it has to be eternal. Just cannot be anything else, in view of the mindboggling complexity that exists.

There’s a Richard Feyman video on youtube — in which he comments on the mindboggling, multidimensional complexity that exists, even in the simplest of situations.

We are dealing with infinite, endless complexity, in every moment.

Such amazing, elaborate complexity cannot possibly be created. Nor can it start from ‘nothing’.

“The inconceivable nature…of nature” — Richard Feynman.

Inconceivable, endless, bottomless. Words that will eventually pop up, while pondering the big picture of all that exists.

Feyman video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjHJ7FmV0M4