h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And Plato got it from India!

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Seems somehow inevitable now, that. After all, where else?

There are no Absolute Truths.

Phenomenon is noumenon filtered by our perceptual and cognitive apparatus. (So I guess ignorance isn't far off the mark).

Noggin

As usual, I disagree. Yes there are absolute truths, but no absolute knowledge of them. I think you are confusing ontology and epistemology. You wouldn't be the first! But, also as usual, feel free to disagree.

It is interesting to consider whether the end product of perception is an image or representation or whether it is knowledge. Or, indeed, whether there is that much difference. As a cognitive scientist I find this a fascinating research area with far more questions than answers - as usual.

I think we've reached a point here where it is a matter of choice how you describe them.
If knowledge had to be Absolute to count as knowledge there would be no use for the word, and we'd have to invent a new one to do the work that the word knowledge does now. There may be an absolute state of things (ontology) but not of our knowledge of them (epistemology).

There doesn't seem to be anything very substantive between our respective positions. But feel free to logic chop if you wish.


Noggin

Nare. I agree wiv ya.

so it all comes down to semantics....again

Our agreements come down to semantice. We are good at sorting out where we only appear to disagree. However, our disagreements are substantive. Or are you claiming that they're merely more difficult semantic disputes that we haven't yet solved? Or is that question itself merely semantic?

How exactly are semantic arguments substantive? Just asking

I was flicking through a back issue of Vedanta for East and West and came across this quote;

You have come to the garden to eat the mangoes not to count the leaves. Aren't they among the leaf-counters who would suppose that faithfulness to the letter - whether in reporting a story, editing a manuscript or examining archives - is the critical consideration transcending all other related values.

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

I must have been unclear . I intended to raise the question of whether our disagreements are substantive OR semantic. I was asking whether you went for the latter option, as your post appeared to hint. That 'again' seemed to carry a flavour of 'as usual'!

It is my extensive (!) experience that many philosophical argument arent about philosophy but about come down to semantics: it's not what you say but how you said it as most important but it should be the other way round.

It's not necessarily these conversations that I have encountered this, but on another forum I used to contribute to, and at conversations and debates when I was at school.

I thought you were getting at something like that. It seems to happen mostly to beginners. Seasoned philosophers soon spot when a disputed point is merely semantic and abandon it for the real meat of the question. The special vocabulary of philosophy is pretty brief (we get obscure enough as it is!) but some terms are essential. 'Analytic' v 'synthetic' or 'a priori' v 'empirical' come to mind. Also the difference between the sense and reference of a word.

And a beginner I surely be

However, I disagree that seasoned phil. don't fall into the same trap: the place in which I encountered it most was the forum inhabited by graduates/post-grads and phd students, as well as those with doctorates. Admittedly I was frequently lost by obscure terms, but a lot of it seemed to be one-up-manship which came down to semantics rather than the argument itself..so I gradually withdrew, but it eventually finished anyway.

Leaf-counters!

Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

Indeed! Maybe that was why the moderator shut it down: he got sick of it

Shame how posers can spoil anything. Obscure terminology is usually a sign of pretentiousness. I'm happy to use as much ordinary language as poss, and to cut to the chase rather than going round in circles. I don't go much for quotes or what others thought, and I hate metaphors. Leave them for the poets. In philosophy, ya gotta tell it like it is (or ya think it is )

I have to agree with you there: it was a lot of posturing: needless to say I didn't mention that I was a 16 yr old AS student at the time; I might have been slightly patronised

I like quotes if it says what you want to say: one of the best would have to be Kant's 'I have found it necessary to make room for faith', or something along those lines... but quotes are a tool, not a necessity.

I like metaphors too: but only in poetry! Perhaps the thing I use most are analogies, but they are usually in everyday conversation rather than in phil. debates.

Everything you know was first the thought of someone else. You can't read anything, look at anything made that was not at one time the thought of someone else.


Alji (Member of The Guild of Wizards @ U197895)

what a happy thought