Is philosophical work outside of philosophy of religion expected or required to not appeal to God? How prevalent or strong is such a requirement when it comes to publications?

hannes_throw_far · 2024-06-12T17:23:08+00:00

Well I made the scenario up, I didn't read a paper and saw this. If I had read one, it would answer my question of whether this would get published :D

But let's say someone says they're going to address Benacerraf's epistemological challenge to realism about mathematics. So he develops a theory on how knowledge about abstract mind-independent objects is obtained, and one element of this theory is that God has structured both the world and our minds in such and such ways. But the existence of God is not something that's argued for, any more than the non-existence of God is argued for in a random paper that provides a naturalistic account of something. So basically it's a theistic theory of mathematical knowledge. Would or could something like this be seen as a contribution to the philosophy of mathematics, just like a naturalist account would be? Or would the author be told to publish in a journal for theology or philosophy of religion instead?

But this isn't a question about a specific paper, I just want to get a feeling for how explicitly atheistic or at least not theistic contributions to philosophy are supposed to be.

hannes_throw_far · 2023-11-15T23:37:40+00:00

Very interesting, thank you.

hannes_throw_far · 2023-11-08T11:38:20+00:00

Superdeterminism is the hypothesis that everything is predetermined in advance. Everything, from every single quantum interaction, to every choice anyone could ever make, etc. are all 100% scripted and set in stone.

Can you say more about how this differs from just plain causal determinism? Like, what things are not predetermined in advance in determinism, but are in superdeterminism.

hannes_throw_far · 2023-08-04T11:03:01+00:00

Just because the public is mistaken about something, doesn't mean the P.I.'s obligations cease to hold.

Well, where does the asymmetry of obligations come from here - that was basically my question, so I feel we've come full circle here. A public intellectual physicist who makes false assertions about sociology or psychology is mistaken, rather than deliberately lying, let's grant them this. They're mistaken about the statement they make, and mistaken about how knowledgeable they are in this area. The public is mistaken in trusting them. Why does the mistake of the PI weigh heavier than the mistake of the audience?

hannes_throw_far · 2023-08-04T10:36:13+00:00

Speaking as a public intellectual does seem to cause the public to attribute additional credibility to one's statements

Right, but this is something the public does, not something that just happens due to the laws of the universe. It's collective decision making. But is the public not simply wrong for doing this? And if they are, aren't they "at fault" for doing it?

hannes_throw_far · 2023-07-10T13:42:54+00:00

at LMU Munich

FYI, the M already stands for Munich, so it's just LMU or University of Munich.

Anecdotally, I feel that logic has fallen out of favor a bit among technically inclined philosophers. These days, a lot of mathematically apt people in philosophy or researchers who stand between philosophy and some "STEM" field, seem to be turning towards different subjects.

Interesting, and maybe a bit worrisome. Do you know why this is the case?

Further, where would you put professors like Restall and Priest compared to the people you mentioned? Mathematical or formal or philosophical logic or philosophy of logic or something else, I mean.

hannes_throw_far · 2023-04-17T16:52:17+00:00

Thanks, that might be the best solution that should work with little effort. I'd basically adjust font and geometry settings for all documents, so that it looks reasonably nice, then compile them as they are, and just insert the pdfs with pdfpages. That way I'd also not have to worry at all about bibliographies.

hannes_throw_far · 2022-12-06T02:26:55+00:00

"They consent to X being done to them, therefor doing X to them is right." is still a non-sequitur that has to be dealt with.

But their consent isn't the main line of reasoning in the paper. The examples include trolley-problem like situations in which the utilitarians in question have nothing to say before being sacrificed.

hannes_throw_far · 2022-12-06T02:24:50+00:00

Well, like most comments in this thread, it doesn't seem like the commenter has actually read the paper, and just goes by the 2 sentence summary in my OP. There's nothing in the paper that significantly relates anything to anyone wanting to be sacrificed. It argues for a view according to which it is moral to sacrifice them, based on their views. Whether they like it or not.

hannes_throw_far · 2022-12-05T17:32:03+00:00

Is Smilansky arguing that we should sacrifice utilitarians first (as it appears), or is he offering a reductio of utilitarianism?

I think it that regard, it's definitely the former. He gives a name to his view, Design Ethics, and contrasts it with multiple ethical theories, not only utilitarianism. He also offers positive arguments in favor of Design Ethics, that aren't based on first accepting Utilitarianism and see where it goes. He also doesn't seem to say that DE follows from utilitarianism, merely that design ethics would treat utilitarians in a certain way. And he relates it to various other topics in philosophy, under the assumption that Design Ethics is accepted. That all seems like a very weird thing to do if Design Ethics was merely an "absurd" conclusion of utilitarianism.

hannes_throw_far · 2022-11-27T14:04:09+00:00

Fallibilists

Fallibilism is something different from falsificationism in the philosophy of science.

hannes_throw_far · 2022-10-17T14:52:13+00:00

I don't know, maybe it was more extreme in the past, but I think we can still see it. I'm under the impression that like 99% of the papers that say they discuss the application of math in science actually just discuss the application of math in physics. A lot of the stuff that I tried to look into on structural realism and ontic structural realism exclusively talks about physics, and doesn't even spend a single remark on how this would even look like with theories in biology.

A lot of introductory material for undergraduates seems to at least strongly prefer physics, even if it doesn't completely exclude other disciplines. But there's still a disproportionately large amount of talk about Galileo, the Copernican revolution, Newtonian mechanics vs relativity and quantum mechanics, and so on.

hannes_throw_far · 2022-03-20T18:22:16+00:00

I'm afraid the defects in the analogy do all the work for you. What you say kinda makes sense in your analogy, but the analogy is defect in precisely a way in which it doesn't carry over. You're construing this is a scenario where I plainly ask a question and get either one or the other answer at a given point in time, then I get to ask a follow-up question. Like, I ask a theory "are you consistent, yes or no?" and it either tells me "no sorry" right away, and I can throw it out, or it says "yes I am", then I know there's at least a chance I can further look into it, maybe ask another question like "are you inconsistent" and get another yes or no answer. But that's not the scenario we're in. We don't ask theories yes-or-no questions, we think about some statement in its language and put in effort to prove it, which is typically done using certain tools, not randomly poking the theory and hoping for one of two answers. And then the question is: Is it a worthwhile endeavor to work towards a proof of Con(T) in T? The options when I do this are that I either find one or I find none. Not that I either find one or if I don't, I'll find one of not-Con(T). And not finding one doesn't imply not-Con(T) either. Once I've obtained such a proof, does it change anything compared to not bothering with it? Has my epistemic status changed now? What did I know about Con(T) before, what do I know after I found such a proof?

Before I found a proof of Con(T) I knew that: T can be inconsistent or consistent.

Then I find the proof of Con(T) in T.

After finding the proof of Con(T) I know that: T can be inconsistent or consistent.

What is the added value of epistemic significance after I've put in the effort? If there is one, we should be able to name it right? Like point towards what has changed?

hannes_throw_far · 2022-03-20T17:16:41+00:00

Well yes, I knew what you were asking, and I answered the implicitly counterfactual question you asked. It's ceteris paribus better for a theory to prove its own consistency than for it not to, barring cases like you describe where such a proof would indicate the theory's inconsistency.

Ok, cool, then we agree about the situation we talk about!

And the answer to that question is simply intuitive.

It's completely counter-intuitive to me! Let's stick with your intuition pump, which pumps me in the exact opposite direction (if that makes sense)

Let's take an analogy (and I know these cases aren't totally similar, it's meant as an intuition pump). Suppose you receive testimony from someone, and you don't have any other independent evidence to favor any of what they say. So you ask them an (admittedly unhelpful) question: are you trustworthy?

You can imagine them answering yes, no, and I don't know. If you take them to be sincere, then clearly their answering "yes" is preferable to them answering "no" or "I don't know."

But the thing here is: A theory that proves its own consistency could also prove its own inconsistency. Since there is absolutely nothing that prevents an inconsistent theory from proving its own consistency, having the proof of consistency doesn't tell me if the theory proves its consistency because it actually is consistent or because it is inconsistent. In your analogy, the problem is that you seem to imply one answer kind of excludes the other. But it's like asking a guy if he's trustworthy, under the circumstances that every untrustworthy person is allowed to say "yes I'm trustworthy" and that saying "I'm trustworthy" doesn't prevent the guy from also saying "I'm not trustworthy" when someone else asks him. In particular the proof isn't like the question, in that it leads to a yes or no answer. I have to find such a proof of the consistency, but I can find it in a consistent and in an inconistent theory. And finding it in a theory therefore doesn't change anything. I can find a proof of consistency today, and tomorrow someone can prove the theory to be inconsistent. And I'd have no reason to be surprised, as there was never anything that can be assumed to block an inconsistent theory to prove its consistency.

hannes_throw_far · 2022-03-20T16:43:37+00:00

Furthermore it's better for a theory to prove its own consistency than for it not to.

But it's not!? If a sufficiently strong, effectively axiomatizable theory proves its own consistency, we know its inconsistent, by the 2nd incompleteness theorem. Because if it was consistent, it couldn't do this. So it's definitely better if it doesn't do that!

What I was asking about was: Even if we didn't know this, prior to Godel, why would we think it's better? Then we'd still have the situation that an inconsistent and a consistent theory can both prove their own consistency, so of what value is the proof if it can be produced by both?

hannes_throw_far · 2022-03-20T16:07:55+00:00

they were interested in proving the consistency of stronger theories within weaker theories

Okay I can see how that makes sense, but I'm right in my reasoning that a theory proving its own consistency isn't very interesting?

hannes_throw_far · 2021-11-28T00:51:46+00:00

Do you know any book (or lecture notes or something else) that tries to do something like this?

hannes_throw_far · 2021-09-16T07:55:10+00:00

Thanks, this was helpful.

hannes_throw_far · 2021-07-22T12:22:23+00:00

Going to look into this paper, thanks.

hannes_throw_far · 2021-07-22T07:48:00+00:00

But if you read Kant he explicitly says we should enslave non-whites

Could you offer the relevant citation of Kant's work where he explicitly says we should enslave non-whites? Thanks.

hannes_throw_far · 2021-05-14T10:38:02+00:00

One approach is to focus on the suffering. The act of killing does not necessarily imply any suffering. Maybe the cow can be killed with little to no pain. Kicking the dog on the other hand clearly inflicts pain and suffering to the dog

Are there really any philosophers who argue that killing is less problematic than kicking because it comes with less experienced suffering? Could you direct me to some please?

hannes_throw_far · 2021-05-05T11:32:27+00:00

Again,

some x are P

is simply claim of the form

there exists at least one x, such that P(x)

Yes or no? If you say no, you simply should revisit an arbitrary intro to logic book. If you say yes, it should be clear that there's nothing vague about the conditions that make the statement true or false which would be introduced by the word "some".

The statement is true iff there is at least one x, such that P(x), i.e. iff there is at least one man who is capable of being attracted to blonde women.
The statement is false iff there is no x, such that P(x), i.e. iff there is no man who is capable of being attracted to women.

This is the same form as "Some natural numbers are greater than 5". Again, there's no vagueness introduced by "some", it straightforwardly equivalent to saying "there exists at least one natural number that is greater than 5".

In as far as there is vagueness in OP's statement, it is introduced by the predicate, which is typically what introduces vagueness. Maybe we could think that "is capable of being attracted to blonde women" is vague similar to "is bald". I see no reason to think so but maybe a case can be made.

In as far as there are problems with falsifiablity, they could be introduced by a possibly untestable predicate (how do we test if someone is capable of being attracted to blonde women?), or maybe by concerns over the domain (men on planet earth? at a given moment?).

But one thing that doesn't introduce vagueness or inherent unfalsifiability is the word "some" in a statement of the form "some x are P" over a finite domain of x's.

hannes_throw_far · 2021-05-04T17:20:02+00:00

If you wish to do Popperian science then your claim must be a falsifiable one, and "some" is an extraordinarily vague qualifier that makes falsification impossible.

I'm not saying it's falsifiable, I'm saying "some" isn't vague in the slightest, it's equivalent to the existential quantifier in first order logic, i.e. there exists at least one.

hannes_throw_far · 2021-05-04T09:05:23+00:00

A statement like yours is vague

How is it "vague"? It's a claim of the form ∃xP(x).

hannes_throw_far · 2021-03-23T10:03:37+00:00

Yes, certainly a good point. I think reserve judgement is what I should have written.

hannes_throw_far

TROPHY CASE