This post really has very little to do (directly) with atheism. I only put it here because you're more likely to see it here. Also, this post is going to be largely critical, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea. So let me preface this post by saying that I think you're one of the brighter posters on hipforums. Let's get to the point. You've been professing in your recent posts to be a logical positivist. Now, logical positivism was, in its own way, excellent and cleared up a lot of the metaphysical bullshit that idealism caused. But the trouble is, you're about 50 years too late. As far as I know, you are the last logical positivist on earth, an endanged species. And surely you realise this? Now, it is often said that philosophical movements are never disproven but only fade away, and this might be the case with logical positivism. But I don't think so. Most philosophy textbooks locate the problem in the unverifiability of the verifiability principle, which is certainly a big problem. I'd be interested to hear how you resolve this problem. But I don't think that it's the main problem. The main problem has to do with interpretation. In the philosophy of science, it is called the underdetermination problem; in philosophy of langauge, the indeterminacy of translation problem. The problem is due to Wittgenstein but has also been developed and clarified by Quine, Davidson, and Putnam. The problem is this, "On any given model, there will always be more than one possible interpretation that accounts for the phenomena and is inconsistent with all other interpretations, and there is no way to discerning which interpretation is the right one." But that doesn't mean much. Try thinking about the problem scientifically. Scientists conduct empirical experiments, in search of the necessary connections between events (i.e. causes). That is, of course, a little simplistic but go with me here. On the positivist view, the scientists only have the phenomena to work with. To go beyond the phenomena would be doing metaphysics, not science. But the underdetermination problem clearly shows that for any observation state, there are often, if not always, two or more mutually inconsistent accounts of the phenomena. If the phenomena is all we have to on, there is no way to determine which theory is true. Now we can think of the problem in terms of philosophy of language. If the logical positivists are right, then there is an entirely natural, entirely descriptive way of carving up the world into kinds (i.e. sets). But descriptive empiricism obviously can't do the job. To use Quine's heuristic, imagine that you are a field linguist, who has just been air-dropped into a linguistic community entirely foreign to any we have even seen. It is your job to compile a English-to-tribalese dictionary. So, you start observing the practices of the natives. You see one of the tribesmen point to a rabbit and say "Gallunk." You conclude that "Gallunk" must mean something like "Lo, a rabbit," althought you should certainly make more observation claims to confirm this. After all, "Gallunk" could mean something else, and you just misinterpreted what the native said. He could have been refering to the tree behind the rabbit, for example, or perhaps "Gallunk" is the name of that particular rabbit. But the more you observe and hear "Gallunk," the more you learn about the meaning of "Gallunk." But you can only get so far by observation. How are you to tell that "Gallunk" means "rabbit" instead of "undetatched rabbit parts" or "spatio-temporal manifestation of rabbit-hood?" Some possibilites are obviously more likely than others, but that's not the point. The point is that the phenomena cannot determine the correct interpretation. Looking forward to a constructive reply because I've been dealing with this for a while now.
"Logical positivism ... is a philosophy that combines positivism—which states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge—with a version of apriorism—the notion that some propositional knowledge can be had without, or “prior to”, experience." - Wikipedia.org In other words, logical positivsts believe that only scientific knowledge (that is -- knowledge that can be verfied and/or reproduced and tested) and knowledge that is drived from logic (conceptual propositions, such as "! (A && !A)" or in English, "something can't be this and the opposite of this at the same time"). i.e. only science and logic are the basis of true knowledge. And you want me to say I'm the last logical positivist on the planet? That's preposterous. I'm part of a GROWING number of people -- as Christianity and other religions lose their grasp of the populace -- that believe that such is true. Perhaps people who IDENTIFY themselves as logical positivists are dying out -- but logical positivists are actually quite abundant -- I know many who are in my every day life. In fact, I know more logical positivists than I know of any other religion, philospophy, or system of epistemology. "The verifiability theory was based upon the verifiability principle, which states " The statement is literally meaningful (it expresses a proposition) if and only if it is either analytic or empirically verifiable." However, the verifiability principle is not empirically verifiable, though there is speculation that there is an analytic proof possible. Considerable misunderstanding exists as to the thought that the principle invalidates itself since some formulations of the theory do not mention analytic verifiability." - Wikipedia.org At first glance, it would seem you are right. The verifiability principal itself cannot be verified empirically. That's where the second part of logical positivism comes in -- the conceptual part. Concepts cannot be "verified" or "tested" empirically -- they're concepts. Follow with me here -- a statement is only meaningful if it can be verified either empirically or analytically. Emprically is out, because we're talking about a concept (the verifiability principle). Analytically, can this statement be verified? You run into a paradox. You have a statement that needs verification. However, its verification depends on the verifiability of itself. Similarly, this statement cannot be UNverified either, because of the paradoxical nature of its verification. It's the same kind of construct as "The following statement is true. The previous statement is false." You will just keep running in circles. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that this statement doesn't fall into the category of "verifiable" or "unverifiable." It's kind of like an asymptote -- its verifiability is undefined. That being said, you can accept it as a postulate -- that is, accept that it's true, and if it's ever proven false, discard it -- or you can discard it and keep on living life. Again, that's why this is called the verifiability theory. It can't be proven or disproven. But it can be accepted as true until it's disproven. Which hasn't yet occurred. This is similar to Calculus. There are an infinite number of integrations of any given equation. The correct "integration" can't be determined because there is a loss of information. Therefore, the "indeterminacy" of that is represented by an undefined constant, C, which is then added to the result. And you're right -- it doesn't mean much. All it means is, we can't always be certain of the truth of certain solutions to a problem where information is lost. Certainly this applies to problems such as "how was the universe created," because there is lost information. Yes. Where there is information that is unknown, scientists do experiments to uncover not just the unknown information, but also information relating to the nature of that lost information. Which begs the question -- is there any information that is inherently unrestorable? Is there some lost information that cannot be found again? This is only true when there is information that cannot be gained. This is a conceptual problem. Take for example, gravity. The lost information is the origin of gravity. You could say, "Objects fall to the Earth because God wills it." Or you could say "Objects fall to the Earth because the Earth distorts space time." Or you could say, "Objects fall to the Earth because something in the sky pushes everything down." Does science prove any of these? Hell no, no way! Science says "gravity exists." Science also says "there is a relationship that can be empirically established between gravity, space-time, and mass." Science doesn't PROVE things -- proofs are logical, not scientific. Science only deals with possible relationships -- it offers evidence that a certain relationship is more plausible than the rest. Sure, for any given model, there could be several explainations, none of which can be disproved. But for almost all models, one explaination makes more sense than the rest. These explainations become theories. And they are usually accepted as true until they are disproven. That's because it's incomplete. Once again, the folly lies in humankind's ignorance -- not that we're all idiots, but that we dont' know everything. There is SO much information that we do not (currently at least) have the ability to recover. The best we can do, empirically, is establish basic relationships, test, and verify them. Theories, not proofs. Logically, one can prove, by the definition of a set, that sets can only contain one of any value or object. Sets are a concept and must be dealt with analytically. An actual specific set of specific objects is a little different. Yep. I think after reading this, your argument boils down to this: You seem to be proposing that we cannot conclude that any knowledge based on science is 100% true (though analysis may be a different story). And you're correct, to a point. We can't say "this is the correct occurrance of this model" and "this one is absolutely wrong." The best we can say is, "this is an EXTREMELY high chance of this model being correct," and "there is virtually NO chance of this one being correct." However, the knowledge we gain from science is ONLY the knowledge of empirical relationships. How to explain this best ... You have A and you have B. You observe and verify that, say, A only happens in situations where B doesn't happen, and vice versa. The knowledge you are gaining is ONLY the above. From that knowledge, you can conclude a PROBABILITY that A and B can't exist at the same time. But analysis that is based off of empirical evidence can ONLY ever be a probability, because of the nature of empiricism. Analysis based entirely off of concepts works, because it doesn't have the uncertainty of empirical verification. Does this address everything you wanted addressed?
i dont want to get into this discussion but all i can say is that i think the oply problem hikaru has is giving himself a label, because this seems to be what 'Common Sense' is opposing, and has not given actual examples of hikaru's philosophy but instead his own interpretation of what a 'logical positivist' is, and i think hes got it wrong anyway. personally, i dont identify myself as a logical positivist but i do believe that the only 'knowlege' is that which can be scientifically verified, or logically determined, but at te same time i only see this as the most effective way of living because science gets things wrong all the time and logic can prove anything. to say logical positivism is redundant because the peak rates of people identifying themselves in such a way as dropped since 50 years ago is also suggesting that belief should be based on things other than what is real in this world (common sense was thus suggesting that belief should at least in part be based on its global popularity... which is a horrible concept, though of course a common trend) while i wont adress the arguement against the specific philosophy of logical positivists, your example used to oppose such a philosophy is something i can relate against. the way i see it, is incorrect because the logic that has been used to prove such a thing is assuming that a tribesman says the name of the general term of the animal that is closest in direct line of sight relative to his stretched arm and finger. i would not make this and i strongly doubt that hikaru would either. at that rate i doubt any intelligent person would. this is actually more like the logic that religions use. its basic, one directional, overassuming, and i would go so far as to say ignorant. there is absolutely NO ''something like'' in science, and there also is no way of perfectly translating words from different languages unless one language was developed directly from the other. there is not even a way of perfectly interpreting the meaning of someone else's use of your own language, because each person endows each word they use with a different meaning (even though it may be too subtle to detect on an every day basis in many cases). so no logical positivist, as far as i can tell from hikaru's explinations of his line of belief, would attempt to accurately translate a totally foreign language into their own. no 'logical positivist' would make such a conclusion because there has been no scientific verification, nor has there been an infallible logic used. indeed he could be pointing to the tree behind the rabbit and this is something that would have been taken into account by any serious translator. hope i didnt butt in on something personal!
lol ... well, the way it was explained to me, a logical positivist pretty literally regards talk about specific Gods and such as nonsensical hogwash unless there is something objective or analytical suggesting it to be true. That's the general gist of logical positivism. If you can back up your claim either physically or mentally, it's worth looking at. If not, the hell with it, who cares? That's logical positivism in a nutshell.
'In other words, logical positivsts believe that only scientific knowledge (that is -- knowledge that can be verfied and/or reproduced and tested) and knowledge that is drived from logic (conceptual propositions, such as "! (A && !A)" or in English, "something can't be this and the opposite of this at the same time"). i.e. only science and logic are the basis of true knowledge. I'm part of a GROWING number of people -- as Christianity and other religions lose their grasp of the populace -- that believe that such is true. In fact, I know more logical positivists than I know of any other religion, philospophy, or system of epistemology.' Hikaru Zero I agree, these things are my experience also. That said, I no longer see this as a necessarily positive thing. Science and logic were both of primary importance to Hitler in his plans for the future, at the expense of 'love', for want of a better word. I like what Paul Hewson, aka Bono Vox says in the song Vertigo. 'A feeling is so much stronger than a thought.' My feeling is that as long as ones sense of compassion, respect, wonder, and perspective, (personal humility), remain at the highest level, the pursuit of knowledge is an excellent path. I spent most of my life gaining knowledge, to, ironically, come to the conclusion that, to me, knowledge is not really what I value. So, now, I have a surplus of it, that I see minimal practical value in. The Vedas predicted thousands of years ago that we would see an abundance of agnostics in these days, and the lack of spirituality was seen as a symptom of the time when humanity is nearing the end of an age, and a low point in mankinds cycle of existence. I saw two films today, both appropriate to the topic. Forrest Gump. Good Will Hunting. Even third or fourth time through, they touch me.
i thought the 'positive' part was meaning like 'im positive this is true' and not 'im looking at the world in a positive light'
Religion isn't the only path that can be twisted by a madman. Science and logic, philosophies, and words, can all be twisted by a fascist dictator (I hope you didn't think he was socialist!) in order to drag the populace into a world war. Nothing is safe from fascism!! ... and as for the rest of your post, I agree. And Good Will Hunting is definitely a good movie. =) "Do you like apples?" "Yeah, why?" *slam* "Yeah well I got her number. How do you like them apples?" Actually ... I couldn't tell you the correct meaning behind the name "logical positivist," but I would imagine that "logical" refers to the analytical side of reason, and "positivist" refers to being positive (or highly correct) about the empirical evidence. And so, people who are logical, and people who use science to show empirical relationships (positive in the sense that I might say, "I am positive that this is the correct relationship."). Since a scientific claim has no value if it can be disproven.
why do you label yourself as something if you dont have a correct meaning behind your label? just for convenience sake? just for the sake of establishing your difference in belief with other people by using a rarely used title?
You're confusing "correct meaning" with "correct etymology / history". I know what a logical positivist is -- that's how I can identify myself as one. But just because I don't know WHY it's called that, doesn't mean that I can't still be that. Besides, what's easier to say? "I'm a logical positivist." or "I believe that only verifiable, testable scientific empirical evidence, and logical analytical reasoning, are acceptable forms of knowledge on which we can base our opinions and arguments. You might say convenience is a part of it. But it also helps to call myself a logical positivist to avoid unnecessary arguments. A lot of times, I'll get into arguments with people when I talk about my beliefs -- if I state my beliefs clearly like in the second statement above, people generally have a problem with it -- often I'll get into arguments over religion and faith, and usually with people who don't know what they're talking about. However, by adopting the label "logical positivist" (since I AM a logical positivist after all -- my ideas coincide with it pretty well), that scares people who don't know what they're talking about away. Look at this thread for example. The only person who's going to ACTUALLY provide a good argument and good questions, is a person who knows what a logical positivist is. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I could answer all of the questions posed in this thread at first glance, and I thought, "well this is going to be interesting." And it was. All of these things, and more, are a part of why I call myself a logical positivist.
That depends what you mean by "scientific knowledge." The logical positivists had a particularily hard time dealing with propositions about scientific unobservables, like atoms. "The chair is brown," is easily verifiable. You could even state the phenomenal truth-conditions for "There is a brown a brown chair on the other side of the universe." But atoms have no empirical properties because atoms are unobservable. A quick-fix solution is to claim that propositions about atoms can be verified by describing their phenomenal effects. So, "H2O" really means "A certain x that boils at 100C, freezes at 0C, is an odourless, colourless liquid, etc." This way, metaphysics is avoided. But this can't do the trick. A singal molecule of H2O does not boil at 100C, unless by "boil" we mean "is excited," which is obviously not the case. When we say "water," we do not exactly mean "H2O." The entities posited by science cannot merely be defined in terms of their phenomenal properties. An equally good, but not the least bit empirical, way to define an unobservable would be to define "hydrogen" as "The atom with atomic number 1." It does the job just as well in that it picks out one sort of thing uniquely. If we define objects in terms of their properties, then what are we supposed to be refering to when we talk about those objects. I'll say it again then. You really are one of the last logical positivists on earth. Don't even try to equate logical positivism with atheism because, frankly, most atheists have no idea what the hell logical positivism is. Neither do most people, for that matter. So, to be a logical positivist "in spirit," or whatever you are trying to imply, is not to be a logical positivist. No. Also, there is no paradox. An analytic truth is true by definition. The logical positivist criteria of meaning is obviously not analytically true or else it would be a tautology and self-evidently true. "All bachelors are unmarried" is analytic; "All meaningful propositions are either such-and-such or so-and-so" is clearly not. The only reason you've run into a "paradox," which it is not, is because you are trying desperately to make the definition conform to the facts, instead of the other way around. Also, I don't think that conceptual analysis came around until Wittgenstein's late work, after the Carnap craze was mostly over. The liar's paradox is a paradox of self-reference. If the verifiability principle is also a self-referential paradox, prove it. First, I think that's ad hoc. Second, when non-Euclidean geometry was discovered, most thought it was only a interesting, little fact that had no real bearing on the world. So, they started calling those "postualtes" that which Euclid thought to be "axioms." Now, in light of general relativity, we know better. Many reacted similarly to the incompleteness theorem of arithmetic. It hasn't been "disproven" because it's nothing but a little piece of metaphysics, which is what the logical positivists were so adverse to. Philosophical positions are never disproven, they just fade away when the project hits a wall. That's exactly what happened to the logical positivists. I'm going to skip over a big part of your post here because I don't fully understand it. I need to know more about what you mean by "information" and "conceptual analysis." Sounds neo-Kantian. It is certainly the case that all knowledge is corrigible, if that's what you mean. If you mean that science does not discover necessary relations between things, then I'd like to disagree. But I'm not sure how to respond right now. When positivism won't work, fall back on falsificationism. Another popular move. But Popper has his own set of problems to deal with, which we can talk about later. That's because it's incomplete. Once again, the folly lies in humankind's ignorance -- not that we're all idiots, but that we dont' know everything. There is SO much information that we do not (currently at least) have the ability to recover. The best we can do, empirically, is establish basic relationships, test, and verify them. Theories, not proofs. Logically, one can prove, by the definition of a set, that sets can only contain one of any value or object. Sets are a concept and must be dealt with analytically. An actual specific set of specific objects is a little different. Well, this post I expressly said that. But if that's all there was to my thesis then it wouldn't be very interesting. Pretty much.
Unobservable directly. You can indirectly observe them, and if you understand the reason why it's indirect (such as magnification, or electromagnetism, whatever method you use to observe the atom) you can understand more about what they are. Of course, I don't mean to insist that atoms are necessarily globes with a moon flying around them at lightning speed. That's just a conceptual model to easily describe the relationships that atoms have. "Boiling" is synonymous with making the transition from a liquid phase state to a gaseous phase state. Keeping that in mind, it makes perfect sense to say "H2O makes the transition from liquid to gas at 100C." Now a little substitution ... H20 boils at 100C. It makes sense -- the method of boiling is "becoming excited." That's why it makes that change in phase state. You asked, "If we define objects in terms of their properties, then what are we supposed to be refering to when we talk about those objects." Perhaps the relationships between different objects -- even if they're the same kind of object. If we define an atom with an atomic mass (AM) of 1 to be hydrogen, then anytime we come across an atom with an AM of 1, we can call it a hydrogen atom. Maybe I don't understand exactly what you are proposing here, but it makes perfect sense to me ... I did not equate logical positivism with atheism. I did mention Christianity -- because Christians, by nature of being Christian, cannot be logical positivists, as their religion lies on faith and belief, subjective knowledge which cannot be considered empirical or analytical. As the population of Christians declines, there are more people whose beliefs do allow logical positivism. One of such beliefs is atheism. Another is agnosticism. There are also several theistic belief systems that allow logical positivism. Two of my favourites are pantheism, and panentheism. Heck, I used to identify myself as a panentheist. Since then my beliefs have changed of course ... Either way, you are insinuating that a person who does not identify themself as a logical positivist cannot be considered a logical positivist. But that's kind of an absurd proposition isn't it? You wouldn't say a person who doesn't believe in a god isn't an atheist just because they don't know what the term for their beliefs/non-beliefs. Similarly, you wouldn't say that someone isn't a theist just because they don't call themselves a theist -- what makes someone a theist is if they believe in god or not. And by that same token, you wouldn't say that someone isn't a logical positivist just because they don't call themselves that -- what makes someone a logical positivist is if they only accept empirical and analytical evidence as the basis for knowledge. Just like you wouldn't say someone isn't a martial artist just because they don't practice a specific discipline and don't have a term to describe what they do. There is significant evidence to believe that it is true. The paradox lies in the nature of such a statement. Such a statement is an analytical concept, but its verification depends on that which is empirical. One cannot empirically verify that statement unless one knew every relationship in the universe. As we observe relationships, we observe even today that no case has yet been shown that suggests that the relationship described by the verification theory is false. And there are a significant number of cases in which the relationship is true. But because it is a statement that deals with the nature of empirical verification, it must also be able to be verified empirically. As human beings, we do not have the capacity to do this. That, however, does not mean that is inherently undoable. A being such as a god might be able to do that. (By the way, if you have read any of my other recent posts on threads in this forum, right there might a good candidate for "analytical evidence suggesting the goal of knowing epistemological truth being synonymous with becoming God" -- an argument that, if a higher power does not yet exist, that does not mean that it cannot -- humanity may potentially evolve into such a being -- and if humans can do it, an alien race predating human existance might also be able to do so.) Anyhow ... back to the topic at hand, you're right -- it's not analytically true, and it cannot be PROVEN empirically true, but there is still evidence -- and a lot of it -- that suggests that it is empirically true. I for one try to naturally follow the evidence. Neither of those statements are analytic -- they are empirical! You can't say "All bachelors are unmarried" unless you know that, in physical reality, every bachelor in existance is not married. It happens to be the case that humans would not be able to know such a thing. Thus, how can you verify the statement "All bachelors are ummarried"? You can't verify it, you can only declare it as probable or improbable to a varying degree. In the case of this statement, the probability of being true is ludicrously low -- thus the statement would not be accepted as knowledge. Edit: Wow my brain really skipped a beat there. Sorry, the grayed text above makes absolutely no sense in retrospect. Somehow, I didn't consider that, by definition, bachelors ARE unmarried. Yes, you are correct, that statement is analytic, and the other is not. But regardless, is it not true that I ran into a paradox because I tried to verify an empirical statement analytically? Recall that I said, "Follow with me here -- a statement is only meaningful if it can be verified either empirically or analytically. Emprically is out, because we're talking about a concept (the verifiability principle). Analytically, can this statement be verified? You run into a paradox. You have a statement that needs verification. However, its verification depends on the verifiability of itself." When you try to verify the verifiability principle analytically, you hit a paradox, because the concept is self-referencing. When you try to verify the verifiability principle empirically, you hit a limitaiton in human capacity to verify it. So you must rely on a probability. An almost innumerable number of cases exist where statements only have significance if they can be verified, yet there are zero cases of the opposite. If even one statement would disagree with this principle, it would be verified as false and thus could not be true. But that hasn't happened yet. The probability of it being true is ... probably somewhere greater than 99%, based on how I weigh the evidence. You may find it to be significantly lower or higher depending on how you weigh the evidence. One thing, however, is for sure -- I am not desperately trying to make the definition fit the facts. It can't be verified analytically, and we don't have the capacity to verify it empirically. That, however, does not mean that it inherently cannot be verified empirically, even if it means becoming a god in order to do so. Until we can verify it, we must rely on probability and make our own choice -- to assume that the statement is true, or to assume that it is false. As an agnostic (agnostic atheist some might say), I see significant amounts of evidence to suggest that it is true, so I accept it as most probably true, and believe it or not, I do test the statement myself to see if it holds up to scrutiny -- and it does. The principle makes the charge that a statement is only meaningful if it can be verified. If this were true, then the principle itself would only be meaningful if it could be verified as true. Can it? We don't know -- we don't have that capacity ... yet. We can only wait, and assume a default base case. Analytically, it can't be verified, because analytical conclusions cannot be drawn about the statement itself, as such a conclusion would be dependent on the analytical conclusion of itself, which would in turn be dependent on the analytical conclusion of that self, ad infinitum. That is how you run into a paradox. I don't understand what you mean by ad hoc. I wasn't able to find such a fallacy, only that "ad hoc" means "for this purpose" in Latin. And similar to what you said, as more light is shed on epistemology, such postulates as the verifiability principal are being revealed to be either true or false. Thus far, it has been revealed to be true in all known cases. So the statement, "A proposition is only meaningful if it can be verified empirically or analytically," is a piece of metaphysics? That, to me, sounds ridiculous. Maybe you could elaborate? Perhaps knowledge of the position fades away -- but the position itself does not -- the position's propositions are just as valid as the peak of its most popular time, since they haven't been disproven, or even suggested to be false as of yet. This argument is an unintended strawman -- the popularity or understanding of the position/state by the populace in no way effects the status of the populace as having that position/state. Unless, of course, you want to argue that a community is only socialist if they claim to be socialist (even if they meet all the criteria for being defined as socialist). Or that the only arrogant people in the world are people who claim to be arrogant. Or that the only fun people in the world are people who claim to be fun. Et cetera ... Okay, but consider this. I don't know what neo-Kantism is. I dare say I haven't ever heard the term. But what if what I said is identical to what neo-Kantians say? Should I be disconsidered as a neo-Kantian just because I didn't know that my beliefs were identical to those of neo-Kantians? That's not quite what I intended to propose, ... more along the lines of, I mean that while science CAN discover all necessary relations between things, humans CAN'T do that presently -- the capacity to do so isn't there. Hehe ... I do want to say, I have to bow to you during this argument. I haven't had one this deep in a while -- /bow Winner or no, I am honoured to be part of this discussion. =) "I have introduced myself, you have introduced yourself -- this is a very good conversation." - Lord Katsumoto, the Last Samurai
CS CS Thus we must call appon ''the highly probable' as arguements in the process of accuracy. AS occam does. LP is a good idea. But with such limited perceptual machinery..it misses too much. Occam
Occam It's not that LP misses too much -- LP's rate of missing information is based only on the information that cannot be retrieved by any (reliable) means. But yes -- the highly probable arguments are paramount to knowledge, even for non-LP stances.
Sorry I haven't posted over the last few days. This isn't the way I wanted to do this, but I've been really busy. Also, let me say that for all the flak I've been giving the logical positivists, I still think that their movement was excellent. Carnap and the rest dispelled a century's worth of metaphysical bullshit and idealism until Hitler kicked them out of Germany. They fled to the States or Britain and improved the philosophical scene there. Back in Germany, Hitler made Heideggar the official philosopher of the Nazi Party. Anyone who tells you that existentialism doesn't lead to Nazism is just lying. Anyway, I guess we profitted from it in the end because analytic philosophy in the States is some of the best in the world and Germany is back to practicing the same old bullshit. Sure, but that doesn't completely solve the problem. First, this is heading in the direction of metaphysics, since we are talking about unobservables causing phenomena. Second, you can use an electron microscope to view an atom. Say it appears blue under the microscope. You certainly wouldn't want to say that the atom is blue. It's an unobservable; it's not really any colour. Third, in quantum mechanics, the quantum measurement problem is concerned with what certain objects are doing when we're not looking at them. Take Eddington's Two Tables. The first table is our ordinary, every-day table. It's hard, brown, and all the other phenomenal properties we usually associate with tables. The second table is the scientific table. It's not brown or any other colour really. It can't be said to be "hard" because it's mostly made of empty space with no clear terminating lines. Of course, the two tables are in fact the same table. The thought experiment only tries to show that science is now so abstracted from the phenomena that talking about scientific entities in purely empirical, descriptive terms is impossible. Perhaps. But this is clearly a question about meaning, not science. When I talk about boiling, I'm talking about a mass of a macroscopic liquid bubbling and steaming and all those other things usually associated with boiling. The atoms have nothing to do with it. Besides, in elementary school science classes, the children will tell you that the atoms of a gas are "father apart" than the atoms of a liquid. So, if you have one molecule of H2O, it is no gas because gasses are characterized by the relational properties between atoms. The relations thesis seems like a good bet. A good logical positivist will tell you that we refer to an object, we are not really talking about an object but of a set of phenomenal properties, observed either directly or indirectly. If he's into Russell, he'd even tell you that when we refer to an object, we are not even talking about that object but about the universe of discourse as a whole, plugging in for "x" each object in the UD and seeing if it fits the description of the thing we are trying to pick out. About a year ago, I also thought that this was the way to go, but I've since changed my mind. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is due to Quine, who actually wrote his dissertation under Carnap. This has to do with the interpretation problem I was talking about in my last post. For any observation claim, O, there might be at least two, mutually inconsistent theories, T1 and T2, which both account for O. If all we have to go on is the phenomena, then there is no way decide which theory is better. The obvious solution is to appeal to extra-logical, extra-empirical features that can help us make the decision, such as parsimony, elegance, compatibility with other theories, and those other thing we like to think of "scientific virtues." For a while, I was perfectly content with this solution. I didn't pay much mind as to how to justify these virtues. They just seem so self-evident, even if they are synthetic. The idea has crossed my mind more than once that they are synthetic a priori, and I still think that this might be a good project to pursue. Anyway, what put a big damper on the solution, characteristic of Putnam's early work is the 'Pessimistic Meta-induction,' which sounds a lot scarier than it really is. The pessimistic meta-induction is a bad inference, and it's supposed to be to illustrate its point. Take the long disproven existence of the vitalist entitiy "organon." It was once thought that organon existed, meaning that it was thought that "organon" had a referent. It is now known that there is no organon. The same can be said almost all entities posited by scientists over the centuries. Therefore, we have a positive inductive basis for disbelief in the entities posited by scientists today. The argument is obviously bad, but it's supposed to be. Appeals to parsimony and so on attempt to systematically defend scientific unobservables as a whole. The pessimistic meta-induction is an equally systematic, all-encompassing proof of the contrary thesis, also by extra-logical means. So, we have reached an antinomy. If we choose to believe Kant, antinomies are a consequence of the mind trying to reach beyond its limits (i.e. doing metaphysics). So, we're back to square one. I've gone off on a bit of a tangent, so I'll talk about definite descriptions and the exact trouble with descriptive definitions later. Good point. That sounds like a version of the coherence theory of truth, which I could never defend. But the verification theory is a theory of meaning, not scientific truth. I think that it's fairly clear that Wittgenstein showed that the picture theory of meaning is false. I don't know if "paradox" is the word for it, but it's certainly a problem. Recall that I said, "Follow with me here -- a statement is only meaningful if it can be verified either empirically or analytically. Emprically is out, because we're talking about a concept (the verifiability principle). Analytically, can this statement be verified? You run into a paradox. You have a statement that needs verification. However, its verification depends on the verifiability of itself." The verification principle basically goes, "P is meaningful iff either P is analytically true (true by definition) or P could (at least hypothetically) be verified empirically." That's a far cry from, "This statement is false." The latter is self-referential because "This statement" refers to "This statement is false," which is why you get stuck in that infinite loop, even an incredibly powerful computer would. I don't think that the verification principle yields a paradox, let alone a self-referential one. Yeah, but this is philosophy. Things are never so straight-forward. There is no instance where one could disprove the statement "The world is made of ideas" or "The world is made of matter," not because they are both true (they are mutually inconsistent) but because they are both nonsense. The verification principle is symptomatic of the same kind of metaphysics. We'll get there. It will become apparent eventually. No, I have no problem with neo-Kantianism. Logical positivism largely grew out of neo-Kantianism. Ditto.
Take as much time as you need. =) It's my understanding that metaphysics deals with that which is non-physical. Atoms are very physical, and even though the human senses do not have the capacity to directly observe atoms (since they are so tiny), they can still be indirectly observed. IMO it's kind of like infrared vision. Humans can't do it, but if you put on nightvision goggles, you can still observe (with a rather low margin of error) heat sources. All that is required is an increase in the capacity of observation -- or more precisely, a translation from the observation of one device (goggles) to the observation of another device (the human eye). Humans see spectral colours even when using nightvision goggles, but so long as you understand that the spectral colours represent degrees of infrared light, the translation should still be called observation. But yeah -- I won't take up the quantum mechanics argument. That's not exactly observation via translation -- more like observation via probability, and it's not reliable enough to base an argument on. Quite true. =) That's the problem (or arguable merit?) with science -- everything is relative to something else! Where will it end?! I read the first couple sentences and thought, "yes there is, Ockham's Razor!" Perhaps there is no empirical way to decide which theory is better -- but theories are, by nature, governed by logic -- since they cannot (immediately) be empirically proven or disproven, logic should be used in contemplation. Indeed this is one of the principals of logical positivism -- if you can't solve it empirically, solve it logically. I understand what you're saying, but I can't quite agree. You said the argument is obviously bad, but that it's somehow an example of why principals such as parsimony are also bad. (If this is incorrect, let me know, I read something wrong.) This is something I disagree with. It seems to me that pessimistic meta-induction is a bad argument because it's based off of bad logic. It's quite literally a non-sequitur argument -- the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises. The structure of pessimistic meta-induction appears to follow this form: All A have been previously proposed as true. All A have been previously proven wrong. B is an A. Therefore, B is wrong. The problem with the argument is, not all propositions have been previously proven wrong -- some have been shown to be right. But that's the false premise argument -- the reason why it's a non-sequitur is because, even if all previous arguments had been proven wrong, that doesn't mean that all future arguments will be wrong. Same as rolling a million-sided die. Even if the last 500,000 rolls weren't satisfactory rolls, that doesn't mean all future ones will be. The logical positivism proposition (henceforth I will abbreviate this as LPP), on the other hand, doesn't (or at least it seems like it doesn't) appear have bad logic behind it. I don't think it's actually related so much to coherentism as much as it is related to postulates accepted impermanently based on probability. As it stands, if one case ever showed logical positivism to be untrue, the belief would crash and burn. But out of the perhaps billions, trillions, or even more, of cases that have undoubtedly been tried by not just logical positivists but other humans as well, all of them have agreed with the LPP. Now, while it is (of course) a stupid thing to say "Trillions have shown it to be right and none have shown it to be wrong, so it must be right!," I don't think it's farfetched to say, "The probability of it being wrong is something along the order of 0.00000001%, or less." If you think about it, one divided by a trillion (or even a billion) is something around that -- that's where the zeroes come from. In cases where something is even 95% probable, I'm willing to give such a proposition the benefit of the doubt, and accept it as a postulate, but only until it is proven wrong. Thus, I may be a logical positivist now, but I would be foolish to justify permanent absolutist logical positivism. I am only a logical positivist because I have accepted the postulate that only empirical and logical conclusions hold singificant meaning, with relation to propositions. ... Okay, I can agree with you on this one. Perhaps it's not exactly a paradox, and perhaps my analogy was ... not the best choice. I always hated anaologies in school anyhow ... But I think the gist of my point still stands. The verification of the LPP depends on its own verification -- speaking form only the analytical standpoint. Perhaps the LPP itself is not self-referencing, but its verification is still infinitely recursive. Actually, I think both statements ("The world is made of ideas" and "The world is made of matter") are referring to different concepts. Certainly, in the right situation, either statement could have some meaning behind it, but "the world" might refer to different conceptualizations or even different parts of the world. In the world-idea sentence, "the world" might mean the collection of human understanding and perception of relationships. In the world-matter sentence, "the world" might mean the physical world regardless of perception or relationships, etc. Somehow, I feel as if I can't offer a better argument to contend yours on this issue. But, I do feel that it is a good idea to avoid metaphysics. Perhaps you could think up another example for me to reference? Considering my previous response, I think maybe we should expand into what metaphysics is and how it's related to the LPP. Honestly, I feel like the definition of metaphysics is a very blurry line -- and I feel like we should hash out some concept of what "metaphysics" is and means. As I understand it now, metaphysics deals with the alleged physics or logical restraints of non-observables (not including things such as atoms which can be observed via translation between observational media such as microscopes).
I think you hit the nail on the head, so I'm going to start here. You're right. Metaphysics is a very fuzzy subject. If we tried to define it, we'd probably get nowhere and waste a lot of time. But we don't have to because we both know what metaphysics is. It is all about unobservables, substance, the building blocks of the universe, etc. So, I think that theoretical physicists practice something like metaphysics. Mach, a precursor to LP, argued that "atoms" are only abstractions that are useful to predict and account for empirical phenomena. But since the electron microscope came around, this position has fallen out of favour. Nevertheless, I'm not going to press the point that some scientists are metaphysicians. What is really needed is a brief segway into the philosophy of language. LP grew out of what historians of philosophy usually call "the linguistic turn." Really, it started way back with Frege in the 19th century. But with Russell and LP, using philosophy of language as a starting point became mainstream. The first thing that needs to be understood about the verification principle is that it is a theory of meaning, not a theory of truth or a theory of epistemic justification. Wittgenstein was not an LP, but his early work was quite popular with them, and it was Wittgenstein's later work that was largely responsible for the decline of LP. So, let's talk about him. In the Tractus, Wittgenstein held to a "picture theory of meaning," which is pretty much identical to the verification principle. The world is the state of affairs (i.e. facts) and these facts can be said to have meaning by virtue of our ability to clearly conceptualize them in our heads. After writing the Tractus, Wittgenstein realised that there was something wrong. Years later, he published Investigations, which was very, very different from the Tractus. Wittgenstein had realised that his "picture theory of meaning" was inadequate. He now believed that for most propositions, the meaning could be considered their use. Now, that's very vague. But we can find out what he means by comparing the new view to the picture theory. There is a big difference between knowing a fact and knowing how to use a language, even a very limitted language. How do we come to know how to use the word "red?" Well, if the picture theory of meaning is right, I probably have an image in my head, say a red plane, which, whenever I am prompted to use the word "red," I pull up that mental picture. That's what the old Wittgenstein thought. In Investigations, he refutes this theory in a very clever way. He rhetorically asks, how would this be different if the red plane was not a mental image, what if it were a red card I pull out of my pocket whenever I or someone else says "red?" Really, there should be no difference at all if the picture theory of meaning is correct. But this is obviously not the way langauge works. So, the picture theory must be false. In the Tractus, you've got the state of affiars, and you've got the mind, kind of sitting outside the state of affiars. Investigations fits the mind directly into the world. So, what does this have to do with metaphysics and LP? LP was revolutionary, but it still relied on phenomenalism to determine meaning. So, they were still subject to all the problems faced by empiricists and phenomenalists. Antirealism regarding scientific unobservables was only one side-effect. Another was over-reliance on the analytic/synthetic distinction. Consequently, their views on logic and, especially, mathematics were slightly off. LP was relatively ontologically innocent, but it was also slightly dogmatic and not without it's own set of problems. There has been a lot of good work done on visual augmentation over the past 20 years or so. Ian Hacking has done some of the best. I'm not even going to argue this point anymore because, I think, we've largely gone beyond it. But also because, even if we disagree as to exactly how scientific unobservables get their meaning, we clearly both agree that propositions about scientific unobservables are meaningful. Yeah, but Ockham's Razor isn't logical, at least not strictly. Unless I've completely missed something... Well look, I'm not saying that we are never justified in employing Ockham's Razor. Only that we cannot employ it in an all-encompassing way. Scientists use parsimony all the time in theory-choice, and I wouldn't change a thing about the way scientists do science. As far as making real progress goes, scientists have us philosophers beat. But we can't just appeal to parsimony, elegance, etc. to justify science as a whole. If you ask me, science doesn't need that sort of justification anyway. The great thing about the meta-induction is that it reveals an antinomy, that we can use reason both to justify belief in science and to show that we are not justified in believing science. Both arguments are flawed because they pay no attention to the way scientists actually get things done. Well, the argument is not deductive, but let's go with your form anyway because it's close enough. The premise is not about "all propositions." All it really says is that our theories concerning scientific unobservables have changed many, many times over time. The Prime Mover, ether, gravitons, and organon are all things that no right-thinking scientist gives any credance to anymore. So, the argument goes, we have good inductive grounds for disbelief in atoms, quarks, photons, etc. After I posted my last response, I had a feeling that I didn't understand what you were saying here. Good argument. But those two statements are obvious, clear-cut examples of metaphysics. Consider Wittgenstein's argument. Two parents, one an idealist, one a materialist, each teach their own children about the world. The two accounts of the world would be exactly the same, with the exception of the two sentences just mentioned. It just doesn't matter whether the world is made of ideas or matter. Umm... give me a little while to think about it. I'm sure I can come up with something.
See this is something I would naturally disagree with, because I feel that theoretical physicists deal with theories/probabilities of the physical, rather than metaphysical. Somehow, I have always identified metaphysics with mysticism. Let's see what Wikipedia has to say: "Metaphysics (Greek words μετα [meta] = after/beyond and Φυσις [physis] = nature) is a branch of speculative philosophy concerned with explaining the world. A central branch of metaphysics is ontology, the investigation into what categories of things are in the world and what relations these things bear to one another. The metaphysician also attempts to clarify the notions by which people understand the world, including existence, objecthood, property, space, time, causality, and possibility." This definition suggests this to me: Metaphysics is about the "physics" of ideas and relationships -- the physics of analytical concepts (not empirical things). This is why I feel that physics which deal with things such as atoms should not be considered metaphysics, because they deal with tangible things. Perhaps we should say, physics is to tangible as metaphysics is to intangible? But then, what about energy? Energy is also tangible but is talked about most in a physics classroom -- perhaps because energy and matter are translatable? I would argue that energy is something that is observable -- energy is not a "thing" but it does have an effect -- the presence of energy is tangible, even if the energy itself is not, and thus the presence of energy is also observable and empirical -- not analytical. Certainly, though, there may be other definitions of "energy" (spirit? life force?) that are analytical concepts -- but energy as translatable into matter is not, IMO. I see what you (or in this case Wittgenstein) are saying. As a programmer, when I think of red, I think of hexadecimal numbers, lol (#FF0000). Or, I think of an infinite wall, of sorts, that is the colour red. Certainly every theory or idea has its own set of problems, though. It would be a bit hard-grasped to dismiss a theory merely because it is incomplete or because it has a problem (such as the infinite recursion). I'm not sure if I completely understand where you're coming from. It makes sense that LP is based in part on phenomenalism, but at the same time, it doesn't seem to me that reliance on analysis is a weakness, or that it's "over-reliance." It just seems as if it covers all the bases -- empirical grounds for meaning for empirical things, the tangible -- and analytical grounds for meaning for mental things, the conceptual. Certainly, logic governs metaphysics (as nothing else can), so when dealing with the metaphysical, only logic and analysis are sufficient to derive meaning in propositions. Agreed. =) Well, Ockham's Razor isn't an "end all be all" to logic in any sort. It's only a principal -- a method, if you will. The idea is that, when you are faced with two propositions that, empirically and analytically, hold approximately the same chance of being true or both have approximately equal meaning, then the simpler choice should take preference, for both acceptance as a postulate, and for investigation. As an example, consider these two statements: The world revolves around the sun because of an unknown force. The world revolves around the sun because of an unknown force generated by the minds of powerful aliens. Using Ockham's Razor, one would accept the first statement because it is simpler. Ockham's Razor is officially this: entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. It translates to mean, entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily. IMO, that seems very logical -- but only as a method of process, not as a theory of meaning or a theory of truth, or anything of the sort. Ah, I see what you are saying. You're right -- certainly the principal of parsimony, nor any other principal or guideline, should be grounds for justification of science or anything else. And yet, the argument still seems to be a non sequitor because even though some things have changed over time, others have not -- such as gravity. Perhaps details ABOUT gravity have changed over times, but the idea that gravity exists and that it is a force which results in the "attraction" of matter, this has not changed since gravity was first conceptualized. And even if everything had changed over time, that doesn't mean everything else will do the same. Ahhh, good point. In that case -- is it not true that both statements are in fact the same proposition, using different language? If both accounts of the world are the same, does it matter if you call it "ideas" or "matter"? Don't ideas matter? (laughs)
Okay, I'm not going to really press the point. Attempting to define exactly what metaphysics is would be a long and pointless exercise. It would also be unnecessary, since we all have a pretty good idea what metaphysics is, even we can't agree on the specifics. Infinite recursion is no problem. The problem with LP lies in the picture theory of meaning, that is verificationism. We'll see exactly why this is such a problem soon. The problem isn't with analysis in general but rather with the particular way LP does analysis. Their criteria for meaning is just too restrictive and largely backwards. We just don't visualise every single thought that is put into our heads. Knowing facts has little to do with knowing how to use a language. Another weakness that I was hinting at earlier is the way LP separates the mind off from the world. The analytic/synthetic distinction goes back to Hume and Leibniz, although they never actually used those terms. You yourself make the same distinction, calling it tangible/conceptual. But the fact of the matter is that meaning is a public phenomenon. As Putnam said, it "ain't just in the head." Here's an entirely over-simplified link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Earth_thought_experiment To LP, metaphysics is meaningless. But we can talk about exactly what logic can accomplish later. Well, sure. The phenomena was still there, and no one could dispute that. But the theoretical entities postulated by scientists over history has changed dramatically. To Aristotle, rocks fall because they just belong on the ground and because they have something of an agency of their own. Later on, physicists posited the existence of particles called "gravitons." Both theories have been rejected over time. Of course not. But it's an inductive argument. It doesn't have to be valid. I'll have to think about that, but I'm inclined to say "no." Also, I thought of another example: If we have at least an illusion of agency, then it doesn't matter if free will exists or not. Another: If there is no immortal soul, then it doesn't matter if God exists or not.
Just to clarify why the verification principle is too narrow a criteron of meaning, here are a few statements and commands that are clearly meaningful but are difficult (though not in all cases impossible) to account for: "Shut the door!" "If Hitler had won the war, we'd all be speaking German." "Stealing is wrong." "The lowest prime number is necessarily two." "Goldbach's Conjecture is true." "Space is non-Euclidean." "The sequence '77777' either appears in pi or it does not." "There might exist an Evil Demon." "Trees are tall."
