Just a thought: Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Ethics » Just a thought » Just a thought

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Just a thought

MarchHare
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jun 23, 2009

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 190

Posted 07/07/09 - 08:33 AM:	#21
onisani wrote: A fact is a statement about the world which is held to be true because it has not been proven false (yet), although it could be proven false. It is not. I might say "Julius Caesar preferred olives to dates"; there is no way of proving or disproving that statement, but there is nevertheless a matter of fact of whether or not it is true. One could argue that we SHOULD use the word "fact" with the criterion you suggest, but it is not true that the word "fact" is used in the way you describe. "onisani" wrote: Also, a fact cannot be proven to be true (e.g. gravity: no matter how many times a stone falls to the earth when I drop it, I can never be sure it won't fly away next time). To be proven is relative to the context of inquiry. People prove facts all the time: if I were to say "Tblisi is the capital of Georgia" and you say "Prove it", then I showed you a map of the Black Sea and pointed to central Georgia, we would say that I had proven to you that it is a fact that Tblisi is the capital of Georgia. Again, you can argue that we SHOULD use a falisficationist approach to the semantics of "fact", but since the intention of your post is to argue that normative sentences are non-factive, you would be engaging in a self-defeating exercise. "onisani" wrote: Facts are falsifiable but not verifiable. If ever they are falsified, they cease to be facts, and a new statement becomes a fact instead. How could you possibly falisify anything if you don't have anything that is verified? I'm genuinely intrigued to how you imagine such a procedure taking place. What falisifies the fact? "onisani" wrote: A belief on the other hand is not falsifiable. By "belief" here do you mean a sentence such as "I believe that the Earth is the third planet from the Sun" or "I have a belief that the Earth is the third planet from the Sun"? In the first instance, the sentence is making an assertion about the nature of the Solar system, while in the second sentence the use of the present-tense functions to change the subject of the sentence to be the psychological fact that I possess this belief. "onisani" wrote: Whereas the statement "If I drop a stone it falls to the floor" can be proven wrong simply by dropping one that flies away, the statement "stealing is bad/wrong/evil" cannot. It therefore does not qualify as a fact. It might not meet your qualifications of what does and does not qualify as a fact (although you are being highly idiosyncratic in your qualifications) but you have given no particular reason why your use of the word "fact" is one that anyone else should accept. However, I'm not even sure your contrast could be said to be valid. In the case of the stone-falling hypothesis, you have made a universal law, which (as with all conditional statements) is disproven when the antecedent is true and the consequent false; thus the satisfaction criterion of it not being disproven is for, in each case where the antecendent is true, the consequent is true. But, equally, one could create a universal normative law eg. "If you steal, it is bad", determine a set of satisfaction criteria; once again, if the antecedent is true and the consequent is false, you have disproven the law. "onisani" wrote: I think this gets to the point of the original posting: values, beliefs, opinions etc. don't exist independently of a person who holds them. Gravity does. That's the internalist/externalist debate, which is an entirely different debate in metaethics. There are philosophers who have been internalists but also cogntivists and even objectivists. Incidentally, gravity is a rather funny example, since gravity doesn't exist independantly of physical bodies altering spacetime. In fact, it's somewhat misleading to say that gravity "exists" at all: it is a behaviour, exhibited by all known objects with mass, that can be described as a universal law. One might as well say that "Niceness" or indeed "Goodness" exists. "onisani" wrote: And because one's belief that stealing is wrong may be influenced by one's upbringing, society, and even genes doesn't make it a fact. It is an arbitrary belief. It clearly can't be an arbitrary belief, since not all belief-statements meet the rule for normative statements. For instance, if I say "Stealing is wrong, it is good to steal", I am not playing by the rules of the use of the words "wrong" and "good"; I am essentially speaking nonsense. Even if normative claims are arbitrary beliefs, they must be a very special kind of arbirtary beliefs. If I have an arbitrary belief such as "Today is a lucky day; I feel it in my bones", I will never act on that belief in the same way that I would act on the belief that "Child abuse is wrong".
Doubt requires a reason to doubt. Nothing is immune from potential doubt. The correct response to a question isn't always to try to give the question's answer.

xzJoel
Bio-clump

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Aug 30, 2005
Location: New Jersey

Total Topics: 32
Total Posts: 842

Posted 07/07/09 - 09:04 AM:	#22
onisani wrote: Hey xzJoel, nice point. What I meant though is that it is possible to falsify a fact (quite easy in your example, although not very appealing), but not a belief. I guess statements that could be falsified but no one bothers to are special cases, but they generally don't exist in serious debates. Let me know what you think... I think that falsifiability is an important element to what someone might consider a fact. Certainly something that has yet to falsified enjoys the privilege of not being false. The problem is, we have facts and we have non-facts in an intuitive way that have nothing to do with whether they have been falsified or are even falsifiable. For instance, I allege that I woke up sometime around 7 am today. (Eastern daylight time, if you like.) Absent a time machine, how, precisely, would you falsify this claim? You could certainly invoke circumstantial evidence, but such begs the question. (Is it a fact that my wife saw me in bed at 6:59 but not at 7:01? Why does her fact have more weight than my fact when determining the falsity of my fact?) It seems that most of the things that people would call facts are non-falsifiable because they were temporal happenings. Absent a time machine and a whole host of assumptions, you can never falsify most facts. (Besides which, the mere possibility of falsifiability is not what people hang their hat on. That some alien entity may be able to falsify things that we cannot does not make our factual claims any more or less certain.) So what then of your point? I think that it isn't so swell. By my estimation, a fact is something that either a) exists or b) happened. Existence is not limited to physical existence. (There exists a relationship between 5 and 3 such that it is a fact that 3 is 2 greater than 5.) When we get into the more difficult problem of language, the communicability of facts, or even the ability to know facts, we have entered the territory of what your statement seemed to be directed at. If you ask the question, "What does it mean for a sentence to be true and about fact?" it seems to me that your answer can be invoked. However, as my example illustrated, even a sincere allegation of sentence representing fact does not get to the level of a true fact, rather it gets to the level of a non-falsified fact. Your criteria of "serious debates" is really avoiding the point entirely. What makes something a serious debate? Perhaps it is that the allegation makes sense in the context of other allegations? Perhaps it is that people only allege that which they have attempted to disprove? A "fact" no matter what your context requires more than "statement that has yet to be falsified". Your post suggests that you believe that a fact is closer to a statement that accurately describes observed phenomenon which has yet to have a counter example. If you want to take up that definition (or something similar) feel free.
Make a joyous noise onto the lord... Not a good one, just a joyous one.

Warshed
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Aug 20, 2008

Total Topics: 9
Total Posts: 216

Posted 07/07/09 - 12:15 PM:	#23
Notice he never came back....I love the drive by posters who post, then run for the hills.

onisani
angry panda

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jul 06, 2009

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 174

Posted 07/07/09 - 02:54 PM:	#24
Thanks for the great comments MarchHare and xzJoel, really appreciate it. Let me reply to your points in turn. Past events are tricky. We may disagree about a fact about the past and be unable to falsify our opponent's position. The point is though, we could falsify it in principle, it's just that in practise we lack the evidence. Both positions are therefore facts. Note that the fact is not the thing in the world, but our understanding of it. If that understanding can be falsified in principle but hasn't, it's a fact. It is not useful to call the thing in the world the fact, precisely because it is not verifiable. We can be mistaken in our facts, and we often are. I am suggesting we should use the word "facts" in the way I suggest. I do so because I think it is useful to make sense of the world. Of course I admit that anyone can use the word whichever way they like. Interesting point about what there is to falsify if nothing can be verified. I think we start out with an observed phenomenon and an explanation given on any possible basis. This explanation eventually gets proven false and is replaced by another. This process goes on until an explanation is found which is not easily proven false. At each stage, the prevailing explanation is called a fact. To illustrate this, think of the history of our view of the solar system. Doesn't my point describe what happened? Throughout the centuries, there has been a succession of facts about the earth and its place in the universe, and each one was held as true as our current one. There is no way for us to be sure we won't be proven wrong, too. The earth being the third planet from the sun is not a belief, since it can be falsified in principle. An example of a belief is the existence of god, since god can principally not be proven not to exist. I agree that we need good reasons for accepting a definition of facts and beliefs. Again, I am suggesting one because I think it is useful, not because it is correct, absolute or in-the-world. Definitions are man-made and can be formulated, not discovered. I think it is useful because it is in line with what happens when we seek to understand the world, as describe above. Nice one about gravity not existing independently, I need to think about that more. My point was that a stone will fall to the ground whether or not someone is there to believe it. On the other hand, if nobody believes stealing is wrong, it isn't. The badness or goodness of stealing don't exist, and even if gravity doesn't either, the stone does. When I wrote that any belief is arbitrary, I meant that it is entirely based on contingent factors. Under certain circumstances you would believe child abuse to be ok (some do). that is hard to accept, but think of radically different circumstances. This is true for normative and descriptive beliefs. I think your definition of a fact as something that either exists or happened is less useful because I could define a belief in the same way. Some people will tell you god exists and adam and eve were the first humans. a useful definition of facts will distinguish facts from beliefs. Non-falsified (but falsifiable and not verifiable) is identical to true. We have no way of knowing truth directly. How many times have we thought to know the truth just to be proven wrong? This is because we can't have perfect knowledge, so there is always the possibility that things aren't as they seem. My definition of a fact accommodates this by defining facts as non-verifiable, but necessarily falsifiable. My point about serious debate was just that a statement that nobody bothers to falsify does indeed qualify as a fact under my definition. For a long time, no one proved the medieval anthropocentric worldview to be wrong, and so it remained a fact for centuries. I don't know if the same will be true about your dragon though. xzJoel: your last paragraph gets my point exactly. According to my definition, a fact is a statement about a phenomenon which has yet to have a counter example. I still don't think this is absurd, as you seem to suggest. It's a pleasure guys, keep your comments coming. Also, how do I quote other posts in mine? New to the game...

xzJoel
Bio-clump

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Aug 30, 2005
Location: New Jersey

Total Topics: 32
Total Posts: 842

Posted 07/07/09 - 03:21 PM:	#25
Onasani, I think our problem is the difference between a "fact" and an explanation called a "fact". Either something is a fact or it isn't. Just because you want to explain how the fact came to be (think "gravity caused the stone to fall") is unrelated to what a fact is. A fact is a present state of a affairs, a past state of affairs, and accurate descriptions of the relationship between those states of affairs. Consider: My mother hit me. This sentence is alleging that a certain states of affairs once existed. There is some thing "me" that was "hit" by some other thing "my mother". Even if my semantics don't mean what I think they mean, my effort is to describe an actual state of affairs not to put forward a theory or explanation. Compare: Gravity causes an apple to fall. Things fall at an accelerating rate of 9.8m/s^2. In one case we have an allegation about a state of affairs, in the other two cases we have generalized descriptions about states of affairs. Your falsification relates primarily to the generalized descriptions that can be shown to be false. How can you show that it is false that my mother hit me? Are you saying 1) that it is possible that I am wrong (am misdescribing) or 2) that something that was a state of affairs can possibly be shown not to have been the state of affairs? I would go so far as to say your theory on "facts" is a really a theory on the propriety of calling a statement obtained through the use of induction a "fact." Why you want to abandon actual facts for theoretical facts I'm not quite sure.
Make a joyous noise onto the lord... Not a good one, just a joyous one.

MarchHare
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jun 23, 2009

Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 190

Posted 07/07/09 - 04:22 PM:	#26
onisani wrote: Past events are tricky. We may disagree about a fact about the past and be unable to falsify our opponent's position. The point is though, we could falsify it in principle, it's just that in practise we lack the evidence. Both positions are therefore facts. Note that the fact is not the thing in the world, but our understanding of it. If that understanding can be falsified in principle but hasn't, it's a fact. It is not useful to call the thing in the world the fact, precisely because it is not verifiable. We can be mistaken in our facts, and we often are. The thing is, as a normative matter of procedure, I'm inclined to agree to some extent. C. S. Peirce's pragmatic criterion is all about using the consequences of "P" being true to come to a common comprehension of "P" and essentially this gives one much the same thing as a hypothetical falisification criterion: "if P were true, the world would be Q, R, S, T etc.". "onisani" wrote: I am suggesting we should use the word "facts" in the way I suggest. I do so because I think it is useful to make sense of the world. Of course I admit that anyone can use the word whichever way they like. I wouldn't go that far, personally. The important thing in communication is that we have at least a tacit (or indeed usually a subconscious) understanding of the rules of the situation. So, once I know what the rule is for your use of "fact", I know how to interpret your uses of the word. "onisani" wrote: Interesting point about what there is to falsify if nothing can be verified. I think we start out with an observed phenomenon and an explanation given on any possible basis. This explanation eventually gets proven false and is replaced by another. This process goes on until an explanation is found which is not easily proven false. At each stage, the prevailing explanation is called a fact. To illustrate this, think of the history of our view of the solar system. Doesn't my point describe what happened? Throughout the centuries, there has been a succession of facts about the earth and its place in the universe, and each one was held as true as our current one. There is no way for us to be sure we won't be proven wrong, too. But, even if we ultimately turned out to be mistaken in every explanatory exercise we undertook, we still aim at a form of epistemic closure that isn't possible if there aren't processes of verification. Continual attempts at falisfication usually isn't an option: for almost any inquiry, there is a set point where the inquiry must stop and a decision is taken. For example, the technology that got American astronauts to the moon hadn't been subjected to a particularly long period of testing; much of the technology was only few years old. However, the race to the moon set a finite limit on the scope of inquiry and a need for a point of resolution when the technology was decided to be verified, such that NASA scientists could say without fear of blame "If all goes well, this technology could take man to the moon". "onisani" wrote: The earth being the third planet from the sun is not a belief, since it can be falsified in principle. An example of a belief is the existence of god, since god can principally not be proven not to exist. I agree that we need good reasons for accepting a definition of facts and beliefs. Again, I am suggesting one because I think it is useful, not because it is correct, absolute or in-the-world. Definitions are man-made and can be formulated, not discovered. I think it is useful because it is in line with what happens when we seek to understand the world, as describe above. So you use "belief" for cases where falisification isn't possible? Isn't all this idiosyncratic use of terms ultimately a form of begging the question? It does rather put you in a position where, without reverting to the standard uses of the terms, it would be hard to propose arguments against the other side for simple semantic reasons. It's a bit like G. E. Moore with the sceptics: by showing that sceptics used the word "know" differentely from the ordinary use, he showed that none of their arguments challenged the fact that we have knowledge. "onisani" wrote: Nice one about gravity not existing independently, I need to think about that more. My point was that a stone will fall to the ground whether or not someone is there to believe it. On the other hand, if nobody believes stealing is wrong, it isn't. The badness or goodness of stealing don't exist, and even if gravity doesn't either, the stone does. But isn't that due to the fact that, in the case of a moral judgement, the moral judgement is made by an agent; now, we all agree that morality isn't in the equation where there are not agents (just like there is no gravity without mass); therefore if there are no agents in a hypothetical situation, then we can hardly talk about morality at all. But that seems to tell us more about the criteria for when a moral situation can and cannot take place, rather than anything to do with the factivity of moral situations. To take an example from economics: when there is an increase in the money supply, an economy will tend in the long run towards inflation. But if one said "if there were no people using the money, this law would not apply; this law is therefore not factive" then first part would be valid, but the second part is an unsubstantiated inference. The fact that economics deals with economic situations that can take place only where there are people using money does not mean that there are no facts about economics. Provided there are human beings in the world, they will be formulating moral claims. It is an inescapable part of the human condition; it is something manifested in every society across the globe. Furthermore, for something to be a moral claim in the first place (as opposed to another form of normative or descriptive claim) it has to meet certain criteria. That's moral cognitivism right there, without a single unscientific ontological commitment! "onisani" wrote: When I wrote that any belief is arbitrary, I meant that it is entirely based on contingent factors. Everything is based on contingent factors. If a stream can't run forwards, it will run backwards and sideways, but water does run forwards when unobstructed. Nothing is necessary, except arguably in logic, mathematics and other analytic enterprises. "onisani" wrote: Under certain circumstances you would believe child abuse to be ok (some do). that is hard to accept, but think of radically different circumstances. This is true for normative and descriptive beliefs. If the circumstances of a situation are so radically different as to make that law inapplicable, then they reconstitute that law rather than break it. For example, if child abuse was the only way to save the world, then it is true that the value of saving the world takes precedence. A person could hold that without in any way compromising their claim that child abuse was wrong. If I say that pink is closer to red than green on a colour spectrum, I am not committed to the claim that pink is red. "onisani" wrote: I think your definition of a fact as something that either exists or happened is less useful because I could define a belief in the same way. Some people will tell you god exists and adam and eve were the first humans. a useful definition of facts will distinguish facts from beliefs. To what end? In changing your definition of "belief", you have come no closer; also, the fact that you know in the first place what is fit for your new category shows that there was no prior confusion beforehand. No distinction of a belief that is factual and a belief is mistaken can be achieved just by playing with definitions; the categorisation of "facts" and "non-facts" is a social exercise accomplished by empirical activity, not changing definitions. The key rule with the word "belief" is that it is attributed to creatures with psychologies. Within this category of psychological properties, there are is a huge sub-set of different kinds of beliefs (hunches, faiths, postulates, axioms, indubitable beliefs, notions, hopeful beliefs, fearful beliefs, public beliefs, private beliefs etc.) that account for the huge variation of different kinds of psychological state, without having to alter the use of the word "fact" at all. All the tools of demarcation are already there. If one said to a creationist friend- "Using a falsification criterion for the word 'fact', I have decided that your beliefs that Adam and Eve were the first humans is a belief and is therefore not a fact." - they could just say- "Ok, using the words as you do, that may be true. But it is a fact that Adam and Eve were the first humans." - and one is back at square one! "onsani" wrote: Non-falsified (but falsifiable and not verifiable) is identical to true. We have no way of knowing truth directly. How many times have we thought to know the truth just to be proven wrong? This is because we can't have perfect knowledge, so there is always the possibility that things aren't as they seem. My definition of a fact accommodates this by defining facts as non-verifiable, but necessarily falsifiable. Let's take the astronomical proposition that "The only planets of notable size in the Solar system that are beyond the asteroid belt are gas plants". We can imagine how we could falsify that statement, so it meets the falsifiability criterion and is thus true. But let's take the counter-proposition, "There is at least one planet in the Solar system that is beyond the asteroid belt and is not a gas planet". Once again, we can imagine how this could be falsified, so it too meets the falsifiability criterion and is thus true! If they are both true, then one is committed to the proposition "It is true that these planet(s) both exist and it is true that these planet(s) do not exist", which means one is proposing P = Q + ¬Q, which violates the principle of bivalence. Some philosophers have gone down this route (most notably/infamously Georg Hegel) but I wouldn't recommend it: proposition logic has bivalence as an axiom; it's considered a self-evident piece of common sense by the vast majority of people in the world; plus I know quite a few philosophers/students who categorically refuse to even talk to anyone who claims that P can be both Q and ¬Q. "Notable size" here just means Mercury-sized or larger, ie. Pluto doesn't even remotely count. onisani wrote: Past events are tricky. We may disagree about a fact about the past and be unable to falsify our opponent's position. The point is though, we could falsify it in principle, it's just that in practise we lack the evidence. Both positions are therefore facts. Note that the fact is not the thing in the world, but our understanding of it. If that understanding can be falsified in principle but hasn't, it's a fact. It is not useful to call the thing in the world the fact, precisely because it is not verifiable. We can be mistaken in our facts, and we often are. The thing is, as a normative matter of procedure, I'm inclined to agree to some extent. C. S. Peirce's pragmatic criterion is all about using the consequences of "P" being true to come to a common comprehension of "P" and essentially this gives one much the same thing as a hypothetical falisification criterion: "if P were true, the world would be Q, R, S, T etc.". "onisani" wrote: I am suggesting we should use the word "facts" in the way I suggest. I do so because I think it is useful to make sense of the world. Of course I admit that anyone can use the word whichever way they like. I wouldn't go that far, personally. The important thing in communication is that we have at least a tacit (or indeed usually a subconscious) understanding of the rules of the situation. So, once I know what the rule is for your use of "fact", I know how to interpret your uses of the word. "onisani" wrote: Interesting point about what there is to falsify if nothing can be verified. I think we start out with an observed phenomenon and an explanation given on any possible basis. This explanation eventually gets proven false and is replaced by another. This process goes on until an explanation is found which is not easily proven false. At each stage, the prevailing explanation is called a fact. To illustrate this, think of the history of our view of the solar system. Doesn't my point describe what happened? Throughout the centuries, there has been a succession of facts about the earth and its place in the universe, and each one was held as true as our current one. There is no way for us to be sure we won't be proven wrong, too. But, even if we ultimately turned out to be mistaken in every explanatory exercise we undertook, we still aim at a form of epistemic closure that isn't possible if there aren't processes of verification. Continual attempts at falisfication usually isn't an option: for almost any inquiry, there is a set point where the inquiry must stop and a decision is taken. For example, the technology that got American astronauts to the moon hadn't been subjected to a particularly long period of testing; much of the technology was only few years old. However, the race to the moon set a finite limit on the scope of inquiry and a need for a point of resolution when the technology was decided to be verified, such that NASA scientists could say without fear of blame "If all goes well, this technology could take man to the moon". "onisani" wrote: The earth being the third planet from the sun is not a belief, since it can be falsified in principle. An example of a belief is the existence of god, since god can principally not be proven not to exist. I agree that we need good reasons for accepting a definition of facts and beliefs. Again, I am suggesting one because I think it is useful, not because it is correct, absolute or in-the-world. Definitions are man-made and can be formulated, not discovered. I think it is useful because it is in line with what happens when we seek to understand the world, as describe above. So you use "belief" for cases where falisification isn't possible? Isn't all this idiosyncratic use of terms ultimately a form of begging the question? It does rather put you in a position where, without reverting to the standard uses of the terms, it would be hard to propose arguments against the other side for simple semantic reasons. It's a bit like G. E. Moore with the sceptics: by showing that sceptics used the word "know" differentely from the ordinary use, he showed that none of their arguments challenged the fact that we have knowledge. "onisani" wrote: Nice one about gravity not existing independently, I need to think about that more. My point was that a stone will fall to the ground whether or not someone is there to believe it. On the other hand, if nobody believes stealing is wrong, it isn't. The badness or goodness of stealing don't exist, and even if gravity doesn't either, the stone does. But isn't that due to the fact that, in the case of a moral judgement, the moral judgement is made by an agent; now, we all agree that morality isn't in the equation where there are not agents (just like there is no gravity without mass); therefore if there are no agents in a hypothetical situation, then we can hardly talk about morality at all. But that seems to tell us more about the criteria for when a moral situation can and cannot take place, rather than anything to do with the factivity of moral situations. To take an example from economics: when there is an increase in the money supply, an economy will tend in the long run towards inflation. But if one said "if there were no people using the money, this law would not apply; this law is therefore not factive" then first part would be valid, but the second part is an unsubstantiated inference. The fact that economics deals with economic situations that can take place only where there are people using money does not mean that there are no facts about economics. Provided there are human beings in the world, they will be formulating moral claims. It is an inescapable part of the human condition; it is something manifested in every society across the globe. Furthermore, for something to be a moral claim in the first place (as opposed to another form of normative or descriptive claim) it has to meet certain criteria. That's moral cognitivism right there, without a single unscientific ontological commitment! "onisani" wrote: When I wrote that any belief is arbitrary, I meant that it is entirely based on contingent factors. Everything is based on contingent factors. If a stream can't run forwards, it will run backwards and sideways, but water does run forwards when unobstructed. Nothing is necessary, except arguably in logic, mathematics and other analytic enterprises. "onisani" wrote: Under certain circumstances you would believe child abuse to be ok (some do). that is hard to accept, but think of radically different circumstances. This is true for normative and descriptive beliefs. If the circumstances of a situation are so radically different as to make that law inapplicable, then they reconstitute that law rather than break it. For example, if child abuse was the only way to save the world, then it is true that the value of saving the world takes precedence. A person could hold that without in any way compromising their claim that child abuse was wrong. If I say that pink is closer to red than green on a colour spectrum, I am not committed to the claim that pink is red. "onisani" wrote: I think your definition of a fact as something that either exists or happened is less useful because I could define a belief in the same way. Some people will tell you god exists and adam and eve were the first humans. a useful definition of facts will distinguish facts from beliefs. To what end? In changing your definition of "belief", you have come no closer; also, the fact that you know in the first place what is fit for your new category shows that there was no prior confusion beforehand. No distinction of a belief that is factual and a belief is mistaken can be achieved just by playing with definitions; the categorisation of "facts" and "non-facts" is a social exercise accomplished by empirical activity, not changing definitions. The key rule with the word "belief" is that it is attributed to creatures with psychologies. Within this category of psychological properties, there are is a huge sub-set of different kinds of beliefs (hunches, faiths, postulates, axioms, indubitable beliefs, notions, hopeful beliefs, fearful beliefs, public beliefs, private beliefs etc.) that account for the huge variation of different kinds of psychological state, without having to alter the use of the word "fact" at all. All the tools of demarcation are already there. If one said to a creationist friend- "Using a falsification criterion for the word 'fact', I have decided that your beliefs that Adam and Eve were the first humans is a belief and is therefore not a fact." - they could just say- "Ok, using the words as you do, that may be true. But it is a fact that Adam and Eve were the first humans." - and one is back at square one! "onsani" wrote: Non-falsified (but falsifiable and not verifiable) is identical to true. We have no way of knowing truth directly. How many times have we thought to know the truth just to be proven wrong? This is because we can't have perfect knowledge, so there is always the possibility that things aren't as they seem. My definition of a fact accommodates this by defining facts as non-verifiable, but necessarily falsifiable. Let's take the astronomical statement "The only planets of notable size in the Solar system that are beyond the asteroid belt are gas plants". We can imagine how we could falsify that statement, so it meets the falsifiability criterion and is thus true. But let's take the counter-claim, "There is at least one planet in the Solar system that is beyond the asteroid belt and is not a gas planet". Once again, we can imagine how this could be falsified, so it too meets the falsifiability criterion and is thus true! If they are both true, then one is committed to the claim "It is true that these planet(s) both exist and it is true that these planet(s) do not exist", which means one is claiming A = B + ¬B, which violates the principle of bivalence. Some philosophers have gone down this route (most notable "Notable size" here just means Mercury-sized or larger, ie. Pluto doesn't even remotely count. "onsani" wrote: My point about serious debate was just that a statement that nobody bothers to falsify does indeed qualify as a fact under my definition. For a long time, no one proved the medieval anthropocentric worldview to be wrong, and so it remained a fact for centuries. I don't know if the same will be true about your dragon though. Would it be fair to say that you are using an epistemic theory of truth, ie. "If people think that P is true, P is true"? "onsani" wrote: It's a pleasure guys, keep your comments coming. It's a pleasure to be discussing theories that can be sensibly talked about. "onsani" wrote: Also, how do I quote other posts in mine? New to the game... Here's a step-by-step example: I first press the quote button at the top of Bob Smith's post and I get this text- [quote = BobSmith ]Butter goes rancid. Milk goes sour.[ / quote ] (Minus the spaces) To separately quote the two sentences, I would first "close off" the first sentence by typing the bolded text- [quote = BobSmith ]Butter goes rancid.[ / quote ] Milk goes sour.[ / quote ] (Again, minus the spaces) - then I'd type out a copy of the first HTML tag (the bit at the front) at the start of the second sentence, like so- [quote = BobSmith ]Butter goes rancid.[ / quote ] [quote = BobSmith ] Milk goes sour.[ / quote ] (Still no spaces!) - and one could put text between the two sentences. Now, if I was to do it without the spaces and with a click or two of the enter bar to get paragraphs, I would get this- BobSmith wrote: Butter goes rancid. BobSmith wrote: Milk goes sour. -so I could then do this- BobSmith wrote: Butter goes rancid. It certainly does. BobSmith wrote: Milk goes sour. Definitely. Personally, it took me years of practice of long-quotation debates before I got it consistently right and even after all these years it's easy to make mistakes.
Doubt requires a reason to doubt. Nothing is immune from potential doubt. The correct response to a question isn't always to try to give the question's answer.

geekamacker
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jul 08, 2009

Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 1

Posted 07/09/09 - 12:11 AM:	#27
Wow that is alot of replies from a simple first post. The topic is just a thought, it doesnt mean its a belief but rather a short amount of reasonable concetration on a sunject. Ethics change throughout civilizations. Whether its written or spoken, it changes. There is no such thing as a one and only ethic explanation. It always changes depending on what is the situation and all that is around it. For some people, philosophy is just a way to beat around the bush. For others its a way to see things in a diffrent way.

Maxvilly
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 06, 2009

Total Topics: 17
Total Posts: 209

Posted 07/09/09 - 02:45 AM:	#28
xzJoel wrote: Either something is a fact or it isn't. Is this a fact?. xzJoel wrote: I think our problem is the difference between a "fact" and an explanation called a "fact". If we have no explanation for a "fact", how do we then determine how it is a fact? There are mankind truths, and gravitiy and as onisani states is one of them. We can believe anything we want but what we believe could be falsified, as well as true. My best friend believes in Bigfoot. I have yet to see any concret evidence for any bigfoot. A fact and belief to me is that they differ because if I could drag a bigfoot in to anybodies hallway and say "Do you believe me now?" There are certain breaking points to any new facts and reinvented facts. But how do I imagine a fact, I believe this is how we all are different?! The same I had said for me and my bigfoot, me and my association with an imaginary bigfoot will never be equal the same as everybody elses association. So there is little point taken up extra ordinairy concepts to prove any points. Edited by Maxvilly on 07/09/09 - 03:29 AM
I had details here, ones.

Maxvilly
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 06, 2009

Total Topics: 17
Total Posts: 209

Posted 07/09/09 - 03:46 AM:	#29
xzJoel wrote: (Is it a fact that my wife saw me in bed at 6:59 but not at 7:01? Why does her fact have more weight than my fact when determining the falsity of my fact?) The fact could as well have been that your wife saw you in bed at 7:00 and neither of her or you are right on the correct timeframe. The best question you could ask yourself instead of asking why is...How? xzJoel wrote: It seems that most of the things that people would call facts are non-falsifiable because they were temporal happenings How do this "thinges" seems to be temporal? And what are they. Just because you have figured up the "fact" with time moving forward, is this a sound reason that facts have now become "tempora"l. Do you think that? xzJoel wrote: That some alien entity may be able to falsify things that we cannot does not make our factual claims any more or less certain.) This is just a suggestion for some self reflection and not meant harsh as a harsh blow towards you. Our imagination is a wild thing that we better leave out in disscusions and debating...as people we can't know what others are imagining up and it's kind of pointless to argue on examples of "What if's". Edited by Maxvilly on 07/09/09 - 04:06 AM
I had details here, ones.

xzJoel
Bio-clump

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Aug 30, 2005
Location: New Jersey

Total Topics: 32
Total Posts: 842

Posted 07/09/09 - 04:54 AM:	#30
Maxvilly wrote: Is this a fact?. If we have no explanation for a "fact", how do we then determine how it is a fact? That is a question of epistemology, not ontology. By the way, a statement that something is (P v ~P) & ~(P & ~ P) is the foundation of logic as you likely know it. The statement sums up the law of bivalence, the law of the excluded middle, and the law of non-contradiction. If you care to argue with logic, you can take up any of several of my threads in which I am discussing these very rules. So when I say “something is a fact or it isn’t.”, you can rest assured that I am not alleging a fact, but a statement of intellectual reasoning as people know it. If you can think of a third option that makes sense in the English language (or any language) and that is conceptually compelling, go for it. Maxvilly wrote: There are mankind truths, and gravitiy and as onisani states is one of them. We can believe anything we want but what we believe could be falsified, as well as true. Falsifiability relates to whether a statement is true, not whether something occurred. Again, epistemology verses ontology. When you say, “There are mankind truths” you have left the world of ontology. Maxyvilly wrote: My best friend believes in Bigfoot. I have yet to see any concret evidence for any bigfoot. A fact and belief to me is that they differ because if I could drag a bigfoot in to anybodies hallway and say "Do you believe me now?" There are certain breaking points to any new facts and reinvented facts. But how do I imagine a fact, I believe this is how we all are different?! Again, epistemology. How do we know what we know? How can we rest assured that what we know is true? You wish to prove to others you saw something, but dragging Bigfoot before them is not proof that you saw Bigfoot, it is proof that they are seeing Bigfoot. Either you saw Bigfoot or you didn’t. No proof required. Maxvilly wrote: The fact could as well have been that your wife saw you in bed at 7:00 and neither of her or you are right on the correct timeframe. The best question you could ask yourself instead of asking why is...How? How do this "thinges" seems to be temporal? And what are they. Yet again epistemology verses ontology. You are very good at missing the existence aspect of something and focusing on how we can know if it exists. Should you die right now, would things cease to exist because you are incapable of knowing that they exist? Would the world cease to exist if all sentient creatures ceased to exist? Are you advocating that a great mind must be aware/know of all things at all times in order for them to exist? Unless you care to state a relationship between what we know/how we know and what exists, your continued harping on knowledge is not very useful when discussing whether something exists. Maxyville wrote: Just because you have figured up the "fact" with time moving forward, is this a sound reason that facts have now become "tempora"l. Do you think that? What do you think exists that isn’t temporal? Are you suggesting that things don’t move? Are you suggesting that things are now precisely as they were a moment ago and time is mere invention? I am more than happy to discuss whether or not movement is an illusion. You chose where to begin. If you feel like starting with Zeno’s paradoxes, go ahead. Maxvilly wrote: This is just a suggestion for some self reflection and not meant harsh as a harsh blow towards you. Our imagination is a wild thing that we better leave out in disscusions and debating...as people we can't know what others are imagining up and it's kind of pointless to argue on examples of "What if's". So I've reflected. Your blow was minimized greatly by your kind introduction. I am thinking of writing a letter to the various philosophers telling them to stop using their imaginations; hypothetical situations - right out. All of that possible world conversation has got to go. I'll let you know how the philosophical community responds. They got back to me. Their response was not positive. I guess we’ll continue using “what if’s” in science, philosophy, economics, law, or any other conversation in which people wish to not be idiots. Edited by xzJoel on 07/09/09 - 06:18 AM
Make a joyous noise onto the lord... Not a good one, just a joyous one.

Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Sorry, you don't have permission to post. Log in, or register if you haven't yet.