Quine's difficult speech, though irritating, is a superficial problem. However, the logical errors, as pointed out by ben23 ("so to be clear...") back on pg 9, are very disturbing indeed.
Hang on: I was wrong. I am really sorry, if I offended any Quine-fans. I really didn't get his point, but now I do: I've been having problems with sleeping for years. But watching this has solved all my problems. Quine is a Genius! Who needs Valium when you can just listen to this on repeat!
Quine's work is merely boring (and inconsistent). He himself, however, was a despicable human being: ultra-conservative, snobbish and running a campaign against Derrida—claiming that no one in philosophy cares about 'this rubbish'. Yet, he was fully unaware that his efforts undermined the point he was trying to make. If you ask anyone outside a phil. department whether they know Quine, they'll have no clue whom you are talking about. For a good reason. Now I know Quine can't talk either. Great!
I think one reason for Quine's difficulty in speaking is that he is having to instantly simplify very complicated philosophy into a sort of Cliff Notes version for a TV show. This is not an easy thing to do, and in addition he is having to simplify in a manner dictated by the host and not himself.
True, but he doesnt care. He takes what physical theory at face value and tries to square it with the rest of science. There is no issue what physical objects really are. The problem of the mental occures only if it is on top of the physical. The problem with him is that he sometimes labels his ideas a bit drastic
"I will definitely never be able to recommend to follow the extravagant idea that seems to have taken hold of you, which is to fantasize about a universal language." (Francesco Soave, Reflessioni Intorno, 1774)
Rational discussion of the existence or nonexistence of immaterial entities is evidently not possible by our intellects since such discussions always degenerate into paradoxes, contradictions, and inconsistencies.
Just getting clear, are you using the common meaning of 'contradiction' or the technical meaning? If you're using it technically, then you are admitting to it being a necessary and sufficient condition for an entity to be a mind that it is a mathematical entity (i.e. minds = mathematical entities). Is this so?
Regarding Quine's inference from physical events to physical objects, do physical events presuppose physical objects? For instance, if I talk about an event like an eclipse, does that presuppose objects like the sun and the moon and the earth. Also, is this presupposition like an enthymeme and once it is made explicit, does that make the inference valid?
To the others: please make sure you ignore this rather narcissist ben23m reveling in his recent emergence from adolescence by over-estimating his half-education and mimicking pseudo academic lingo. You cannot practice philosophy without a capacity to think and debate logically.
As regards that, I urge you to pay attention to an excellent comment by GaryGeckDotCom below. He says:
"To quote the great logician, Dr Hao Wang (Kurt Gödel's confidant) in his book, Beyond Reductionism (pg 8):...
'...[Quine and Carnap's philosophies] "fail to give an adequate account of logic (or of mathematics ). This , in my opinion , discredits their views in a basic way in the light of the fact that logic is so central for both of them ."
...And he spends most of his book developing this point. I highly recommend it!'
Don't let yourself be fooled by those educated just enough to intimidate others into swallowing their deceptions. Better an upright simpleton.
it's so fucking amazing that they sendt this on tv.. This is how tv should be done if you ask me.. this is real culture and entertainment:) thanx for the upload!
Questions that you can not conceive an answer to are not meaningless... There is always a possibility of an answer, the meaningfulness of that answer is to be determined. Also, just because science can not, at the present stage provide a sufficient explanation for something, does not mean that there is not a sufficient explanation for it. If science has provided a particular explanation for something, it also does not mean that it is the finite one
Magee: So, you mean--really--so to say, really and truly, that it is in fact X that you believe about topic A? That, of topic A, you would say "X" if someone were to ask what you believed about it?
Can anyone explain to me why this supposedly great philosopher doesn't immediately recognize that his own speech 8:02 - 8:32 is obviously self-contradictory ?
Leaving aside a discussion about whether the insistence by physicists mentioned at 9:52 - 10:06 is to be accepted unquestioningly, I do not see how he can then conclude ...-10:22. He is naively pre-supposing that physical laws necessarily imply the primacy of dead objects behaving along those laws. Why ? Physical objects could be patterns within a proto-mental world and hence have a merely nominal existence within that mental realm, and the physical world would still be closed nvrthlss.
@LooksAeterna all your problem with Quine seem to follow from his conception of ontology which is sketched to roughly in here to get the clue. For him for an object to exist, it must be possible to state identity conditions; conditions by which an object can uniquely identified, or by which it can be clearly state whether there is one or more of those things. Mental entities lack these conditions according to him, while for physical object and set they can be stated
@ben23m Hi and thanks, but neither does this answeres my question, nor how he can make this outrageous assumption. He'd better been talking to Heisenberg or his "successor" Hans-Peter Dürr (see my playlist "Philosophie, Physik,...") to see how questionable this is. He seems to be living in the 19th century - as do all materialists.
@LooksAeterna decoherence in quantum mechanics surely a challenge to his view on ontology, but nothing he cannot in principle answer. by the relational properties of elementary particles you could in principle define identity conditions. mental entities including meanings amongst other things, i cannot see how this is done in principle. if you want to challenge his view, i would propose to reject his ontological criterion and propose something superior.
@LooksAeterna the things is about physical entities sense can be made by natural science. Quine strictly follows the best available theory in the special science. that is part of his strict scientific naturalism. though the adoption of abstract entities such as classes makes him a platonist in that field, so he is not materialist in the strict sense. he rather looks out for the minimal ontology (that can be made sense of) necessary to do all of science (and science in a very global sense).
@ben23m You don't get my initial question it seems. The closure of physical theory in no way implies primacy of the measured (the physical). Even if "physical objects" were all just dreams in God's mind, the closure of physical theory could still be preserved. Hence his inference is unwarranted and simply arbitrary.
@LooksAeterna well, might be that i didnt answer you initial question, the reason basically that this not even a question Quine has raised or even tried to answer. no matter whether there is a complete physics or not mental entities fail Quines standards of ontology and they play no reasonable role in total science. that is his claim although not made precise here. If clearcut empirical sense could be made of those entities, he would accept them.
@ben23m "well, might be that i didnt answer you initial question, the reason basically that this not even a question Quine has raised or even tried to answer."
You got that right, buddy, because it was MY question, regarding - as I had pointed out so acribically:
"Leaving aside a discussion about whether the insistence by physicists mentioned at 9:52 - 10:06 is to be accepted unquestioningly, I do not see how he can then conclude ...-10:22."
@LooksAeterna now i see what you are on about. conditional on the acceptance of a physical conceptual scheme closure implies, that only physical entities can interact. given that system is thus closed, it is not possible for non-physical entities to interact or change the course of events. acceptence of this forces you to accept some kind of supervenience hypothesis about higher-order events or entities. I would say this is a rather trivial logical inference after all.
@LooksAeterna you god's mind counter example i guess he would answer with, noting that nothing has changed essentially. The so called physical objects still only interact with one another as closure requires, thus the same consequences hold. yet he would probably add, that used conceptual scheme is a bit awkward in terms of simplicity and elegance and that we should rather try employ occam's razor to get to simpler one, in leaving god out, because doesnt add any explanatory value
@LooksAeterna ok start with application of occam's razor first. it was. I employed it in a context where there are two rival conceptual schemes: one including physical objects as god's dreams and one where physical object are like the plain positis of physics (what ever they are thus). By your assumption both scheme or if you prefer theories satisfy closure. so they don't differ in the relevant outcomes,
@LooksAeterna the observational data would be just the same. in those case a pragmatically minded philosopher of science like Quine would prefer the simpler theory (that one with less ontological commitments). And i would say this is perfectly legitimate, since you don't posit any unwarranted entities, but get rid of those that do not do any work in the topic at issue. Yet occam's razor doesn't play any decisive role in our exchange, i just think you missunderstood my use.
@ben23m "a pragmatically minded philosopher of science like Quine would prefer the simpler theory (that one with less ontological commitments). And i would say this is perfectly legitimate, since you don't posit any unwarranted entities"
Au contraire, mon capitan ! From the POV of an idealist, it is the physical objects which are unwarranted and very, very complicated. If they are all just god's dreams, this would obviously be ontologically much simpler and more elegant. (to be contd)
(contd.) Therefore, it cannot be Occam's Razor which seems to suggest this inverse approach to reality. It appears simpler only if one already assumes the existence of objects as they appear to us - hence the circularity - an assumption easily refuted. For the existence of a mental instance we need not even assume anything because to doubt it proves its presence. Therefore O's R would appear to prescribe idealism.
The common inclination is just politically correct, appeal to popularity.
@LooksAeterna so back to the real issue. I think the disagreement between you and my Quine, falls back to the discussion of identity criteria that legitimate for Quine the reification of physical entities. as i said one possibility to find those in the presumed interaction. given that closure pretty much looks like who i stated it. Yet as you rightly point out this is only thus according some conceptual scheme you chosen before hand.
@LooksAeterna simpliciter for Quine no matter how hard he denies it there is only mathematics. In the passage you are questioning he doesnt commit himself to the existence of physical entities, he only say that if they (whatever they are) exist and closure holds, mental entities have cannot possible interact with them. So to say in loose terminology this is a functionalist claim. What ever satisfies the properties you expect from physical entities, for his purpose are physical entities.
"he only say that if they (whatever they are) exist and closure holds, mental entities have cannot possible interact with them." No no, you are not listening to what he is saying at 10:07 - 10:22, that is far stronger. He is not just descriptively reducing to the physical model but infering a realist ontological and causative closure from descrptive closure, an unwarranted assumption.
(contd.) An analogy would be to say that wave motion is describable without describing the water on which it moves, as there is no "interaction" between the water and its motions as if seperate entities. All wave activity can be described as wave mechanics independent of its medium. But it is obviously fallacious to conclude that the waves are anything else than the water causing every aspect to it. Strictly speaking, "waves" don't exist. Hence you cannot infer wave-self-causation from closure.
@LooksAeterna so back to OR then. i guess it is a question of what is the issue. By assumption the god's dream world is emprically equivalent. If closure now could do what Quine according to you seems to believe, the problem of mental entities despite god's mind would be up again. Understood thus the god hypothesis doesn't add anything useful to the problem and in all fair regard would be disposable.
@ben23m (OR) The "god's dream" world was (obviously) just an example to show that it is by no means an obvious truth that there are mind-independent objects AS AGENTS (this is what Quine explicitly takes for granted in the quotation at issue) corresponding to the phenomena described by physics. There is no need for me to claim such a god in order to argue that OR is not in favor of Quine's (naive) assumption of objects as agents. Alternatively, you might use "god" merely as an (organic) totality
@ben23m (contd. 1 OR) ... of all mental events perceiving phenomena - in keeping with the ocean/wave analgoy. It seems to me rather trivial that it is always assuming less if one just assumes the (irrefutable and necessary) cognizers perceiving phenomena instead of having to assume those same cognizers PLUS an mind independent object corresponding to the cognized phenomena. I don't see how this complicated delusion would add anything pragmatic to the first approach, except the practicality...
@ben23m (contd. 2 OR) ...of saving friction with the established prejudices. It would hence have nothing to do with OR in the scientific sense, it would be a case of licking the boots of the dominant philisters and conventional group pressure.
In the ocean analogy, OR is clearly in favor of there being just the ocean transforming into its formations called waves through intrinsic energies of the water movements and not having to assume the wave-waters PLUS extra objects...
@ben23m (contd. 1 of quote issue)...suddenly the physical objects are agents capable of causation and not merely shorthands for sets of physical events. Is that an underhanded way of smuggling realism into his philosophy or was that just the proverbial momentary lapse of reason in the limelight ?
"as I stated the exact epistemic status of (P2) is a bit unclear to me"
I couldn't agree more !!! In fact, for a natural scientist it isn't even an well defined belief, it is simply the way he works.
@ben23m (contd. 2 of quote issue) (P2) isn't really any assumption but a tautology. Whenever a natural scientist observes an influence it becomes ipso facto physical. That, however, should not lead one into the conclusion that there is no Mother Mary performing a miracle, it just means that Mother Mary would then become a physical object, and the "miracle" becomes a natural phenomenon with as of yet not understood lawfulness. (P2) thus always "holds" tautologically and really means nothing.
@LooksAeterna Ok i think we agree that OR doesnt settle the metaphysical debate being idealism and realism and i never intended it for that purpose. My sole claim was, that even in the god's dream world the problem whether there are other minds despite god's just arises again. In fact I would state that wouldnt even count as a version of mentalism at all, but as stated would be a (slightly unorthodox) physicalism. Outside a Quinian framwork one might refute some versions of aprioi physicalisms
@LooksAeterna " Is that an underhanded way of smuggling realism into his philosophy or was that just the proverbial momentary lapse of reason in the limelight ?"
There is a certain temptation in me to say that is the second, since by all written evidence of Quine you hardly ever find a statement like (C) and it is not totally unlikely that Magee's questions, that are inspired by another tradition in philosophy, move him to be not cautious enough in his formulations.
@LooksAeterna yep, i think we are through with argument as it occurred in this interview. it would be possible to carry on, since I think he brand of physicalism can be made intelligible. the price for this is quite high since you loose lot of everyday speech like talk of agency and propositional attitudes go over board.
There are many points where we could branch off and go on speaking for weeks, but youtube is hardly the best medium to achieve a well structured discussion. The commentary tree doesn't allow unique determination from where a new comment branches off, for one. So it becomes paramount to digress as little as possible.
(C) even contains modal vocabulary that Quine would dismiss with awe and even does so later on in this broadcast. the notions of persons and decisions are even less clear, even for non-Quinians. Not to speak of what activity of a physical object is to mean.
I take all these as evidence from him to having failed at his choice of words.
@ben23m "(P2) thus always "holds" tautologically and really means nothing."
ehm that is an interesting thought, but with Quine I beg to disagree. "p or non-p" is tautology of classical logic. yet it carries with it realist assumptions about how the world is (for some logicians a reason to reject it even). even further in quantum mechanics there are certain statement p for which the tautology doesn't hold. So one could argue that logic, has empirical content
@ben23m ""p or non-p" is [[[only one among many !!!]] tautology of classical logic. yet it carries with it realist assumptions about how the world is"
Not really, it only expresses something about what can be said about the world.
"even further in quantum mechanics there are certain statement p for which the tautology doesn't hold."
Like what ? I think your idea only rests on not well defined statements p like "Light is a wave". QM teaches us that many vague statements simply make no sense.
@LooksAeterna "Not really, it only expresses something about what can be said about the world."
I wont take a stance that disagrees with that ultimately, but one can definitely ask why can it legitimately (ignoring vagueness for a moment) something about the work. A natural answer would be that the world is the that way. If it weren't we would use a different logic, maybe one with an additional truth value. that is to my mind a fairly realist reading of logic after all in metaphysical sense.
@LooksAeterna if you see logic as making epistemological statements, like in the sense to we have good evidence for assenting or dissenting from a particular statement, well then i would (personally) rather do without bivalence and introduce a third truth-value (like "unknown" or something the like) anyway. if you do such manouver in logic understand metaphysically you switch from a realist reading to a rather anti-realist reading, that too me in this context is hardly discernable from an
@LooksAeterna epistemological reading. this amount to saying there simply is no well ordered world to be found, it is always possible that truth in indetermined.strangely all i said seems to square with your comments on my quantum example. So you seem implicitly to accept that bivalence carries an assumption of metaphysical realism (although i would say it is a weak sense after all)
@LooksAeterna now some though about the quantum case. all lot depends on you attitude about vagueness. but in all cases if start like that, the question arises whether there is any non vague statement at all. As you stated earlier the concept of a physical particle gets into trouble by the results of last century physics (that is no trouble for quine, but for some other less naturalist philosophers). given that and that no clear cut sucessor at all, vaguess on the physical state persists and
@LooksAeterna and maybe is unavoidable. but if in this sense vagueness is a fact of nature (i think even for clear cut idealist or anti-realist or what ever it is ok then to speak of a fact of nature (take as nature as studied by science)) then we are force upon to no use bivalence in that cases, thus making the application of it then empirically false.
@LooksAeterna if on the other hand we believe that some notion of particle can be saved, E- Process (the schrödinger evolution) doesnt give us a clear cut answer to where the particle is. Most physicist don't interpret this as an epistemological deficit but as more less metaphysical. if one opts for this option, then there is no fact of the matter where that particle is and this makes bivalence false again, for empirical reasons.
@LooksAeterna to be fair, i personally agree with quine on not seeing the things thus, but if you see them like that tautologies are not empty anymore but can be quite controversial statements after all. it gets relative to interpretations, that i grant easily, but it is not a trivial matter.
@LooksAeterna a mixture of holism, dropping an epistemically contentful analytic/synthetic distinction and a mild realism where in play in my arguments though and that is on what quine relies, and that is what why i questioned the epistemic status of (P2). you make it true by convention, in order to do that you need a strong analytic/synthetic distinction. Quine become famous for dropping exactly this. In that case and with holism on bord this principle can only get justification from ultimately
@LooksAeterna being connected with stimulations of our sensory organs (not that is connected closely with it, but rather the whole of the currently available theory that mediates the access). in that sense it has is non-empty.
@ben23m Excuse me, but as I mentioned before this is not the place for lengthy arguments and even less for digressions for which I generally have no time. So please answer my questions succinctly or not at all:
"p or non-p" is [[[only one among many !!!]] ...carries with it realist assumptions about how the world"
Please justify this claim which I find absurd. Statements made of subjects, objects and temporal predicates only refer to the domain in which such language is rooted, not to QM.
@ben23m (contd. 1) Hence whatever happens in QM is of no consequence to predicate logic. You are emplyoing a completely fallacious assumption that logic has any direct concern for or obligation to reality. It is exclusively concerned with how language and statements work. If the world is not like our haptic language makes it, that is the fault of language, not of logic. Within the realm of the speakable, logic reigns supreme. "p or not-p" is simply necessary to make any sense of the word "not".
@LooksAeterna there is surely a trade-off between the technical space Youtube offers and the the space needed to make my case. since i don't want to back the question it is hard to answer this request with a simple statement. Maybe the shorts way to make my case is to criticise your last statement. well, you make sense of the negation operator by switching the truth value, but that doesnt mean that is needs to be necessarily determinate. It can be an intermediate truth value like "perhap",
@ben23m I am sorry we cannot continue 1. for lack of time on my part, and 2. for a lack of basic logical training on yours. Examples:
"that doesnt mean that is needs to be necessarily determinate. It can be an intermediate truth value like "perhap" "
I didn't make any use of the presence or absence of such a value. not p → not not p → falsum is obviously derivable regardless, as anyone with basic training in logic can see. Since your endless talk about fuzzy logic has no bearing, why repeat ?
@LooksAeterna so you switch from "true" to "perhaps" and not to "false" in case of negation. in this case one can argue that the world is quite different than when employing bivalent logic. I sense our disagreement goes deeper since you seem to assert some solipsistic understanding of language and thereby logic. well, i can only say that i find this view implausible, or better not useful at all, since would bare the possibility of really talking about what is really the case.
@ben23m (contd. 1, example) "you seem to assert some solipsistic understanding of language and thereby logic. " This of course is the height of nuisance, bordering on rudeness. I never asserted such a thing. Please go back and read carefully before rsponding again impulsively. I recommend you spend a few semesters at the department of logic in the mathematical institute at your local University. It just isn't the job of logic to provide the connection to reality. ...
@ben23m (contd. 2, example) It's job is to provide correct inferences relative to a set of axioms the semantics of which is the nexus to a theory of whatever kind. No where is there a solipsistic suggestion. Whether the theory makes sense or not or is relevant to reality is simply of no concern to the logic. That is the job of the theory. If it involves nonsensical statements, tough, but not a logician's problem.
You replies suggest serious lack of understanding of what "logic" means.
@ben23m (contd. 3 example) So if you cannot succinctly demonstrate how "not p → not not p → falsum" supposedly implies realist assumptions (bwaha, good luck !) I consider the endless discussion finished already.
"
Please make sure you have read through ALL that I have written (including the comment BEFORE "(contd. 3 example)" and sleep at least one night before you give in to the temptation to follow the impulse to reply. I am starting to lose my patience here.
@LooksAeterna a minmal correspondence from language to reality must be granted to even state the disagreement otherwise it is hard to even discuss in a mildly rational manner and philosophy would be pointless. And yes of course this must begin somewhere and logic is just the right place in my mind (where else?), since essential notions as truth, reference and fulfillment start here. By the most natural reading of existenial quantor you have a notion of existence, thus i wouldnt call it
@LooksAeterna it is mildly funny composure, yet only mildly. I finally have to agree with you in one thing: it truly is impossible to carry on. As you probably expect, for different reasons. yet i am a bit befuddledthat you seem rather unaware of great philosophic debates on logic that are on. yes, was asking from around chose you logic scenario not from with PL1 scenario. On last thing, if all this causes some much nerve, don't engage in philosophic debate. So long :P
@ben23m What unnerves me is not the phillosophical, but evasions, endless diversions and arrogance based on ignorance. You ended up doing exactly what I had expected from the beginning: dilute the essential points as much as possible and engage in rhetoric smear rabulistics in a not so subtle attempt of attacking the messenger while evading the point (like answering my question regarding your unfounded claims).
THIS, not true philosophy unnerves me which I had hasked you to stop several times.
@LooksAeterna a fallicous assumption to start here with metaphysics. If you disagree, you owe me an account of what I shall make of existential quantification, and why the standard reading persists in most logic textbooks dealing with classical logic.
@LooksAeterna in other regard as fundamental decision between an idealism or a realism, OR is blunt surely. But yet pragmatism would advise us to not get too early into that question, also since ultimately and that could very well be a Quinian Theorem, those questions aren't determinate in the sense, that we can find a suitable answer. I think those that things weren't at issue in the god's dream vs. plain scheme case, although i expect you to disagree on this.
@LooksAeterna ok so, since to avoid further unnecessary misunderstanding i transcribe the relevant passage.
"...at the same time the natural scientist, the physicist insists on a closed system. There being physical causes, physical explanations in principle for physical events. They allow no place for incursion of influences of outside the physical world. Given all this, it would seem a person's decisions must themselves be activity on the part of a physical object."
@LooksAeterna so to be clear, what you ultimately doubt is the inference from "They allow no place for incursion of influences of outside the physical world"(P2) in conjunction with "There being physical causes, physical explanations in principle for physical events." (P1) to " a person's decisions must themselves be activity on the part of a physical object." (C).
@LooksAeterna an a first note neither (P1) nor (P2) carry with them an ontological commitment to physical objects at all. He rather commits to physical events. So taken thus the inference indeed is not sound, since in (C) he commits to physical object, which didn't appear in the premises. For other work of Quine it is clear though he takes sets of physical events to be his physical objects (that is what i was always trying to point out).
@LooksAeterna this might seems rather arbitrary, but that is what he does and has been criticized for it by physicalists, since Quinces physical object dont ressemble our commonsense physical objects that much. considering this legitimate, his inference goes through.
But I guess this still doesn't answer you doubts, for i think you doubt (P2) already.
@LooksAeterna as I stated the exact epistemic status of (P2) is a bit unclear to me, as is by the way your use of the word 'descriptive'. But maybe it is the indeed the same issue.
I take (P1) to be a statement of what you call descriptive closure, despite Quine missing out an 'all' in front of "physical events". My understanding of (P1) would then boil down to that possibly we can give 'explanations' to the phenomena in the physical domain restricting our vocabulary to employ
@LooksAeterna physical terms plus mathematics. All the relevant interactions can be captured in those restricted terms. interpreting it thus, (P2) becomes a principle of economy for language. Since we can get around with a purely physical language, there is no need to add terms of a fundamentally different nature and in fact it should be avoided. This doesn't forbid to form new terms and expressions within this language to get abreavintions,
@LooksAeterna but without a doubt, one can doubt closure after all, since at least for me it is unclear what the epistemic status of this hypothesis amounts to.
"closure implies, that only physical entities can interact."
Not really, it simply means that the descriptive model is closed. To be thus closed doesn't require those physical objects to even exist, let alone be agents. It just means that all the phenomena are described in terms of their physical apperances and will enter such interactions only as such.
(contd.) To say "I shot the Sheriff" would translate into kinetic equations no matter how you slice it. So even if Sheriff, gun and bodies may not exist at all except as a kind of desktop imagery in your mind, the descriptive model would be closed as if ONLY the imagery existed as concrete obejcts in the naive sense of 19th century physics.
Hence, closure does not allow this inference. Also, appeal to Occam's razor here is circular since realism regarding objects is assumed and not granted.
@LooksAeterna actually, if taken at face value Quine is not even a materialist. as a result of his ontological relativity all science is in principle translatable qua proxy functions to set theory. thus actually he is himself committed to an ontology consisting only numbers and thus would rightly be called a pythagorean.
@LooksAeterna Because he,like all the other modern-day so-called "philosophers",(Searle,Rorty,etc.)doesn't really have anything of real substance or meaning to add to what the true philosophers of the past already said
Yeah,right!!!! Golly,I guess I'd better get busy,and give you a quick and comprehensive synopsis of the past 2,000+years.Try Socrates,Platon,Aristotle.How about Spinoza?Go to your local library.To hell with the bookstores,just a bunch of shite.Good luck!
@watayapupuya i was just asking for theory that has not at least been made more intelligible by recent generations of philosophers. If I go through Aristotle's Metaphysic I find a lot of gibberish that is not really made to work with the knowledge we gain on science recently. What is done today is mostly clearing up, what we cannot make sense off with the old blokes.
Although concede that Rorty and Searle really don't make the best impression on current day philosophy.
There's no contradiction. Quine immediately clarifies his point; mathematical objects, in his mind, are no more than definable sets of some model of "reality". It's a subtle point (with a lot of background from the theory of quantification).
@phatmastafunk "There's no contradiction. Quine immediately clarifies his point; mathematical objects, in his mind, are no more than definable sets..."
I am afraid this doesn't clarify anything whatsoever. It just begs the question, and saying "It's a subtle point" is a lame excuse for appealing to some "mystery" that is really an inconsistency. Since a set is not a physical object nor one of its activities, it cannot exist. There isn't even "activity" or anything complex in pure physicality.
I don't think you understand what a definable set is. Quite simply, a definable set is the quantifiable (in a particular context) - so to speak of physical objects we must first assume the existence of a range of quantification (i.e. a definable set). This is where Quine's idea of abstract objects of mathematics as the activity of (our models of) physical objects is justified.
It's not exactly a subtle point; that was meant as consolation for missing the painfully obvious.
@phatmastafunk "I don't think you understand what a definable set is."
What makes you assume this ? Besides my argument for Quine's inconsistency should be rather independent of that.
"to speak of physical objects we must first assume the existence of a range of quantification"
Do photons worry about that ? That abstracts seem desirable is hardly a justification for using them in a framework which makes them a priori impossible. His sets would have to be properties of mindless objects. Bunk.
@phatmastafunk (contd.) and please lest we waste further time: please think BEFORE you write.
"Do photons worry about that ?"
You will likely try to retort with Quine: "no but we do", however humans, brains, yes even cells, molecules and atoms are already constructs, hence abstractions and hence cannot be their source. Form a purely physical POV, there obviously are no constructs because they are simplifications. Physical reality does not contain them. There is no "table" or "brain" there.
@LooksAeterna You're misunderstanding Quine's position. Of course scientific "objects" are constructs, there's no doubt about that - hence Quine's equation of the physical construct with the mathematical.
You've not only assumed that Quine holds the physicalist thesis, but have also assumed that he believes that physical constructs and their affiliations (the mathematical) are in complete correspondence (i.e. may be used interchangeably) with the objects of "reality" (whatever that is).
No I am not, but you are the one who apparently doesn't understand my point, nor are you apparently familiar with what "physical" means, and I do not mean etymologically.
"Of course scientific "objects" are constructs"
I didn't misunderstand this at all. Since you are apparently among the many people too good to read properly before commenting, I would kindly ask you to drop the academic hybris and be a philosopher instead (contd.)
@phatmastafunk So instead of retorting anew, I'll just repeat what I said in an earlier comment of mine on this very video. Please contemplate your retort thoroughly before writing:
"You don't get my initial question it seems. The closure of physical theory in no way implies primacy of the measured (the physical). Even if "physical objects" were all just dreams in God's mind, the closure of physical theory could still be preserved. Hence his inference is unwarranted and simply arbitrary."
@phatmastafunk (contd. 2) "Of course scientific "objects" are constructs"
Just making sure you do not repeat the previous misunderstanding, therefore a hint: physical closure does not even mean that physical objects have ANY causative power or that they even exist except as concepts. It just means that any cause of their behavior would enter the physical description only again as relations between those physical objects. Therefore closure does not guarantee physical objects the power to act !
"You've not only assumed that Quine holds the physicalist thesis"
It takes me a while everytime to realize how whacky the responses are. I have never ascribed this position to Quine, but rather I explicitly said in my original comments here:
"LEAVING ASIDE a discussion about whether the insistence BY PHYISICISTS [not Quine !] mentioned at 9:52 - 10:06 is to be accepted unquestioningly"
I was criticizing his fallacious inference from there.
@LooksAeterna Right. Clearly you're deliberately circumventing the point. Speaking down to those that disagree with you while repeating trivial philosophical points (closure doesn't imply action w.r.t. physical objects etc.), mistaking physicists for physicalists and emptily declaring "nobody understands me!" isn't debate. Sorry, I'm done with this rubbish. You can continue discussing with your word processor, if you'd like.
@phatmastafunk Before you make another attempt at rhetorical character assassination empty of arguments: have you even ever closely listened to the passages my original comments were about ? That is either 8:02 - 8:32 or 9:52 - 10:06 in conjunction with -10:22 ?
Methinks, anyone who has could not have so persistently twisted what I was saying. Now either you will control your emotions and be a precise enough to follow my argument or you are not qualified for any reasonable discussion.
@LooksAeterna I must agree with phatmastafunk. LooksAeterna presents little by way of debate and instead persists in vitriol and insult. I have had an exchange with the zealot for abstracta and he presented nothing but base legerdemain.
@Paraconsistant This is just gossip, appeal to group pressure and some sort of philistine "proof by convention". Either you have an argument or please leave the reader alone. Backbiting for lost debates is not convincing at least to intelligent readers.
@Paraconsistant It seems you don't know what a proof is, and irrationality because I demand a rational argument instead of personal attacks on me ? Is your boss Cass Sunstein ?
Anyway, back to the original point which remains with rational answer thus far:
"Can anyone explain to me why this supposedly great philosopher doesn't immediately recognize that his own speech 8:02 - 8:32 is obviously self-contradictory ?"
Leaving aside a discussion about whether the insistence by physicists mentioned at 9:52 - 10:06 is to be accepted unquestioningly, I do not see how he can then conclude ...-10:22. He is naively pre-supposing that physical laws necessarily imply the primacy of dead objects behaving along those laws. Why ? Physical objects could be patterns within a proto-mental world and hence have a merely nominal existence within that mental realm, and the physical world would still be closed nvrthlss.
Leaving your unnecessary ad hominems relatively untouched, this argument is entirely nullified. Perhaps you ought to read into physicalist theory before objecting; Quinean physicalism does not maintain the validity (that is, the "correct" correspondence with reality) of its observations with your so-called "physical reality".
I think Quine pointed out telling shortcomings of logic which precluded any 'adequate account of logic'
Quine's views on logic are curious. Quine was a great logician so presumably he was a lover of logic. And yet his destruction of the analytic/synthetic distinction discredited the realm of the analytic which was the main work area of the logicians, himself included.
@Thinkingbeingone I'm glad you added those points to the discussion, but like i said Wang spends most of the book making the argument, and Dr. Wang knew these men intimately...he does not gloss over the excellent points you raise even though i am here...
But as much as I think Quine is wrong, I don't think he's an idiot. He is not the world's best communicator. His books come across much clearer...but in my videos I always take the moment here and there to point out where i think he's wrong ;)
To quote the great logician, Dr Hao Wang (Kurt Gödel's confidant) in his book, Beyond Reductionism (pg 8):
[Quine and Carnap's philosophies] "fail to give an adequate account of logic (or of mathematics ). This , in my opinion , discredits their views in a basic way in the light of the fact that logic is so central for both of them ."
...And he spends most of his book developing this point. I highly recommend it!
Quine is mainly a language philosopher. His problem with the 'why existence' question is not just the science or religious aspects of it, but with the meaning of the question in the language in which the question is expressed. The question may not have a coherent meaning in its language or one may go round and round in the language trying to find answer.
Many collections and antologies include Quine in areas such as "ontology" and "metaphysics". I think that adequate sections for him are "ideology" and "physics".
Plato's Academy famously bore the plaque "Let None Ignorant of Geometry Enter Here". Would not Plato perceive Poincare as more of a philosopher than Hegel?
Once one understands the sense of this, analytic philosophy seems a repetitive title.
Committing himself to the real existence of things like numbers was always one of the more permeable parts of his philosophy and never fit comfortably with his broader naturalist epistemology.
Still one of my favorite philosophers of all time.
The last moment of the clip amazes me in that Quine, with all of his brilliance, comes across as being suddenly dogmatic, and philosophically arbitrary in the extreme when he articulates his view of the necessary presumption of materialism.
@lourak It would be inconsistent with Quine's naturalism to not take a materialist position. If philosophy is to be continuous with science, you are committed to the methodological presuppositions of science which includes materialism (as well as naturalism too). Quine's materialism is simply the logical result of his naturalism which goes back to his 1951 paper called "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" which broke the analytic-synthetic division; allowing natural science to enter into philosophy.
a couple of reasons: 1) the success of the empirical sciences 2) ontological parsimony 3) the general irreconcilability of the interaction problems between matter and the mental...
Quine's difficult speech, though irritating, is a superficial problem. However, the logical errors, as pointed out by ben23 ("so to be clear...") back on pg 9, are very disturbing indeed.
Thinkingbeingone 2 weeks ago
Hang on: I was wrong. I am really sorry, if I offended any Quine-fans. I really didn't get his point, but now I do: I've been having problems with sleeping for years. But watching this has solved all my problems. Quine is a Genius! Who needs Valium when you can just listen to this on repeat!
MuteAndContinue 4 weeks ago
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Quine's work is merely boring (and inconsistent). He himself, however, was a despicable human being: ultra-conservative, snobbish and running a campaign against Derrida—claiming that no one in philosophy cares about 'this rubbish'. Yet, he was fully unaware that his efforts undermined the point he was trying to make. If you ask anyone outside a phil. department whether they know Quine, they'll have no clue whom you are talking about. For a good reason. Now I know Quine can't talk either. Great!
MuteAndContinue 4 weeks ago
Comment removed
MuteAndContinue 4 weeks ago
get that man a lozenge!!
jjbrewer1 2 months ago
Too many people judge a person's intellignece or intellectual contribution to a field by his speaking ability. Quine is a giant in philosophy.
QMPhilosophe 3 months ago
I think one reason for Quine's difficulty in speaking is that he is having to instantly simplify very complicated philosophy into a sort of Cliff Notes version for a TV show. This is not an easy thing to do, and in addition he is having to simplify in a manner dictated by the host and not himself.
Thinkingbeingone 3 months ago
Could there be a more boring interview? i think not... courtesy of st. andrews university student body
legendblair 4 months ago
True, but he doesnt care. He takes what physical theory at face value and tries to square it with the rest of science. There is no issue what physical objects really are. The problem of the mental occures only if it is on top of the physical. The problem with him is that he sometimes labels his ideas a bit drastic
ben23m 5 months ago
A good philosopher is not necessarily a good talker. Read his book rather than watching this interview.
ivanoschen 6 months ago 8
@ivanoschen It has to be said, his prose is pretty dry aswell. But philosopher's aren't stylists, he destroys modality regardless of aesthetics.
craigpsimpson 5 months ago 3
@craigpsimpson His prose is as dry as it shall be.
ivanoschen 5 months ago
@craigpsimpson I think what you mean to say, is that stylists are not philosophers.
HumanActivitySystem 1 month ago
"I will definitely never be able to recommend to follow the extravagant idea that seems to have taken hold of you, which is to fantasize about a universal language." (Francesco Soave, Reflessioni Intorno, 1774)
CaptainBluebear08 6 months ago
Rational discussion of the existence or nonexistence of immaterial entities is evidently not possible by our intellects since such discussions always degenerate into paradoxes, contradictions, and inconsistencies.
Thinkingbeingone 7 months ago
@Thinkingbeingone
so, most adequate intellects.
CaptainBluebear08 6 months ago
Just getting clear, are you using the common meaning of 'contradiction' or the technical meaning? If you're using it technically, then you are admitting to it being a necessary and sufficient condition for an entity to be a mind that it is a mathematical entity (i.e. minds = mathematical entities). Is this so?
xxpyroxx243 7 months ago
Regarding Quine's inference from physical events to physical objects, do physical events presuppose physical objects? For instance, if I talk about an event like an eclipse, does that presuppose objects like the sun and the moon and the earth. Also, is this presupposition like an enthymeme and once it is made explicit, does that make the inference valid?
Thinkingbeingone 8 months ago
To the others: please make sure you ignore this rather narcissist ben23m reveling in his recent emergence from adolescence by over-estimating his half-education and mimicking pseudo academic lingo. You cannot practice philosophy without a capacity to think and debate logically.
As regards that, I urge you to pay attention to an excellent comment by GaryGeckDotCom below. He says:
"To quote the great logician, Dr Hao Wang (Kurt Gödel's confidant) in his book, Beyond Reductionism (pg 8):...
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna (contd. GaryGeckDotCom)
'...[Quine and Carnap's philosophies] "fail to give an adequate account of logic (or of mathematics ). This , in my opinion , discredits their views in a basic way in the light of the fact that logic is so central for both of them ."
...And he spends most of his book developing this point. I highly recommend it!'
Don't let yourself be fooled by those educated just enough to intimidate others into swallowing their deceptions. Better an upright simpleton.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
Bryan Magee is the best interviewer I've ever seen.
menonfire12 11 months ago
it's so fucking amazing that they sendt this on tv.. This is how tv should be done if you ask me.. this is real culture and entertainment:) thanx for the upload!
Cochmazh 11 months ago
Questions that you can not conceive an answer to are not meaningless... There is always a possibility of an answer, the meaningfulness of that answer is to be determined. Also, just because science can not, at the present stage provide a sufficient explanation for something, does not mean that there is not a sufficient explanation for it. If science has provided a particular explanation for something, it also does not mean that it is the finite one
zhenyame 1 year ago
General form of this interview:
Magee: What do you think about topic A?
Quine: I believe X about topic A.
Magee: So, you mean--really--so to say, really and truly, that it is in fact X that you believe about topic A? That, of topic A, you would say "X" if someone were to ask what you believed about it?
Quine: That's right.
kingdomleaf 1 year ago 17
Comment removed
Thinkingbeingone 1 year ago
Can anyone explain to me why this supposedly great philosopher doesn't immediately recognize that his own speech 8:02 - 8:32 is obviously self-contradictory ?
LooksAeterna 1 year ago 14
(contd.)
Leaving aside a discussion about whether the insistence by physicists mentioned at 9:52 - 10:06 is to be accepted unquestioningly, I do not see how he can then conclude ...-10:22. He is naively pre-supposing that physical laws necessarily imply the primacy of dead objects behaving along those laws. Why ? Physical objects could be patterns within a proto-mental world and hence have a merely nominal existence within that mental realm, and the physical world would still be closed nvrthlss.
LooksAeterna 1 year ago 9
@LooksAeterna
I agree with you. I can not see how he could come to this argument.
deductionism 1 year ago 2
@LooksAeterna all your problem with Quine seem to follow from his conception of ontology which is sketched to roughly in here to get the clue. For him for an object to exist, it must be possible to state identity conditions; conditions by which an object can uniquely identified, or by which it can be clearly state whether there is one or more of those things. Mental entities lack these conditions according to him, while for physical object and set they can be stated
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m Hi and thanks, but neither does this answeres my question, nor how he can make this outrageous assumption. He'd better been talking to Heisenberg or his "successor" Hans-Peter Dürr (see my playlist "Philosophie, Physik,...") to see how questionable this is. He seems to be living in the 19th century - as do all materialists.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna decoherence in quantum mechanics surely a challenge to his view on ontology, but nothing he cannot in principle answer. by the relational properties of elementary particles you could in principle define identity conditions. mental entities including meanings amongst other things, i cannot see how this is done in principle. if you want to challenge his view, i would propose to reject his ontological criterion and propose something superior.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna the things is about physical entities sense can be made by natural science. Quine strictly follows the best available theory in the special science. that is part of his strict scientific naturalism. though the adoption of abstract entities such as classes makes him a platonist in that field, so he is not materialist in the strict sense. he rather looks out for the minimal ontology (that can be made sense of) necessary to do all of science (and science in a very global sense).
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m You don't get my initial question it seems. The closure of physical theory in no way implies primacy of the measured (the physical). Even if "physical objects" were all just dreams in God's mind, the closure of physical theory could still be preserved. Hence his inference is unwarranted and simply arbitrary.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna well, might be that i didnt answer you initial question, the reason basically that this not even a question Quine has raised or even tried to answer. no matter whether there is a complete physics or not mental entities fail Quines standards of ontology and they play no reasonable role in total science. that is his claim although not made precise here. If clearcut empirical sense could be made of those entities, he would accept them.
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m "well, might be that i didnt answer you initial question, the reason basically that this not even a question Quine has raised or even tried to answer."
You got that right, buddy, because it was MY question, regarding - as I had pointed out so acribically:
"Leaving aside a discussion about whether the insistence by physicists mentioned at 9:52 - 10:06 is to be accepted unquestioningly, I do not see how he can then conclude ...-10:22."
I wasn't eager - at this point - to digress.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna now i see what you are on about. conditional on the acceptance of a physical conceptual scheme closure implies, that only physical entities can interact. given that system is thus closed, it is not possible for non-physical entities to interact or change the course of events. acceptence of this forces you to accept some kind of supervenience hypothesis about higher-order events or entities. I would say this is a rather trivial logical inference after all.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna you god's mind counter example i guess he would answer with, noting that nothing has changed essentially. The so called physical objects still only interact with one another as closure requires, thus the same consequences hold. yet he would probably add, that used conceptual scheme is a bit awkward in terms of simplicity and elegance and that we should rather try employ occam's razor to get to simpler one, in leaving god out, because doesnt add any explanatory value
ben23m 9 months ago
(contd.) Re the desktop imagery, I recommend this article by Donald D. Hoffman: "The Interface Theory of Perception":
cogsci. uci. edu/ ~ddhoff/ interface. pdf
cogsci. uci. edu/ ~ddhoff/ HoffmanPubs. html
Remove spaces. Enjoy and have a laugh !
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna ok start with application of occam's razor first. it was. I employed it in a context where there are two rival conceptual schemes: one including physical objects as god's dreams and one where physical object are like the plain positis of physics (what ever they are thus). By your assumption both scheme or if you prefer theories satisfy closure. so they don't differ in the relevant outcomes,
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna the observational data would be just the same. in those case a pragmatically minded philosopher of science like Quine would prefer the simpler theory (that one with less ontological commitments). And i would say this is perfectly legitimate, since you don't posit any unwarranted entities, but get rid of those that do not do any work in the topic at issue. Yet occam's razor doesn't play any decisive role in our exchange, i just think you missunderstood my use.
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m "a pragmatically minded philosopher of science like Quine would prefer the simpler theory (that one with less ontological commitments). And i would say this is perfectly legitimate, since you don't posit any unwarranted entities"
Au contraire, mon capitan ! From the POV of an idealist, it is the physical objects which are unwarranted and very, very complicated. If they are all just god's dreams, this would obviously be ontologically much simpler and more elegant. (to be contd)
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
(contd.) Therefore, it cannot be Occam's Razor which seems to suggest this inverse approach to reality. It appears simpler only if one already assumes the existence of objects as they appear to us - hence the circularity - an assumption easily refuted. For the existence of a mental instance we need not even assume anything because to doubt it proves its presence. Therefore O's R would appear to prescribe idealism.
The common inclination is just politically correct, appeal to popularity.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna so back to the real issue. I think the disagreement between you and my Quine, falls back to the discussion of identity criteria that legitimate for Quine the reification of physical entities. as i said one possibility to find those in the presumed interaction. given that closure pretty much looks like who i stated it. Yet as you rightly point out this is only thus according some conceptual scheme you chosen before hand.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna simpliciter for Quine no matter how hard he denies it there is only mathematics. In the passage you are questioning he doesnt commit himself to the existence of physical entities, he only say that if they (whatever they are) exist and closure holds, mental entities have cannot possible interact with them. So to say in loose terminology this is a functionalist claim. What ever satisfies the properties you expect from physical entities, for his purpose are physical entities.
ben23m 9 months ago
(contd.) Interesting: Quine as Platonist ?
"he only say that if they (whatever they are) exist and closure holds, mental entities have cannot possible interact with them." No no, you are not listening to what he is saying at 10:07 - 10:22, that is far stronger. He is not just descriptively reducing to the physical model but infering a realist ontological and causative closure from descrptive closure, an unwarranted assumption.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
(contd.) An analogy would be to say that wave motion is describable without describing the water on which it moves, as there is no "interaction" between the water and its motions as if seperate entities. All wave activity can be described as wave mechanics independent of its medium. But it is obviously fallacious to conclude that the waves are anything else than the water causing every aspect to it. Strictly speaking, "waves" don't exist. Hence you cannot infer wave-self-causation from closure.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna so back to OR then. i guess it is a question of what is the issue. By assumption the god's dream world is emprically equivalent. If closure now could do what Quine according to you seems to believe, the problem of mental entities despite god's mind would be up again. Understood thus the god hypothesis doesn't add anything useful to the problem and in all fair regard would be disposable.
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m (OR) The "god's dream" world was (obviously) just an example to show that it is by no means an obvious truth that there are mind-independent objects AS AGENTS (this is what Quine explicitly takes for granted in the quotation at issue) corresponding to the phenomena described by physics. There is no need for me to claim such a god in order to argue that OR is not in favor of Quine's (naive) assumption of objects as agents. Alternatively, you might use "god" merely as an (organic) totality
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 1 OR) ... of all mental events perceiving phenomena - in keeping with the ocean/wave analgoy. It seems to me rather trivial that it is always assuming less if one just assumes the (irrefutable and necessary) cognizers perceiving phenomena instead of having to assume those same cognizers PLUS an mind independent object corresponding to the cognized phenomena. I don't see how this complicated delusion would add anything pragmatic to the first approach, except the practicality...
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 2 OR) ...of saving friction with the established prejudices. It would hence have nothing to do with OR in the scientific sense, it would be a case of licking the boots of the dominant philisters and conventional group pressure.
In the ocean analogy, OR is clearly in favor of there being just the ocean transforming into its formations called waves through intrinsic energies of the water movements and not having to assume the wave-waters PLUS extra objects...
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 2 OR) ...which act as agents that force the waters into forms.
So much for OR even though I concur that it isn't central to our debate.
Re the quote: "neither (P1) nor (P2) carry with them an ontological commitment to physical objects [as agents !] at all."
I concur and have no issue here.
"So taken thus the inference indeed is not sound, since in (C) he commits to physical object [as agents !], which didn't appear in the premises."
Exactly, you finally got me. Suddenly,...
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 1 of quote issue)...suddenly the physical objects are agents capable of causation and not merely shorthands for sets of physical events. Is that an underhanded way of smuggling realism into his philosophy or was that just the proverbial momentary lapse of reason in the limelight ?
"as I stated the exact epistemic status of (P2) is a bit unclear to me"
I couldn't agree more !!! In fact, for a natural scientist it isn't even an well defined belief, it is simply the way he works.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 2 of quote issue) (P2) isn't really any assumption but a tautology. Whenever a natural scientist observes an influence it becomes ipso facto physical. That, however, should not lead one into the conclusion that there is no Mother Mary performing a miracle, it just means that Mother Mary would then become a physical object, and the "miracle" becomes a natural phenomenon with as of yet not understood lawfulness. (P2) thus always "holds" tautologically and really means nothing.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna Ok i think we agree that OR doesnt settle the metaphysical debate being idealism and realism and i never intended it for that purpose. My sole claim was, that even in the god's dream world the problem whether there are other minds despite god's just arises again. In fact I would state that wouldnt even count as a version of mentalism at all, but as stated would be a (slightly unorthodox) physicalism. Outside a Quinian framwork one might refute some versions of aprioi physicalisms
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna maybe, but i am not sure at the moment.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna " Is that an underhanded way of smuggling realism into his philosophy or was that just the proverbial momentary lapse of reason in the limelight ?"
There is a certain temptation in me to say that is the second, since by all written evidence of Quine you hardly ever find a statement like (C) and it is not totally unlikely that Magee's questions, that are inspired by another tradition in philosophy, move him to be not cautious enough in his formulations.
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m OK , thanks for the exchange. Let's consider that settled for now.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna yep, i think we are through with argument as it occurred in this interview. it would be possible to carry on, since I think he brand of physicalism can be made intelligible. the price for this is quite high since you loose lot of everyday speech like talk of agency and propositional attitudes go over board.
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m "it would be possible to carry on".
There are many points where we could branch off and go on speaking for weeks, but youtube is hardly the best medium to achieve a well structured discussion. The commentary tree doesn't allow unique determination from where a new comment branches off, for one. So it becomes paramount to digress as little as possible.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
(C) even contains modal vocabulary that Quine would dismiss with awe and even does so later on in this broadcast. the notions of persons and decisions are even less clear, even for non-Quinians. Not to speak of what activity of a physical object is to mean.
I take all these as evidence from him to having failed at his choice of words.
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m "(P2) thus always "holds" tautologically and really means nothing."
ehm that is an interesting thought, but with Quine I beg to disagree. "p or non-p" is tautology of classical logic. yet it carries with it realist assumptions about how the world is (for some logicians a reason to reject it even). even further in quantum mechanics there are certain statement p for which the tautology doesn't hold. So one could argue that logic, has empirical content
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m ""p or non-p" is [[[only one among many !!!]] tautology of classical logic. yet it carries with it realist assumptions about how the world is"
Not really, it only expresses something about what can be said about the world.
"even further in quantum mechanics there are certain statement p for which the tautology doesn't hold."
Like what ? I think your idea only rests on not well defined statements p like "Light is a wave". QM teaches us that many vague statements simply make no sense.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna "Not really, it only expresses something about what can be said about the world."
I wont take a stance that disagrees with that ultimately, but one can definitely ask why can it legitimately (ignoring vagueness for a moment) something about the work. A natural answer would be that the world is the that way. If it weren't we would use a different logic, maybe one with an additional truth value. that is to my mind a fairly realist reading of logic after all in metaphysical sense.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna if you see logic as making epistemological statements, like in the sense to we have good evidence for assenting or dissenting from a particular statement, well then i would (personally) rather do without bivalence and introduce a third truth-value (like "unknown" or something the like) anyway. if you do such manouver in logic understand metaphysically you switch from a realist reading to a rather anti-realist reading, that too me in this context is hardly discernable from an
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna epistemological reading. this amount to saying there simply is no well ordered world to be found, it is always possible that truth in indetermined.strangely all i said seems to square with your comments on my quantum example. So you seem implicitly to accept that bivalence carries an assumption of metaphysical realism (although i would say it is a weak sense after all)
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna now some though about the quantum case. all lot depends on you attitude about vagueness. but in all cases if start like that, the question arises whether there is any non vague statement at all. As you stated earlier the concept of a physical particle gets into trouble by the results of last century physics (that is no trouble for quine, but for some other less naturalist philosophers). given that and that no clear cut sucessor at all, vaguess on the physical state persists and
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna and maybe is unavoidable. but if in this sense vagueness is a fact of nature (i think even for clear cut idealist or anti-realist or what ever it is ok then to speak of a fact of nature (take as nature as studied by science)) then we are force upon to no use bivalence in that cases, thus making the application of it then empirically false.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna if on the other hand we believe that some notion of particle can be saved, E- Process (the schrödinger evolution) doesnt give us a clear cut answer to where the particle is. Most physicist don't interpret this as an epistemological deficit but as more less metaphysical. if one opts for this option, then there is no fact of the matter where that particle is and this makes bivalence false again, for empirical reasons.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna to be fair, i personally agree with quine on not seeing the things thus, but if you see them like that tautologies are not empty anymore but can be quite controversial statements after all. it gets relative to interpretations, that i grant easily, but it is not a trivial matter.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna a mixture of holism, dropping an epistemically contentful analytic/synthetic distinction and a mild realism where in play in my arguments though and that is on what quine relies, and that is what why i questioned the epistemic status of (P2). you make it true by convention, in order to do that you need a strong analytic/synthetic distinction. Quine become famous for dropping exactly this. In that case and with holism on bord this principle can only get justification from ultimately
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna being connected with stimulations of our sensory organs (not that is connected closely with it, but rather the whole of the currently available theory that mediates the access). in that sense it has is non-empty.
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m Excuse me, but as I mentioned before this is not the place for lengthy arguments and even less for digressions for which I generally have no time. So please answer my questions succinctly or not at all:
"p or non-p" is [[[only one among many !!!]] ...carries with it realist assumptions about how the world"
Please justify this claim which I find absurd. Statements made of subjects, objects and temporal predicates only refer to the domain in which such language is rooted, not to QM.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 1) Hence whatever happens in QM is of no consequence to predicate logic. You are emplyoing a completely fallacious assumption that logic has any direct concern for or obligation to reality. It is exclusively concerned with how language and statements work. If the world is not like our haptic language makes it, that is the fault of language, not of logic. Within the realm of the speakable, logic reigns supreme. "p or not-p" is simply necessary to make any sense of the word "not".
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna there is surely a trade-off between the technical space Youtube offers and the the space needed to make my case. since i don't want to back the question it is hard to answer this request with a simple statement. Maybe the shorts way to make my case is to criticise your last statement. well, you make sense of the negation operator by switching the truth value, but that doesnt mean that is needs to be necessarily determinate. It can be an intermediate truth value like "perhap",
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m I am sorry we cannot continue 1. for lack of time on my part, and 2. for a lack of basic logical training on yours. Examples:
"that doesnt mean that is needs to be necessarily determinate. It can be an intermediate truth value like "perhap" "
I didn't make any use of the presence or absence of such a value. not p → not not p → falsum is obviously derivable regardless, as anyone with basic training in logic can see. Since your endless talk about fuzzy logic has no bearing, why repeat ?
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna so you switch from "true" to "perhaps" and not to "false" in case of negation. in this case one can argue that the world is quite different than when employing bivalent logic. I sense our disagreement goes deeper since you seem to assert some solipsistic understanding of language and thereby logic. well, i can only say that i find this view implausible, or better not useful at all, since would bare the possibility of really talking about what is really the case.
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 1, example) "you seem to assert some solipsistic understanding of language and thereby logic. " This of course is the height of nuisance, bordering on rudeness. I never asserted such a thing. Please go back and read carefully before rsponding again impulsively. I recommend you spend a few semesters at the department of logic in the mathematical institute at your local University. It just isn't the job of logic to provide the connection to reality. ...
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 2, example) It's job is to provide correct inferences relative to a set of axioms the semantics of which is the nexus to a theory of whatever kind. No where is there a solipsistic suggestion. Whether the theory makes sense or not or is relevant to reality is simply of no concern to the logic. That is the job of the theory. If it involves nonsensical statements, tough, but not a logician's problem.
You replies suggest serious lack of understanding of what "logic" means.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 3 example) So if you cannot succinctly demonstrate how "not p → not not p → falsum" supposedly implies realist assumptions (bwaha, good luck !) I consider the endless discussion finished already.
"
Please make sure you have read through ALL that I have written (including the comment BEFORE "(contd. 3 example)" and sleep at least one night before you give in to the temptation to follow the impulse to reply. I am starting to lose my patience here.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 4 example) Realschulniveau exercise for you: find a derivation for
not p → not not p → falsum
[Hint for the really obtuse and logically untrained: "not p" is shorthand for "p → falsum"]
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna a minmal correspondence from language to reality must be granted to even state the disagreement otherwise it is hard to even discuss in a mildly rational manner and philosophy would be pointless. And yes of course this must begin somewhere and logic is just the right place in my mind (where else?), since essential notions as truth, reference and fulfillment start here. By the most natural reading of existenial quantor you have a notion of existence, thus i wouldnt call it
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m (contd. 5 example) "a minmal correspondence from language to reality must be granted...philosophy would be pointless. "
THAT'S WHY I HAD SAID LONG BEFORE:
"If the world is not like our haptic language makes it, that is the fault of language, not of logic."
DO I HAVE TO SHOUT BEFORE YOU PAY ATTENTION ????
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna it is mildly funny composure, yet only mildly. I finally have to agree with you in one thing: it truly is impossible to carry on. As you probably expect, for different reasons. yet i am a bit befuddledthat you seem rather unaware of great philosophic debates on logic that are on. yes, was asking from around chose you logic scenario not from with PL1 scenario. On last thing, if all this causes some much nerve, don't engage in philosophic debate. So long :P
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m What unnerves me is not the phillosophical, but evasions, endless diversions and arrogance based on ignorance. You ended up doing exactly what I had expected from the beginning: dilute the essential points as much as possible and engage in rhetoric smear rabulistics in a not so subtle attempt of attacking the messenger while evading the point (like answering my question regarding your unfounded claims).
THIS, not true philosophy unnerves me which I had hasked you to stop several times.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna a fallicous assumption to start here with metaphysics. If you disagree, you owe me an account of what I shall make of existential quantification, and why the standard reading persists in most logic textbooks dealing with classical logic.
ben23m 9 months ago
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@ben23m (contd. 2) So please refrain from another avalanche of discursivity. You said.
"even further in quantum mechanics there are certain statement p for which the tautology doesn't hold."
and I asked:
"Like what ?"
A short answer will be appreciated.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna in other regard as fundamental decision between an idealism or a realism, OR is blunt surely. But yet pragmatism would advise us to not get too early into that question, also since ultimately and that could very well be a Quinian Theorem, those questions aren't determinate in the sense, that we can find a suitable answer. I think those that things weren't at issue in the god's dream vs. plain scheme case, although i expect you to disagree on this.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna ok so, since to avoid further unnecessary misunderstanding i transcribe the relevant passage.
"...at the same time the natural scientist, the physicist insists on a closed system. There being physical causes, physical explanations in principle for physical events. They allow no place for incursion of influences of outside the physical world. Given all this, it would seem a person's decisions must themselves be activity on the part of a physical object."
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna so to be clear, what you ultimately doubt is the inference from "They allow no place for incursion of influences of outside the physical world"(P2) in conjunction with "There being physical causes, physical explanations in principle for physical events." (P1) to " a person's decisions must themselves be activity on the part of a physical object." (C).
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna an a first note neither (P1) nor (P2) carry with them an ontological commitment to physical objects at all. He rather commits to physical events. So taken thus the inference indeed is not sound, since in (C) he commits to physical object, which didn't appear in the premises. For other work of Quine it is clear though he takes sets of physical events to be his physical objects (that is what i was always trying to point out).
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna this might seems rather arbitrary, but that is what he does and has been criticized for it by physicalists, since Quinces physical object dont ressemble our commonsense physical objects that much. considering this legitimate, his inference goes through.
But I guess this still doesn't answer you doubts, for i think you doubt (P2) already.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna as I stated the exact epistemic status of (P2) is a bit unclear to me, as is by the way your use of the word 'descriptive'. But maybe it is the indeed the same issue.
I take (P1) to be a statement of what you call descriptive closure, despite Quine missing out an 'all' in front of "physical events". My understanding of (P1) would then boil down to that possibly we can give 'explanations' to the phenomena in the physical domain restricting our vocabulary to employ
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna physical terms plus mathematics. All the relevant interactions can be captured in those restricted terms. interpreting it thus, (P2) becomes a principle of economy for language. Since we can get around with a purely physical language, there is no need to add terms of a fundamentally different nature and in fact it should be avoided. This doesn't forbid to form new terms and expressions within this language to get abreavintions,
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna add the notion of ontological commitment then the adoption of this conceptional scheme renders the argument sound.
I doubt are satisfied with this though, but that is how i would understand him
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna but without a doubt, one can doubt closure after all, since at least for me it is unclear what the epistemic status of this hypothesis amounts to.
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m "Aye, there's the rub !":
"closure implies, that only physical entities can interact."
Not really, it simply means that the descriptive model is closed. To be thus closed doesn't require those physical objects to even exist, let alone be agents. It just means that all the phenomena are described in terms of their physical apperances and will enter such interactions only as such.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
(contd.) To say "I shot the Sheriff" would translate into kinetic equations no matter how you slice it. So even if Sheriff, gun and bodies may not exist at all except as a kind of desktop imagery in your mind, the descriptive model would be closed as if ONLY the imagery existed as concrete obejcts in the naive sense of 19th century physics.
Hence, closure does not allow this inference. Also, appeal to Occam's razor here is circular since realism regarding objects is assumed and not granted.
LooksAeterna 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna actually, if taken at face value Quine is not even a materialist. as a result of his ontological relativity all science is in principle translatable qua proxy functions to set theory. thus actually he is himself committed to an ontology consisting only numbers and thus would rightly be called a pythagorean.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna Because he,like all the other modern-day so-called "philosophers",(Searle,Rorty,etc.)doesn't really have anything of real substance or meaning to add to what the true philosophers of the past already said
.They just need to get a life.
watayapupuya 10 months ago
@watayapupuya what then have the real philosophers of old told us?
ben23m 9 months ago
@ben23m
Yeah,right!!!! Golly,I guess I'd better get busy,and give you a quick and comprehensive synopsis of the past 2,000+years.Try Socrates,Platon,Aristotle.How about Spinoza?Go to your local library.To hell with the bookstores,just a bunch of shite.Good luck!
watayapupuya 9 months ago
@watayapupuya i was just asking for theory that has not at least been made more intelligible by recent generations of philosophers. If I go through Aristotle's Metaphysic I find a lot of gibberish that is not really made to work with the knowledge we gain on science recently. What is done today is mostly clearing up, what we cannot make sense off with the old blokes.
Although concede that Rorty and Searle really don't make the best impression on current day philosophy.
ben23m 9 months ago
@LooksAeterna Rejecting the existence of minds contradicts accepting the existence of mathematical entities?
xxpyroxx243 7 months ago
@xxpyroxx243 Yes.
LooksAeterna 7 months ago
@LooksAeterna
There's no contradiction. Quine immediately clarifies his point; mathematical objects, in his mind, are no more than definable sets of some model of "reality". It's a subtle point (with a lot of background from the theory of quantification).
phatmastafunk 6 months ago
@phatmastafunk "There's no contradiction. Quine immediately clarifies his point; mathematical objects, in his mind, are no more than definable sets..."
I am afraid this doesn't clarify anything whatsoever. It just begs the question, and saying "It's a subtle point" is a lame excuse for appealing to some "mystery" that is really an inconsistency. Since a set is not a physical object nor one of its activities, it cannot exist. There isn't even "activity" or anything complex in pure physicality.
LooksAeterna 6 months ago
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phatmastafunk 6 months ago
I don't think you understand what a definable set is. Quite simply, a definable set is the quantifiable (in a particular context) - so to speak of physical objects we must first assume the existence of a range of quantification (i.e. a definable set). This is where Quine's idea of abstract objects of mathematics as the activity of (our models of) physical objects is justified.
It's not exactly a subtle point; that was meant as consolation for missing the painfully obvious.
phatmastafunk 6 months ago
@phatmastafunk "I don't think you understand what a definable set is."
What makes you assume this ? Besides my argument for Quine's inconsistency should be rather independent of that.
"to speak of physical objects we must first assume the existence of a range of quantification"
Do photons worry about that ? That abstracts seem desirable is hardly a justification for using them in a framework which makes them a priori impossible. His sets would have to be properties of mindless objects. Bunk.
LooksAeterna 6 months ago
@phatmastafunk (contd.) and please lest we waste further time: please think BEFORE you write.
"Do photons worry about that ?"
You will likely try to retort with Quine: "no but we do", however humans, brains, yes even cells, molecules and atoms are already constructs, hence abstractions and hence cannot be their source. Form a purely physical POV, there obviously are no constructs because they are simplifications. Physical reality does not contain them. There is no "table" or "brain" there.
LooksAeterna 6 months ago
@LooksAeterna You're misunderstanding Quine's position. Of course scientific "objects" are constructs, there's no doubt about that - hence Quine's equation of the physical construct with the mathematical.
You've not only assumed that Quine holds the physicalist thesis, but have also assumed that he believes that physical constructs and their affiliations (the mathematical) are in complete correspondence (i.e. may be used interchangeably) with the objects of "reality" (whatever that is).
phatmastafunk 6 months ago
@phatmastafunk "You're misunderstanding Quine's position."
No I am not, but you are the one who apparently doesn't understand my point, nor are you apparently familiar with what "physical" means, and I do not mean etymologically.
"Of course scientific "objects" are constructs"
I didn't misunderstand this at all. Since you are apparently among the many people too good to read properly before commenting, I would kindly ask you to drop the academic hybris and be a philosopher instead (contd.)
LooksAeterna 6 months ago
@phatmastafunk So instead of retorting anew, I'll just repeat what I said in an earlier comment of mine on this very video. Please contemplate your retort thoroughly before writing:
"You don't get my initial question it seems. The closure of physical theory in no way implies primacy of the measured (the physical). Even if "physical objects" were all just dreams in God's mind, the closure of physical theory could still be preserved. Hence his inference is unwarranted and simply arbitrary."
LooksAeterna 6 months ago
@phatmastafunk (contd. 2) "Of course scientific "objects" are constructs"
Just making sure you do not repeat the previous misunderstanding, therefore a hint: physical closure does not even mean that physical objects have ANY causative power or that they even exist except as concepts. It just means that any cause of their behavior would enter the physical description only again as relations between those physical objects. Therefore closure does not guarantee physical objects the power to act !
LooksAeterna 6 months ago
@phatmastafunk (contd. 3) Oh and:
"You've not only assumed that Quine holds the physicalist thesis"
It takes me a while everytime to realize how whacky the responses are. I have never ascribed this position to Quine, but rather I explicitly said in my original comments here:
"LEAVING ASIDE a discussion about whether the insistence BY PHYISICISTS [not Quine !] mentioned at 9:52 - 10:06 is to be accepted unquestioningly"
I was criticizing his fallacious inference from there.
LooksAeterna 6 months ago
@LooksAeterna Right. Clearly you're deliberately circumventing the point. Speaking down to those that disagree with you while repeating trivial philosophical points (closure doesn't imply action w.r.t. physical objects etc.), mistaking physicists for physicalists and emptily declaring "nobody understands me!" isn't debate. Sorry, I'm done with this rubbish. You can continue discussing with your word processor, if you'd like.
phatmastafunk 6 months ago
@phatmastafunk "Clearly you're deliberately circumventing the point."
What point am I circumventing where ?
"mistaking physicists for physicalists"
Nonsense, stop inventing lies and putting them in my mouth. QUINE was speaking of physical (not physicalist !) objects, not me.
"repeating trivial philosophical points (closure doesn't imply action)"
That's my point: Quine's fallacious inference rests on not realizing what you and I call trivial ! If he blunders, it needs repeating.
LooksAeterna 6 months ago
@phatmastafunk Before you make another attempt at rhetorical character assassination empty of arguments: have you even ever closely listened to the passages my original comments were about ? That is either 8:02 - 8:32 or 9:52 - 10:06 in conjunction with -10:22 ?
Methinks, anyone who has could not have so persistently twisted what I was saying. Now either you will control your emotions and be a precise enough to follow my argument or you are not qualified for any reasonable discussion.
LooksAeterna 6 months ago
@LooksAeterna I must agree with phatmastafunk. LooksAeterna presents little by way of debate and instead persists in vitriol and insult. I have had an exchange with the zealot for abstracta and he presented nothing but base legerdemain.
Paraconsistant 5 months ago
@Paraconsistant This is just gossip, appeal to group pressure and some sort of philistine "proof by convention". Either you have an argument or please leave the reader alone. Backbiting for lost debates is not convincing at least to intelligent readers.
LooksAeterna 5 months ago
@LooksAeterna You have just provided a proof case for your irrational zealotry.
Paraconsistant 5 months ago
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@Paraconsistant It seems you don't know what a proof is, and irrationality because I demand a rational argument instead of personal attacks on me ? Is your boss Cass Sunstein ?
Anyway, back to the original point which remains with rational answer thus far:
"Can anyone explain to me why this supposedly great philosopher doesn't immediately recognize that his own speech 8:02 - 8:32 is obviously self-contradictory ?"
and
(to be contd.)
LooksAeterna 5 months ago
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(contd)
Leaving aside a discussion about whether the insistence by physicists mentioned at 9:52 - 10:06 is to be accepted unquestioningly, I do not see how he can then conclude ...-10:22. He is naively pre-supposing that physical laws necessarily imply the primacy of dead objects behaving along those laws. Why ? Physical objects could be patterns within a proto-mental world and hence have a merely nominal existence within that mental realm, and the physical world would still be closed nvrthlss.
LooksAeterna 5 months ago 6
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phatmastafunk 6 months ago
Leaving your unnecessary ad hominems relatively untouched, this argument is entirely nullified. Perhaps you ought to read into physicalist theory before objecting; Quinean physicalism does not maintain the validity (that is, the "correct" correspondence with reality) of its observations with your so-called "physical reality".
phatmastafunk 6 months ago
all th emore reason to read that book
GaryGeck1 1 year ago
I think Quine pointed out telling shortcomings of logic which precluded any 'adequate account of logic'
Quine's views on logic are curious. Quine was a great logician so presumably he was a lover of logic. And yet his destruction of the analytic/synthetic distinction discredited the realm of the analytic which was the main work area of the logicians, himself included.
Thinkingbeingone 1 year ago
@Thinkingbeingone I'm glad you added those points to the discussion, but like i said Wang spends most of the book making the argument, and Dr. Wang knew these men intimately...he does not gloss over the excellent points you raise even though i am here...
GaryGeck1 1 year ago
But as much as I think Quine is wrong, I don't think he's an idiot. He is not the world's best communicator. His books come across much clearer...but in my videos I always take the moment here and there to point out where i think he's wrong ;)
GaryGeckDotCom 1 year ago
To quote the great logician, Dr Hao Wang (Kurt Gödel's confidant) in his book, Beyond Reductionism (pg 8):
[Quine and Carnap's philosophies] "fail to give an adequate account of logic (or of mathematics ). This , in my opinion , discredits their views in a basic way in the light of the fact that logic is so central for both of them ."
...And he spends most of his book developing this point. I highly recommend it!
GaryGeckDotCom 1 year ago
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Thinkingbeingone 1 year ago
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Thinkingbeingone 1 year ago
Quine is mainly a language philosopher. His problem with the 'why existence' question is not just the science or religious aspects of it, but with the meaning of the question in the language in which the question is expressed. The question may not have a coherent meaning in its language or one may go round and round in the language trying to find answer.
Thinkingbeingone 1 year ago
I always much regretted it that the Unabomber, one of his notable students indeed, never sent HIM a postal parcel...
CaptainBluebear08 1 year ago 4
behaviorists! lmao
the map is not the terrain. duh.
baronmorris 1 year ago
Many collections and antologies include Quine in areas such as "ontology" and "metaphysics". I think that adequate sections for him are "ideology" and "physics".
Enfiteuta 1 year ago
@Enfiteuta
I concur! ;-)
baronmorris 1 year ago
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Enfiteuta 1 year ago
I share Quine's position of treat Why questions as meaningless as far as science is concerned
rmeddy1 1 year ago
Van is the man!
TripleEvent 1 year ago
David Lewis is better. Still love Quine though.
rumpranger65 1 year ago
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Nice hair Asian women **lushfmlk.info**
oliveyaqwer 1 year ago
He wasn't a very nice man, but certainly not an idiot.
fuckooo 1 year ago
I bet Quine scoffed after he heard Sartre lol
pickpoche 1 year ago 3
Plato's Academy famously bore the plaque "Let None Ignorant of Geometry Enter Here". Would not Plato perceive Poincare as more of a philosopher than Hegel?
Once one understands the sense of this, analytic philosophy seems a repetitive title.
GolumTR 1 year ago 3
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Errol2k 1 year ago
Shrewdness is often confused with shallowness.
FaaarLeft 1 year ago
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@FaaarLeft : "Shrewdness is often confused with shallowness."
Yes, but even more often shallowness is confused with superficiality.
DrDeist 1 year ago
o ponerles subtítulos en inglés.
Or can someone put the subtitutles in english to read?
basskezz05 1 year ago
Can someone traduce this interview please?
I speak spanish and its difficult to understand.
Thanks!
basskezz05 1 year ago
After studying Quine, I conclude he has nothing to offer.
bandrow 1 year ago 4
Committing himself to the real existence of things like numbers was always one of the more permeable parts of his philosophy and never fit comfortably with his broader naturalist epistemology.
Still one of my favorite philosophers of all time.
jsheng319 1 year ago 2
Satre? in the top six, seriously? Ha Ha just joshing, not really.
sunsplash1980 1 year ago
The last moment of the clip amazes me in that Quine, with all of his brilliance, comes across as being suddenly dogmatic, and philosophically arbitrary in the extreme when he articulates his view of the necessary presumption of materialism.
lourak 1 year ago
@lourak It would be inconsistent with Quine's naturalism to not take a materialist position. If philosophy is to be continuous with science, you are committed to the methodological presuppositions of science which includes materialism (as well as naturalism too). Quine's materialism is simply the logical result of his naturalism which goes back to his 1951 paper called "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" which broke the analytic-synthetic division; allowing natural science to enter into philosophy.
tehquack 1 year ago
chomsky?
JosephKnight93 1 year ago
There is one part I did not understand. Why does Quine reject mind/body dualism? Can someone explain that to me. Thanks!!!
tazzy755 2 years ago
a couple of reasons: 1) the success of the empirical sciences 2) ontological parsimony 3) the general irreconcilability of the interaction problems between matter and the mental...
Jayban123 2 years ago
@Jayban123 Thanks .
tazzy755 1 year ago
You are a buffoon.
eugdog106 1 year ago