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Philosophy, Politics, and the Human Condition
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| Viewing Page 1 of 1 (Total Posts: 3) |
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Kevin
 Dec 31, 07 - 7:14 AM |
LOGIC CORRECTION & Richard's REFUTED "definition" of KNOWLEDGE
Re: Logic Correction Kevin, "So, as you argue, Richard, FORMAL LOGIC can't tell anyone about whether or not any given statement is true or false." You are missing the point of what I am saying. REPLY: Not a chance, Richard. I never miss anybody's POINT, especially your POINT, because it is the only point you have ever made to this list. "Philosophy makes no progress, unlike SCIENCE!", is your repetitive POINT. RICHARD: First of all, I never said "Formal Logic can't tell anyone about whether or not any given statement is true or false", although that is the case. REBUTTAL: You did "SAY" that! Only you SAID IT with a RHETORICAL QUESTION, requote: RICHARD (requote): Has there ever been any philosophical knowledge developed by using 'formal logic'? Then you proceeded to tell us about, requote RICHARD: The best I can tell, the dependence of Philosophy on 'formal logic' is the result of philosophers never understanding the nature of knowledge and how knowledge is constructed. For centuries, philosophers claimed knowledge is 'justified true belief' and is not constructed. Their explanation for the existence of 'justified true belief', as knowledge, has been as a 'haphazard trial and error process over a long period of time'. COMMENT: Your 'justified true belief' thesis was refuted by Socrates, Theaetetus and Theodorus, about 25 centuries ago, as previously proved by Plato. However being refuted on that point, which was supposedly pertinent to your "POINT", you still are "stuck" on that point, as is evident below, quote RICHARD: I am saying that Philosophy is not grounded on ANY LOGICAL PROCESS OF THOUGHT, FORMAL, SENTENTIAL, OR OTHERWISE. COMMENT: Evidently, then, you think that "Philosophy" is utterly "illogical", since it is not grounded on any LOGICAL PROCESS whatsoever. FASCINATING "thought"! RICHARD: Philosophy is the accumulated writings of thinkers who never understood the NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE ITSELF, thus philosophers have never understood how KNOWLEDGE IS CONSTRUCTED. REPLY: They must have been "bad thinkers", then, Richard! Do you know what Plato said about "accumulated writings" and philosophy, Richard? I quote PLATO: One STATEMENT, at any rate I can make in regard to ALL who have WRITTEN or who may WRITE with a claim to KNOWLEDGE of the subjects to which I devote myself --- no matter how they PRETEND to have acquired it [Plato's kind of KNOWLEDGE; KB], whether from my instruction, or from others, or by their own discovery. Such WRITERS can in my OPINION have no REAL ACQUAINTANCE with the SUBJECT. I certainly have COMPOSED NO WORK in regard to it, nor shall I ever do so in future, for there is NO WAY of putting IT INTO WORDS, like other STUDIES. Acquaintance with it [Philosophy? KB] must come rather after a long period of attendance on instruction in the SUBJECT ITSELF and of close companionship, when, suddenly, like a blaze kindled by a leaping spark, it is GENERATED IN THE SOUL and at once becomes SELF SUSTAINING. (...Yaddety...) ...If, however he was seriously concerned with these matters and PUT THEM IN WRITING, 'then surely' not the gods, but mortals 'have utterly blasted his wits' [Reference to the Illiad 7.360, 12.234]. ********PLATO'S 7TH LETTER*********** RICHARD: Can anyone believe the enormous dissension and contradiction that is so characteristic of philosophy...[As put in WRITING}... REPLY: Plato not only believed that enormous dissension and contradiction would exist if "philosophers" tried to write DISQUISITIONS on the SUBJECTS TO WHICH HE DEVOTED HIMSELF, he actually WROTE that such WRITTEN TREATISES implied NO KNOWLEDGE of the SUBJECT. His 7th LETTER, implies such dissension/contradiction! That is probably one of the reasons that "scholars", who specialize in WRITING about "philosophy", doubt Plato's 7th LETTER was actually written by Plato!!! RICHARD: [Can anyone believe the enormous dissension and contradiction that is so "characteristic" of (WRITTEN) "philosophy"} would exist if the thinking of philosophers had been grounded in understanding the NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE AND HOW KNOWLEDGE IS CONSTRUCTED. REPLY: Plato certainly believed that WRITTEN PHILOSOPHY implied "blasted wits" --- sort of like your "blasted wit", Richard, because you actually "think", CONTRARY to Plato, requote:- RICHARD: Philosophy is the accumulated WRITINGS of thinkers who never understood the NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE ITSELF, thus philosophers have never understood how KNOWLEDGE IS CONSTRUCTED. REBUTTAL: Not according to Plato, Richard. Philosophy is produced when a "spark" is enkindled by one philosopher in another philosopher, just as Socrates "sparked" Plato, and Plato "sparked" Aristotle. You're just SPOOKED by contradictory WRITINGS! Had you ever actually read Plato, you'd KNOW why you're down on written "philosophy" and making WILD ACCUSATIONS about "philosophers" NOT KNOWING about KNOWLEDGE! ctd. KB |
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Richard
Dec 31st, 2007 - 8:29 AM |
Re: LOGIC CORRECTION & Richard's REFUTED "definition" of KNOWLEDGE
Kevin, You demonstrate that you can only think about the subject of Knowledge according to the ideas of long dead philosophers who, would arguable, have different ideas if they were still living. Considering that philosophers have never solved the problems of Philosophy should give one cause, except hardcore believers, to suspect there is something terribly wrong with the way philosophers think. Hardcore believers are one of the primary reasons why Philosophy has developed little if any in twenty-five centuries. Do you really believe that Socrates, if he were living today, and aware of the enormous knowledge developed to date, would still claim the nature of Knowledge can not be understood? Get real man, unshackle your thinking from the senseless ideas of Traditional Academic Philosophy, and do your own thinking. |
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Kevin
Dec 31st, 2007 - 8:54 AM |
Re: LOGIC CORRECTION & Richard's REFUTED "definition" of KNOWLEDGE
RICHARD (requoted): Can anyone believe the enormous dissension and contradiction that is so characteristic of philosophy would exist if the thinking of philosophers had been grounded in understanding the NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE AND HOW KNOWLEDGE IS CONSTRUCTED. COMMENT: ie. Characteristic of WRITTEN "philosophy". Plato believed that there would be "enormous dissension and contradiction" if people with "blasted wits" actually tried to WRITE "philosophy", as previously noted. Back to Richard RICHARD: I don't have to know how to fix a car to know a car is broken but the mechanic does. REPLY: Some mechanics do and some don't KNOW how to fix cars these days. You can bet that they don't KNOW how to MAKE THEM, anymore, because most of that MAKING of cars is done with ROBOTS. As an industry, CAR MAKING is becoming applied robotics. The ROBOTS don't KNOW what they are doing, but the computer programmers DO, while the guys on the assembly line are HAPPY that they don't have to do all the welding, pushing and pulling they formerly had to do. You can also bet that the assembly line workers don't KNOW what the "bot" programmers KNOW. RICHARD: The philosopher must understand the NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE to understand how to construct sensible Philosophy. Otherwise, his philosophical writing will result is endless confusion. REPLY: Then he can construct "sensible Philosophy", which will arguably still be ILLOGICAL, unless he understands the NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE. But Plato TOLD YOU, Richard, that WRITTEN PHILOSOPHY is indicative of NO SKILL in the SUBJECT. Maybe that is WHY Socrates never WROTE anything. That way, nobody was CONFUSED by what he wrote and, yet, EVERYBODY WAS CONFUSED by his questions. Actual philosophers don't WRITE very much, Richard. They are TOO BUSY actually DOING the subject, upon which other people try to WRITE. It is entirely dubious that Aristotle wrote anything for PUBLIC consumption outside the LYCEUM. But it looks like his students DIDN'T BELIEVE Plato, so we have copies of the NOTES they took at/of his lectures. Happily we have such NOTES, as well. Otherwise we'd be stuck with STOIC dialectic, or GOD HELP US, "modern symbolic LOGIC" alone [SHUDDER]. But for your claim to have an "credence", Richard, you'd have to KNOW both "the nature of knowledge" AND "the structure of knowledge" to be able to inform members of this list, requote:- RICHARD: The best I can tell, the dependence of Philosophy on 'formal logic' is the result of philosophers never understanding the nature of knowledge and how knowledge is constructed. QUESTION: How do you KNOW that, as best as you can tell, philosophers have never understood either (1) the nature of knowledge or (2) how knowledge is constructed? COMMENTS: You actually have TO KNOW both things, to wit, the (1) "nature" of knowledge and its (2) "structure" to make such a claim credible. But you don't seem to know any actual CLAIMS of philosophers, Rich! You didn't seem to know about Plato's refutation of your so-called "definition" of KNOWLEDGE. You don't seem to KNOW that Plato WROTE that one cannot teach philosophy by means of WRITTEN treatises, since your "idea" of philosophy IS "written treatises"!!! Plato KNEW how to "construct" some kinds of KNOWLEDGE in the minds of his students. He taught them GEOMETRY, although he wasn't as good at Geometry as EUDOXUS was good at Geometry. Plato was better than "O.K." at geometry. But Eudoxus was better, which didn't bother Plato at all, because his entire program was designed to make philosophers into RULERS, or by "divine providence" have some RULERS actually become philosophers. Where Plato failed with both Dioysius and Dion, at Syracuse (witness his letters), in Sicily, Aristotle was successful with his father-in-law at Atarneus (?) in the "troad". But his father-in-law was tortured to death at Sardis, since the Persians didn't want any "philosopher-Kings". So they are still stuck with "guys" like the late Saddam Hussein and others like Osama Bin Laden, etc. etc. Nobody has, yet, been able to teach "Easterners" that CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT is "best", although Plato tried all his life to teach that and Aristotle actually taught it in his POLITICS. COMMENT: So far as I can tell, you can't answer my previous question as to, WHERE DID YOU GET THAT STUFF, which you put in 'scare-quotes' about philosophy being a 'haphazard trial and error' phenomenon at best. Boy there is a lot of "stuff" you don't KNOW, Richard, including the "nature" or "structure" of KNOWLEDGE, but most significantly who IS and who IS NOT an actual philosopher. You haven't read enough of either Plato or Aristotle to even have a "clue". But we can work on that! Orville and Wilbur Wright are perfect examples of American philosophers, according to both Plato and Aristotle, although you might think of them as MECHANICS or INVENTORS. Kevin |
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