Philosophy of Knowledge - Page 4

On June 27 2011 19:22 ceaRshaf wrote:


So you are not sad because there is no big goal for you being here on Earth?

Wasn't Oedipus the one who killed his father to sleep with his mother ? Not sure it has something to do with the truth, but I admit I read that like 15 years ago.

On June 27 2011 19:33 Roe wrote:

Why would a logical scientific view on life mean that there is no big goal? Lots of people have big goals and big dreams, and don't need to believe in god

i think the real question you should be asking yourself is why those conclusions are sad and make you depressed. think real hard on that one for a while.

On June 27 2011 19:15 Sarmis wrote:


This is irrelevant to the conversation, but I'm curious what you consider "studied chemistry at the highest level" to be.

Now, let's break down what you said. Someone get popcorn.

"Scientific knowledge is a house of cards. If you don't understand the basic principles you cannot understand the bigger ideas." Good, you've caught up to Bacon and Descartes. Clearly philosophy needs to start with the foundational building blocks - the first principles. It does us no good to discuss belief until we've established what belief is. There have been, of course, many attempts to start with these first principles. Those that you should be, at the very least, familiar with:
Descartes (Meditations on First Philosophy)
Schopenhauer (World as Will and Idea)
Kant (Critique of Pure Reason, or his Prolegomena for an easier read)

As far as this scientific knowledge you are so fond of, we need to consider how much we can trust the empiricism to which the OP clearly holds dear. Anyone who wants to hold with modern science needs to be familiar with Hume and his critique of induction, which is obviously the first principle of any modern science, including chemistry. In order to trust our sense experience, we first need to dismiss Idealism (Read Berkeley) and Solipsism. It would help, at this point, to be also familiar with Phenomenology (read Husserl and Heidegger), but it isn't really required - we can skip most continental thought without really losing anything from the discussion.

But I digress. Next, you say "This is exactly the problem I have with your line of reasoning, you are throwing major philosophical ideas around without understanding why they may or may not be true."

I would argue that the people who throw around major philosophical ideas without understanding where they come from, and what assumptions they are based on, are the ones who do not know why they may or may not be true. You throw around empiricism and induction (it comes with modern science) - but do you understand why they may or may not be true? How can you accept them until you've actually thought about them? The best way, of course, is to read the works of the major philosophers who have discussed them and thought about them at length, but you don't want us to do this.

And then I get really confused.

"This is also why you cannot argue these arguments from first principles."

But you started with ""Scientific knowledge is a house of cards. If you don't understand the basic principles you cannot understand the bigger ideas." "

So we can't argue these from first principles, but we have to understand them first? So we should argue with things built off of first principles, but not discuss the first principles? Than how, based on what you have said, can people understand the bigger ideas?

Eagerly awaiting your explanation.

On June 27 2011 19:39 ceaRshaf wrote:


We are talking about ultimate goals, not becoming a cheerleader in life. Ar a firemen.


Also, I am not depressed about these thoughts, I just said that they can be.

On June 27 2011 18:40 deathly rat wrote:
More over you have been completely sidestepping the OP, who wondered how a logical view on life can be uplifting. This is clearly the realm of someone with a scientific background.

I guess this is why our arguments are different as science students always must prove themselves and their arguments, however sociology and philosophy students can just rely on quoting other people's work with having any kind of deep understanding.

On June 27 2011 18:49 deathly rat wrote:


All science must be based on real observations, otherwise it is philosophy.

All science must be based on real observations, otherwise it is philosophy.

So philosophy=mathematics?=string theory. These general statements are so stupid.

On June 27 2011 16:03 Oreo7 wrote:*to me, after reading philosophy, I'm left with more questions than answers.

On June 27 2011 19:39 ceaRshaf wrote:


We are talking about ultimate goals, not becoming a cheerleader in life. Ar a firemen.


Also, I am not depressed about these thoughts, I just said that they can be.




It's obvious why they are sad.

On June 27 2011 16:39 drewcifer wrote:
I know exactly what you mean, my suggestion is to play video games/other fun shit to take your mind off it.

On June 27 2011 19:51 Kukaracha wrote:


I find it surprizing that wich such logic you don't see that quoting is used by those students in a similar way you use axioms, laws and theorems.
Philosophers like Bachelard considered that everything that was essentially needed to be said, has already been said. Using past authors is a shortcut, just like proving a well-accepted law is a waste of time unless you have the goal of verifying it.

It's quite simple actually. Taking the example of psychanalysis - not saying that I agree with psychanalysis as a whole - one could agree with Freud, Jung or Adler, who had all three different "systems", a different analytic structure to explain and observe the object of study. Instead of explaining a system all over again, one could simply... refer to Jung's Anima. If the person you're speaking with is aware with the concept, it simply saves time and provides a common ground for reflexion.

The undersanding of such concepts does however vary, indeed, but this is why quoting is only used in the context of theoretical university studies, where students and teachers are supposed to share a common ground of knowledge. Should one quote past authors outside of this context, it is most likely a way to try to assert one's authority over a subject, by demonstrating one's superior wit.


But maybe you could forget about Schrödinger's work and explain it to me all over again? Otherwise, I would suspect that you have no deep undersanding of it whatsoever... Or maybe I could hand you the Baldor textbook and ask you to solve it without using any preexisting theorems and laws?

The idea that logic only belongs to scientific studies makes me quite sad. As if abstract and logical thinking were two distinct forms of existence. As if philosophy had done nothing for the world and was just the random rambling of a few old men. As if litterature is now a fancy antiquity.

No wonder modern day engineers are as stupid as fuck and don't understand a single thing outside of their domain of studies.
No wonder french managers and engineers are quite appreciated worldwide, as they were obligated to learn history, philosophy and geography until late. Unlike those english highs school kids who drop history when they're 15 and don't know what to answer when asked what the Shoah was.

/end rant.

On June 27 2011 20:14 Kukaracha wrote:
My bad, here in France the term Shoah is widely used. I'm also a Cinema student so I always think about Lanzmann's documentary.

(On a side note, I just realized that people from Palestine use the same word for what happened in their own country: Nakba, "catastrophy". How ironic!).

On June 27 2011 19:51 Kukaracha wrote:


I find it surprizing that wich such logic you don't see that quoting is used by those students in a similar way you use axioms, laws and theorems.

On June 27 2011 19:51 Kukaracha wrote:
No wonder french managers and engineers are quite appreciated worldwide, as they were obligated to learn history, philosophy and geography until late. Unlike those english highs school kids who drop history when they're 15 and don't know what to answer when asked what the Shoah was.

On June 27 2011 19:57 ceaRshaf wrote:




Well, he didn't say that .

On June 27 2011 20:25 deathly rat wrote:

ok, now explain to me how these are three different things, especially axioms and laws. Then I'll take you seriously.



Ugh, nationalism? gross...