OT - Scientific proof that there is no afterlife!

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
I have no interest in continuing this discussion (and will not respond to such Posts), but will provide some closure... this is from my philosophy text book Thinking Philosophically, by Richard Creel:

"Within philosophy every claim that anyone makes is considered to be an appropriate target for critical investigation by means of reason. What is reason? What does it mean to investigate something by means of reason? That is difficult to say, but it means something like this: taking nothing for granted and asking of every claim, 'What evidence is there for believing it? What arguments are there to support it? Are those arguments strong enough to justify believing it?' Philosophy examines every position and asks what reasons there are for accepting or rejecting it; philosophy allows nothing to be sacrosanct and beyond the pale of rigorous investigation - not even reason itself! In brief, philosophy is the attempt to see what we can know just by depending on ordinary human experience and the powers of the human mind."

(emphasis added)

When ordinary human experience is included in the list of things something depends on, it is not "all logic" nor "ENTIRELY based on logic"; The excerpt you use denies your own thesis.

[ August 22, 2003, 01:53: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Human experience sounds to me like observing the universe for empirical facts, so you have something to philosophise logically about.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Human experience sounds to me like observing the universe for empirical facts, so you have something to philosophise logically about.

Perhaps, but when empirical data gets added to the mix, it is no longer "all logic" nor "ENTIRELY based on logic", which is what I was arguing against. With observations thrown into the mix, it becomes "logic and observations", not "all logic".

[Suicide Junkie]

So, are you saying that you consider the observations part of the philosophy, or did you have something else in mind?
Observations can be used to support a position, but ISTM they hardly provide a reason for believing something else. It is the logic (or whatever alternative you propose) that links the ideas to observations. The observations simply anchor the argument to our reality, rather than say the starwars "universe" or the matrix "universe".

The logic or alternative would be the gist of the philosophizing that philosophers do, as far as I see.

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
So, are you saying that you consider the observations part of the philosophy, or did you have something else in mind?

Yes, but a large part of that is the nature of the observations used. For example, Aristotle routinely cited what people in general seemed to think was right for particular instances to support/refute/move along his own arguments. However, most would agree that such judgements are culturally based, and valid only inside that culture. As those are culturally based, they can't be considered pure logic anymore. Logic is greatly, thouroghly, and widely used, but the position I am arguing against is that logic is all that is used in philosophy.

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

Observations can be used to support a position, but ISTM they hardly provide a reason for believing something else. It is the logic (or whatever alternative you propose) that links the ideas to observations. The observations simply anchor the argument to our reality, rather than say the starwars "universe" or the matrix "universe".

The logic or alternative would be the gist of the philosophizing that philosophers do, as far as I see.

Yes, logic is most of what philosophers do, but it isn't the entirety of philosophy.

[Suicide Junkie]

I'm not clear on the observations as argument you implied there... Could you give an example?

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
I'm not clear on the observations as argument you implied there... Could you give an example?

The one I was specifically thinking of (half-remembered from Philosophy 116 - I've since sold the book back, and can't readily double-check) was a case where Aristotle was discussing the private vs. the public good: justice. He started with a statement along the lines of 'those for whom a ruling is unfavorable will not agree with it'. However, he then says something along the lines of 'well, no, there have been observed instances where the judgement was against someone, but that person agreed the judgement was fair.' Basically, he was pointing out that courts made judgements which, while not in the favor of one or more parties, were still considered fair by all involved; he appeared to be doing this to support an external Version of justice as possible.

However, when it comes down to it, every ethical system philosophy has ever put out makes unproveable assumptions somewhere down the line. For example, Kant, one of the strongest advocates of reason you'll ever find, made such an assumption when determining what has inherent value: reasoning beings. His support for this was basically 'what else could it be?' and a note that essentially every expression of value is of the form 'valuable to' some person. Standing alone, the question defense is decent, but doesn't constitute a proof. The note on expressions of value relating to people is cultural evidence, and only valid inside that culture: an Austrailian aboriginy (spelling?) from a millenia ago might have very different ways of expressing value. Such an argument might not be valid in that culture.