10
votes
Accepted
Is geometry mathematical or empirical?
It is both, or rather it has aspects that are mathematical, and aspects that are empirical (the same is true of Newtonian mechanics or special relativity, but more obviously so). If we take Euclidean ...
- 42.5k
9
votes
What is a straight line?
You're overthinking it!
Just kidding, as a fellow engineer, I have an inkling where you are digging at. Welcome to the fascinating underbelly of mathematics, which is constantly churning and mixing ...
- 17.5k
8
votes
Does philosophy shed any light on how parties can fruitfully debate without an agreed source of truth?
From a purely epistemological point of view, no, philosophy is not really helpful. If anything, philosophy makes things worse. See this post and this post and the responses to it.
From a social point ...
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8
votes
Have I contradicted the "law" non-contradiction?
No, you did not contradict LNC. In your program (( A == A ) and (A != A)) is true, but you also changed the function of '==' and '!=' so that '!=' is not longer a negation of '==':
Your '==' function ...
- 6,466
8
votes
Is there "empirical" distance without "mathematical" distance?
The mathematical concept of distance is an abstraction of the physical experience of distance. As such, we can use the mathematical concept to discuss 'distance' between things that are non-physical ...
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8
votes
Is there "empirical" distance without "mathematical" distance?
Are formal notions our best models of that experience of what we see with a ruler, or can we go further by saying that they are the same thing?
Many people used to believe that empirical distance ...
- 2,027
7
votes
What is Quine's rebuttal to Grice and Strawson's In Defense of Dogma?
Quine's attack on the analytic/synthetic distinction is contained in a series of papers: Truth by Convention, Two Dogmas of Empiricism, Carnap on Logical Truth, and in the early chapters of Word and ...
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7
votes
Accepted
What is Quine's rebuttal to Grice and Strawson's In Defense of Dogma?
It would be to argue against meanings as mental or objective entities. Grice and Strawson rely on meaning as something propositional statement "inherently" has, Quine's position, like late ...
- 42.5k
7
votes
Accepted
Did Gödel oppose or agree with the Logical Positivists?
Gödel was a young man in search of a place to belong, many young intellectuals were attracted to the Vienna Circle for its pluralism and tolerance. But it wasn't purely social. Gödel was clearly ...
- 42.5k
7
votes
Does science provide the most accurate depiction of reality for analyzing and describing an accurate worldview?
The word "best" implies value judgments, and can't be evaluated independent of your goals for your worldview. But there are clear practical and pragmatic reasons why science is currently a dominant ...
- 27.1k
6
votes
Can Empiricism and Ethics be linked via Neuro-Science?
Four assumptions:
You assume such a mapping is possible to construct using empirical evidence. (it's not known if the human brain is quiescent enough to permit mapping)
You assume the resulting map ...
- 17.5k
6
votes
Quine - two dogmas of empiricism
He is not rejecting meaning; what he says is:
My present suggestion is that it is nonsense, and the root of much nonsense, to speak of a linguistic component and a factual component in the truth of ...
- 36.1k
6
votes
Accepted
What did the Greeks call the "trial and error" reasoning process?
"Trial and error" applied not to a "reasoning process" but to medical practice, and the name of the practice was derived from Greek ἐμπειρία, experience. The inspiration for the approach apparently ...
- 42.5k
5
votes
What are the most influential arguments for the existence of "real" external objects?
I consider the success of natural science the strongest argument for the existence of "real" external objects. It is very influential in so far it convinces at least all natural scientists :-)
The ...
- 24.2k
5
votes
What is a straight line?
This is a very good question, one that brings metaphysics to life. Unfortunately, I do not have a good answer, though I've tried to think about it.
While Cort Ammon and others have given good ...
- 13.3k
5
votes
Accepted
Understanding Sellars' The Myth of the Given rigorously
Actually, chapter VIII of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (EPM), and section 35 in particular, do not contain any arguments against the Given, certainly not the main argument. The role of ...
- 7,311
5
votes
Accepted
What is the contrast between Hume's and Locke's philosophies of science?
There are two related major differences between Locke and Hume, their focus and their conception of science. Locke's is focused on the knowledge new experimental science provides, he is interested in ...
- 42.5k
5
votes
Can there be information without a "knower"?
An objective, "mind-independent", view is a staple of physics, but so is the possibility of observation. The information lost in burning is not entirely unrecoverable, it is recoverable in theory, and ...
- 42.5k
5
votes
Accepted
What are the philosophical consequences of employing computers to do science and mathematics?
Since the epistemological and methodological issues are similar with simulations, which are computer extended analogs of thought experiments, and computer assisted proofs I will only focus on the ...
- 42.5k
5
votes
Does philosophy shed any light on how parties can fruitfully debate without an agreed source of truth?
Here are the questions regarding the extreme partisanship of politics today:
Is there any philosophical thinking which might help resolve these disputes and allow the political discussion to move ...
- 19.2k
4
votes
Is geometry mathematical or empirical?
Euclidean geometry is a mathematical theory, not a scientific theory.
It starts from definitions and axioms and makes deductions from the axioms. It is not necessary to go out, to draw lines and ...
- 24.2k
4
votes
Is geometry mathematical or empirical?
We now regard geometry as a mathematical theory: one makes assumptions and deduces, strictly logicall, the consequences of those assumptions, with only passing interest in the accuracy of those ...
4
votes
Quine - two dogmas of empiricism
Quine doesn't hold that statements don't mean anything (that indeed would be quite an extreme form of skepticism), but rather that the meaningfulness of statements should be considered not in ...
- 6,466
4
votes
How did philosophy react to empirical psychology when there have been disagreements?
I am going to disagree with other posters, in my view in the last two centuries the interplay between philosophy and psychology was intricate, and with profound impact on both sides, of all sciences ...
- 42.5k
4
votes
Accepted
How could Wittgenstein not rule out that there was a rhinoceros in the living room?
There seems to be no established explanation of Wittgenstein's rhinoceros, just speculations. I may as well add one of my own :) (I don't know whether the following explanation has been offered before)...
- 7,311
4
votes
Measurement devices and empiricism
First, there's an article on measurement in science in the Stanford Encyclopedia.
The sociologist Harry Collins dubbed this problem "the experimenter's regress" in the 1980s. There's a brief ...
- 2,467
4
votes
Accepted
Empiricism out the door
David Hume wrote this line in his character Cleanthes's voice, in Part One of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion:
Whether your scepticism be as absolute and sincere as you pretend, we shall ...
- 5,498
4
votes
Is it (not) possible to know causality from empirical knowledge?
The idea that we cannot see or 'perceive' causal connections is historically most closely associated with Hume. Hume's point was that the concept of causation as ordinarily used contains the ...
- 35.4k
4
votes
Empiricism vs Irrationalism
Empiricism and reason
'Empiricism' has as many meanings as there are empiricists. But if we take empiricism as the view that all knowledge derives ultimately from sense experience, which has some ...
- 35.4k
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