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mirh t1_iralnlh wrote

"Logic" didn't take an issue with metaphysics.

Hell, you could argue the thing itself is, together with the sacred epistemology.

But when anything can mean everything (and why not, also its opposite while we are at it) then you aren't on a quest for knowledge. Poetry seems indeed quite a fitting label for the remainder.

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.139543/page/n9/mode/2up

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinary_language_philosophy

Philosophy can also be awe then (try to explain the raven's paradox with the indoor ornithology metaphor, and people will be blown away) but jesus christ.. it shouldn't be the alpha and omega, and an excuse to write bullshit (in the sense that whatever somebody understands, you don't give a damn as long as they are "impressed"). To the point that I have read the worst scoundrels wiggling away from any responsibility towards their work, by claiming that the very damn language that they were using to convey such information is just too limited to actually know the world.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the guy too far up his ass ended up being a self-absorbed closed society guy, while the one standing up for "facts" eventually ended up being one of the dearest grandpas of philosophy of science.

And btw it's quite disingenuous to affirm that Carnap and other logical positivists failed. They set the basis for Popper's theory of truth, in what could be considered the biggest example of "progress" that there probably ever was in philosophy.

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strahol t1_iraz5r1 wrote

You don’t sound biased at all. Not that I disagree with what you’re really saying, it’s just that you sound way too biased for the good of your position

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mirh t1_irb8c80 wrote

It's part of the package if you ask me.

Be as "harsh" and "bold" as possible, in order for even the slightest rough edge to be visible (and thus readily debatable).

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iiioiia t1_irbggc2 wrote

> It's part of the package if you ask me.

Whether that is necessary or optimal is another matter. But then, there's something to be said for having fun as well!

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mirh t1_irbifml wrote

"Harsh" in the way you can interpret it. You totally understand it how I meant, or it won't click at all, like a semiconductor (and nicely enough, another user below took up on the possible incomprehensions)

Not "harsh" from a point of view of respect.

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iiioiia t1_irbizyu wrote

Agree (I think?)...but I'm thinking more along the lines of something like diplomacy...but not in terms of getting people to like you, or necessarily agree with / adopt your ideas, but rather from the perspective of getting people to even consider your ideas. (But of course, this can take away from the fun/ease aspect.)

I hope this makes some sense, some ideas are difficult to communicate.

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mirh t1_irbnn6j wrote

The assumption here is that most people will be comfortable and halfway knowledgeable of themes being treated.

Of course if every man was their own independent separate island, you'd have a far more tentative and shy approach.

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iiioiia t1_irbojma wrote

> The assumption here is that most people will be comfortable and halfway knowledgeable of themes being treated.

True, but there are several other variables involved, one of which is how people respond to specific language/style that is used during conversation.

Not a big deal, just thought it was possibly interesting.

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_philophile_ t1_irb5h6e wrote

>But when anything can mean everything (and why not, also its opposite while we are at it) then you aren't on a quest for knowledge.

I don't understand your point here. Are you denying the Hegelian dialectic as a process for uncovering truth and reaching understanding? That seems to he implicit in your framing, but I grant I may well be misunderstanding.

>To the point that I have read the worst scoundrels wiggling away from any responsibility towards their work, by claiming that the very damn language that they were using to convey such information is just too limited to actually know the world.

I think understanding with langugage is possible, to a point -- the impossibility of totalizing signification and recognition -- being that point. Is there something to be gained by denying the limitation of symbolic thought (aside from grasping for symbolic authority)? Again, may be misreading.

>And btw it's quite disingenuous to affirm that Carnap and other logical positivists failed. They set the basis for Popper's theory of truth, in what could be considered the biggest example of "progress" that there probably ever was in philosophy.

Definitely understand your point here... Disagree. 'Progess' is ideological in the most unproductive sense. Historicism is for fools and capitalists. Positivism is only useful toward those same ends.

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mirh t1_irbftkh wrote

> Are you denying the Hegelian dialectic as a process for uncovering truth and reaching understanding?

I mean, even throwing everything in your basket at the wall hoping that it sticks could be "a way" for discovery, so.. I'm denying nothing in such an all-around fashion. Was it Feyerabend to say anything goes?

> the impossibility of totalizing signification and recognition

That has also a name, and thanks to actually well-defined terms I believe there is at least some rough boundary of what the limits could be or not.

> Is there something to be gained by denying the limitation of symbolic thought (aside from grasping for symbolic authority)?

I'm not denying the limits (some of which I'm sure somebody way smarter than me already demonstrated).

I'm criticizing hypocrites that just handwaves that ex post and call it a day, as if something this fundamental (and definitively unorthodox) shouldn't be in the first pages of their work, and especially as if "pointing out there's a problem" was the same of how proving it from first principles.

A failure that it's even more stark considering that a certain man a century ago spent 360 pages just to explain how 1+1=2 in the most dead cold way possible, and another nuked the provability and consistency of mathematics itself in a tenth of that.

I'll grant though that I was taking more of an issue with users of this sub here, more than specific philosophers.

> 'Progess' is ideological in the most unproductive sense.

As in "scientific progress" it does not seem particularly bad. Even though yeah, I can see how there may be a waaay better word to make my point.

> Historicism is for fools and capitalists.

Nothing to add there.

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