It’s been a while since I’ve read my Hume, but I remember him being much more subtle than a simple idealist. From what I remember, I always liked Deleuze’s reading of him - as a philosopher who attempted to break the habits of thought that deaden us as thinkers (both folk and professional), and who attempted to push up life into the process of thinking. D’s vision of Hume has H. using his skepticism to pull back from the accepted way of things and view the event (a word that is slightly different in Romance languages such as French or Spanish. It means a unique unplanned occurrence - that only happens once as opposed to the english usage/meaning which in fact is an occurrence that has been planned) from new angles, such as “perhaps the que ball will not cause the black ball to bounce around the table this time.” I remember Hume being very honest, to the extent that at the end of the Enquiry he states his enterprise has been a failure. I doubt he would lead us until simple skepticism.
Also, historically skepticism is not a skepticism of the existence of the world, but a doubt that the Other theories of physics and metaphysics probably are not complete or are wrong.the skeptics are pretty interesting, preferring to withhold judgement on a philosophical argument rather than jump on in. I like the Hellenistic Skeptics cause I really dig how ideology and such warps people’s view of the world - like GW Bush’s environmental policy or his neoconservative ideas about foreign policy. Sorry, my inner liberal hijacked the post there for a second. Let’s be skeptical abot what he’s got to say…
Again, lack of common sense is not necessarily the difference betwen valid and invalid. A theory lacking common sense might be perfectly valid.
As for whether or not this philosophy is useful at all; on the contrary I would argue that it is very useful as long as it is not taken to extreme conclusions. Systematic doubt for example, is quite useful in science. Science is based on a system of rigorous criticism. It is bad science to proceed towards a theory, if one has no doubts at all in his/her mind about the truthfulness of that theory. Science proceeds when a scientist manages to fend off strict personal doubt and doubt of colleagues as to the truth of a theory. It is nothing more.
Yes, exactly - whether what we know to be a pen is actually a pen, or not anything at all. This is the argument, essentially.
Importantly, I have no reason to think it will not. Hume doesn’t show us anything but doubt and that’s the problem. I am being harsh with Hume and I submit that there has been valuable gain from his work but not ultimately any progress as a result.
Yea, not sure what I meant by that. Possibly that to my mind an entire philosophy cannot be ‘acceptable’ if it throws out common sense.
I would prefer to subscribe to the Aristotlian view that one cannot expect certainties from philosophy like one might expect certainties from mathematics - it is the nature of the discipline in question that should determine what type of results we expect from it. In maths, 1+1 is 2 regardless, whereas in philosophy we cannot be so exact (although I would be happy to bet that the sun will rise tomorrow, even if Bush is still atop it. )
I think people should read Wittgenstein before they speak. I wish I had read his Tractus ages ago.
“What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence” - Wittgenstein.
I’d say “expanding our knowledge of the world that is”
…and how it ‘is’ may be completely different to how it seems to us and how we understand it to be, at any given time. For example Oxford will is pretty sure he is typing at a keyboard right now. But I would love to see the look on his face if he then woke up and realised it was just a dream Would the dream-keyboard be any less real? Now there is a question…
Ok, well, you can of course live your life wondering if you are asleep or awake. The moment this gets in the way of you achieving something through your philosophy though - well that’s what we want to avoid. If you want to look at it another way - whether I am alseep now or not is largely irrelevant. Because if I am asleep now it is safe to assume this is not the first time I have been mistaken thusly.
If that is the case, I can safely assume I am often asleep when I think myself awake, and also that (because otherwise I would already have been aware of the fact) when this happens I do not remember the fact afterwards as I have no recollection of having spent any time doing something only to find out I was only dreaming moments later. That being the case, I need to adjust my beliefs to better fit the fact that I am sometimes asleep when I think myself awake. Regardless of my state of wakefulness or sleep, the keyboard exists in one of those states, and therefore exists.
I digress, though, because Dale’s post is an example of the problem at hand. The pre-philosophy Dale knows he is typing at a keyboard. Hume and others have taught him that he can, however, doubt this. Confused, Dale then begins to question the reality of everything - even going so far as to question his own state of being. My my, says the younger Dale, I may very well be asleep at this moment! That would mean that this apple I am enjoying does not exist!
Effectively wound up in doubt, the later Dale contributed nothing to the discipline of philosophy other than to further its ridicule and demise by contributing only to its destruction through offering theories that encouraged doubt, a lack of realism and no common sense.
Sorry Dale, if it makes you feel better you can call the character Bob.
Take a bite of the keyboard - it is really there. It is definitely not an apple, though. Nor a pillow!
This post is in regards to what I had lasted posted here. I know that it was off-topic, I can read and was well aware that it was, therefore, I do apologize for going off a thread. However, I will visit your writings on catholism in the religion section( to I think it was Oxford Will, but forgive me if it was another who wrote it, I just forgot) ; I just wanted to have my two cents in when you had written that brief comment because too many people don’t even understand the difference between cults and the truth. It would be a lot beneficial for others who do not know the difference to at least see that because I cannot guareentee they’re going to go to that section if they’ve had mis-interpretations, and wanted them to see it there.
This post is in regards to what I had lasted posted here. I know that it was off-topic, I can read and was well aware that it was, therefore, I do apologize for going off a thread. However, I will visit your writings on catholism in the religion section( to I think it was Oxford Will, but forgive me if it was another who wrote it, I just forgot) ; I just wanted to have my two cents in when you had written that brief comment because too many people don’t even understand the difference between cults and the truth. It would be a lot beneficial for others who do not know the difference to at least see that because I cannot guareentee they’re going to go to that section if they’ve had mis-interpretations, and wanted them to see it there.
thinker is what you get when you post 200 times or something. my name is future man, i come from the future so i understand everything.
believing the golden rule is pure logic, according to me. being catholic is believing the golden rule and also a bunch of crazy shit that makes no sense. one is god, one is ‘organized religion’
Note that Wittgenstein negated most of the “propositions” in Tractatus in his subsequent “Philosophical Investigations”. The former was found too severe, too mathematical as to the nature of thought and language for him to accept as a perennial “proposition”.
Within that realm “whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent” there NOW exists the extemporaneous compositions of a Beethoven rather than the injected equations of a Newton. Wittengenstein understood that our own “Uncertainty Principle” annuls the philosophical “perfection” of the Tractatus and that the whole purpose and complexity of philosophy is to decrypt the enigmas that WE HAVE ENMESHED in our own existence.
No, I’m afraid you have misunderstood the original post. There is nothing fallacious about employing common sense in philosophy.
You dismiss something that a large number of professional philosophers spend a great deal of time taking very seriously - I’d suggest you look into it further first.
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