Freep a poll! (Should Canada legalize brothels?)

I NEED to freep this poll.

Thank you Vicomte13 and SWB for your interest. I found both your posts very enjoyable and clear sighted. I will respond using mostly Stephen Hicks words from his book Explaining Postmodernism. This is an attempted summary or gloss of Hicks' take on the Analytic School. It is also interlaced with some of my comments on what you posted.

From my reading of Hicks, the Analytical School didn't believe that philosophy provided meaningful answers to problems in the same way that science could. Bertrand Russell states the case in The Problems of Philosophy: Can we prove there is an external world? No. Can we prove there is cause an effect? No. Can we validate the objectivity in our inductive generalizations? No. Can we find an objective basis for morality? No.

Therefore, philosophy became not a content discipline -- content being metaphysics, ethics, theology and aesthetics -- but a method discipline. The function of philosophy was then to "analyze" and assist science. It would analyze the perceptual, linguistic and logical tools that science uses. Scientists perceive, organize their observations linguistically in concepts and then they structure those concepts using logic. Philosophy's job was to figure out what perception, language and logic are all about.

What they figured out about perception was that it was theory-laden. According to Hicks, the biggest names in the philosophy of science – Otto Neurath, Karl Popper, Norwood Hanson, Paul Feyerabend, Thomas Kuhn and W. V. O. Quine – all argued that our theories largely dictate what we see. They framed their point with Kant's original language: our perceptual intuitions do not conform to objects but rather our intuition conforms to what our faculty of knowledge supplies from itself (Kant's categories). This conclusion is devastating for science: if our percepts are theory-laden, then perception is hardly a neutral and independent check upon theorizing. If our conceptual structures shape our observations as much as vice versa, then we are stuck inside a subjective system with no direct access to reality.

Vicomte13:‘Gravity.
What is gravity?
If you look it up, you will find it to be an attractive property associated with mass.
Ok, then what's mass? It's something that occupies space and has gravity.
What's space? A real dimension capable of holding mass.
Delve down a few more layers, and you'll get "energy" in there.
And you will discover that you are running a round robin of definitions: gravity is caused by mass. Mass is identified by causing gravity.

Now, the Analytical School would throw up its hands at this point and say "See, there's no THERE there! It's not reality! It's just concepts! And fuzzy ones at that."'

In this case "gravity" would be a fuzzy concept but the Analytical School would probably go farther and say our perception of gravity was theory-laden to begin with, which means our concepts can never be neutral or objective. Therefore, there can be no reality check to our theories -- unless, as you say, you jump out of a window and fall and hit the ground.

Hicks states that by the middle of the century the mainstream conclusion about concepts and propositions of logic and mathematics was that they are conventional. Logical and mathematical propositions were disconnected from experiential reality. An example is 2 + 2 = 4, while being necessarily true, must not be about the world of experience. Hicks quotes Schlick that logic and mathematics, "do not deal with any facts, but only with the symbols by means of which the facts are expressed." Wittgenstein is also quoted: "All propositions of logic say the same thing. That is, nothing."

Vicomte13, this reminds me of the digital world you mention: "the Analytical School would prefer to deny that there is any universe at all if it can't be perfectly digital."

However, Hick goes on to say that the conclusions about logic and mathematics are devastating for science. If logic and mathematics are divorced from experiential reality, then the rules of logic and mathematics hardly say anything about that reality. The implication is that logic or mathematical proofs cut no ice in adjudicating competing claims of fact. Hicks quotes Ayer: "Analytic propositions are entirely devoid of factual content. And it is for this reason that no experience can confute them." Offering logical proofs about matters of fact is thus pointless. And conversely, it is pointless to expect any amount of factual evidence to add up to a necessary or universal conclusion.

Hicks then asks where do logic and math come from? He mentions the Neo Kantian and Neo Humean accounts and states that the Neo Humean explanation – pragmatists such as Quine, Nelson, Goodman and Ernest Nagel – prevails in the end. On this account, logical and mathematical propositions are merely a function of how we have decided to use words and which combination of words we have decided to privilege. Concepts are merely nominal, based on subjective human choices about how to carve up the flow of phenomenal experience.

From this point Hicks argues that conceptual relativism follows directly from such nominalism: we could have decided differently what concepts to adopt; we could carve up the world differently. According to Quine, if all concepts are nominal, then one consequence is that there is no basis for a distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions. All propositions then become a posteriori and merely contingent. Logical relativism is the next consequence. Logical principals are constructs of concepts. What accounts as a principle of logic, then, is not dictated by reality but is rather up to us: "the principles of logic and mathematics are true universally simply because we never allow them to be anything else"(Ayer) also "the rules of language are, in principle, arbitrary" (Schlick). Logical principles become a matter of which formulations we are willing to accept, depending on whether or not we like the consequences of accepting and given principle (Goodman). The rules of logic and grammar then can be variable as other conventions – like greeting rituals of shaking hands, hugging or rubbing noses – and no form of greeting of system of logic is objectively right than any other.

SWB: Reality is not a movie, structured by the whims of a society of directors, and thinking it is almost always a sign of derangement.

Of course this might go against Ayer: "the principles of logic and mathematics are true universally simply because we never allow them to be anything else." Is Ayer full of hot air? But your insight is right: the Otto Premingers and Erich Von Stroheims of postmodernism want to give you the director's cut when it comes to logic and reality. Reality will be as faded and useless as Norma Desmond with plenty of out of work screen writers clamoring to rewrite the script for the directors or dictators' final approval.

Hicks concludes that by the 1950s, these conclusions were commonplace. Language and logic were seen as conventional, internal systems – and not as objective, reality-based tools of consciousness. By 1962 Thomas Kuhn publishes The Structure of Scientific Revolutions announcing the developments of the preceding four decades of analytic philosophy and highlighted the dead end it reached. If science's tools are perception, logic and language, then science is merely an evolving, socially subjective enterprise with no claim to objectivity than any other belief system. The idea that science speaks of reality or truth is an illusion. There is no Truth; there are only truths and, truths change.

My Conclusion: I still like to know how they put a man on the moon in the 1960s with Kuhn's belief that science is an evolving, socially subjective enterprise with no claim to objectivity than other belief systems. I can see science using mathematics and logic as tools that allows man to construct theoretical models of reality, though the tools themselves may not be of this world or may be subjective. The models themselves would have to be proven empirically and in some cases some models would have to be discarded -- for example, climate change has many models trying to describe the same phenomena: they all can't be right. History shows that science evolves so that models become more refined or new ones are added that are more accurate in describing phenomena (which accounts for more of the "slop" that man doesn't know). Gravity is still a scientific theory but in the future there may be yet another theory or model for gravity that accounts more precisely for the phenomena. But other parties might also want to account for gravity – e.g., a theological account of God's will working in the world – and this account would contain as much truth, according to Kuhn's logic, as science.

I'm going to be careful here, because I am going to sound like I am being flip, but I am really being mostly serious and only a little bit flip.

There are certain excerpts of what you wrote that I am going to comment upon, but my comments will seem even more flip if I don't first give some context.

For my own part, I do not really think that the issue is really one of ambiguity as to fact. Rather, it is a question of ambiguity as to AUTHORITY. WHO SAYS is a vital question among academics especially, because the proud notion of intellectual independence can become so strong that it refuses to acknowledge any bounds. In every serious discussion I enter into on any subject, be it law, history, religion, science or philosophy, what I am always trying to do, first up, is to nail down the question of authority.

You will see this in my postings on religious matters. Where is the final authority and who says? Is it the authority of the Church? Is it the text of the Bible? Which manuscript? WHY is it that authority? In the end, what I am driving at...and which nobody ever gives me the satisfaction of outright saying...is that there IS a final authority in any matters involving a text or a hierarchy, and the degree of overall authority one is willing to assign to that final authority is made on the basis of faith and not pure reason. Reason can get you back far enough to recognize that there IS a final authority in any belief system, but it cannot go so far as to actually make you BELIEVE that authority.

The same thing applies to science. I have had even less success trying to step back the scientifically educated (in fairness, engineers and physicians - applied scientists - are worse than chemists, physicists or biologists in this regard - pure scientists - in this regard) and to get them to admit that their scientific belief systems rest on definitions, that the definitions themselves arise from experimental data which is mostly taken on faith in the authority of the experimenter and the logic of the theoretician. Normally, I get angry denuniciations that the key to science is that things are repeatable, etc., etc., but in the really high sciences where the esoteric knowledge (the stuff that purports to overthrow Newton) is performed, there are only a handful of physicists and facilities in the world where such experiments can be performed, the experiments are extremely expensive, and they are NOT repeated hundreds of times by different people all over the place. Rather, they are done once, perhaps confirmed in another place, and then the single data point or set of data points is accepted based on the prestige of the institution and the authority of the scientists.

Pointing this out generates more denunciations of untruthfulness and lack of knowledge on my part (in other words, an appeal to the LACK of authority on my part), and the assertion that even if such results have not yet been tested and retested and retested again (for the most part) that they COULD be, and that these are serious institutions and scientists with serious reputations and careful protocols, etc. All of that is true, but lurking in it is a frank appeal to faith.

It's getting folks to ADMIT that they're really relying on faith in authority that is the really tough part, in a civilized society where the means of argumentation are limited. Many of these refusals to admit to a particular thing which is obvious in argumentation is simply the desire to avoid losing an argument by losing a key pillar of it.

And that is why my answers below to some of what you have said will be shockingly flip and even funny. I will take the role of a lawyer in the tradition of Robespierre and a scientist in the tradition of Mengele and bring uncivilized tactics into the debate. Uncivilized tactics are what separate out true faith from pretention.

Two examples will suffice:
In the Roman Empire, Christianity was illegal, and its practitioners were subject to being tortured to death most hideously. Now, the thing is, what the Roman governors were really after wasn't superstitious worship of their gods. Rather, they were after forcing people to bend the knee above all to the authority of the authorities themselves, to force them to CHANGE their religion and worship of the gods, whatever gods, base don the REAL authority of the Roman officials (to torture and kill them if they didn't). So, someone might assert that he was a disciple of Diana, that Diana was his god, but if the Roman commander was determined that nobody should hold anything ABOVE the authority of the state, he might demand that the man piss on a statue of Diana or be slowly roasted to death over live coals. When the man pissed on the statue, it demonstrated that he feared the Roman commander more than offending his god, and therefore believed less in the reality of his god than he did in the reality of power of the Roman commander. A hierarchy of authority in determining REALITY was thus established, and the gods and religious stuff was very clearly subordinate to the reality of the power of officials. Then came the Christians. The problem with them was not that they worshipped Jesus. It was that they refused to submit to orders, and proclaimed the superior authority and truth of their god over the Roman law. The authorities reacted with predictable savagery (just as the Chinese, today, torture and kill the Falun Gong, for the same reason). Usually, the recalcitrant Christian was given many, many chances to relent. He was shown the implements of torture, witnessed the horror, was made to see what would happen, and was told he would go free if he'd just pour some wine on the ground to Venus, et al. A lot of Christians, of course, DID pour out the wine and were spared. But many did not, and went through horrible deaths when the Roman commanders demonstrated that, on this earth at that time, the power over life and death did not lie in some Jesus, but in the Roman commander.

Now, of course, the fact that some of the Christians actually went into the fire and allowed themselves to be broken and fed to the lions, etc., was proof that their faith was real. Nobody who sees that will chose to die slowly and horribly simply to be STUBBORN.

And that is why my "test" of the philosopher's faith, below, is a real PROOF of the argument that I make, as you will see. If they REALLY BELIEVED their arguments, then they would act other than they would in the circumstances.

So, let's look at what you said.

"Bertrand Russell states the case in The Problems of Philosophy:
Can we prove there is an external world? No."

OF COURSE WE CAN. HERE IS A NAIL. I AM GOING TO JAM IT INTO YOUR EYE RIGHT NOW, BERTRAND, UNLESS YOU ADMIT THERE IS AN EXTERNAL WORLD.
And by this act I will have proven that Bertrand Russell, too, actually believes in an external world, and he is just posturing, because no man who SAYS something absurd like "We can't prove there's an external world" really believes it at all. He is just posturing, knowing that no CIVILIZED argument can overcome his stubbornness. Offer to cripple him immediately, unless he will stop being stubborn, and he will admit he's just posturing. Nobody will allow himself to be blinded to defend a point he does not believe.
Oh, and if 100% of the people won't take the nail in the eye (and they won't), and 100% of the people who are stubborn and take the nail in the eye are then blinded, we have, in fact, not only proven that there IS an external world (by the 100% blindness rate), we have also proved that nobody in existence really believes that there isn't an external world any more than anybody believes that Mickey Mouse is really alive (because nobody, but nobody, will allow himself to be CERTAINLY blinded in order to stand up for a theoretical point he doesn't believe).

Now, the philosopher might argue that succumbing to a threat does not PROVE anything, but of course it DOES prove something. It proves that whoever succumbs to the threat doesn't REALLY believe what he is saying, and is posturing. The philosopher might then say that universal belief doesn't make something true, and cite to some alleged universal belief (like the flat earth) to prove it. But that actually demonstrates the truth of the proposition that there IS an external world. How so? Because, my dear philosopher, the world IS flat. Look out the window. It's flat. Care to argue that it isn't? What are you arguing WITH? FACTS? Oh, so they're real, are they? The world is round and we know it, and that's proof that everybody can be wrong in a belief but that there isn't an external world?
I will jam a nail in your eye if you don't admit that you know that's BS.

"Can we prove there is cause an effect? No."

Really, Bertrand? I've still got that nail in my hand. You know that if I jab it in your eye, you'll be blinded.
I know I'll have a handful of jelly.
We both know it.
Now, will you knock off the pretention, please, that we cannot prove cause and effect, or do I need to jam the nail in your eye and thereby PROVE the cause and effect that you say , pretentiously and knowing damned well that you're just being cute, we can prove, and that I WILL prove if you persist in your stubbornness.
If we could not prove cause and effect, then there would be people who ignore alarming threats of impending violence. Nobody ever does. Animals neither. Because everyone and everything knows damned well there is cause and effect. It's OBVIOUS.
What Russell has said is the same thing as saying "We cannot prove the existence of the sun. Or the computer you are reading. Maybe it's not there."
Yes, Ok. And maybe Mickey Mouse is real.
Betrand Russell is relying on the authority of being Bertrand Russell to say "Mickey Mouse is real, and you can't prove otherwise."
If anybody else said it, we'd say "You're a lunatic" and move on. If important "authorities" say it, we have to treat it as though it's a serious point?
It isn't (but this nail has a serious point on it, by which I will prove cause and effect if you don't admit that by using it I will have done so.)

"Can we validate the objectivity in our inductive generalizations? No."

Really? Don't worry, Bertrand, you'll have one eye left after the first jab. But, oh my!, is that inductive reasoning you're doing as I approach the second eye with the nail that maybe you should admit you're just making up important-sounding bullshit which you KNOW is not true, as your ACTIONS when the nail approaches will demonstrate.

I will predict, with 100% certitude, and you will choose not to have me stick the nail in your eye and will, in fact, say what I demand you say. Why, Bertrand, I will be I can even make you profess Christianity, at least until I leave the room!
Will I have proven Christianity or inductive reasoning by forcing your admission?
No.
But I will have proven that FEAR creates an OBJECTIVE REALITY which COMPELS HUMAN REACTION. And that IS reality.

"Can we find an objective basis for morality? No."

So it's ok for me to jab the nail in your eye, maybe?

"Therefore, philosophy became not a content discipline -- content being metaphysics, ethics, theology and aesthetics -- but a method discipline."

Garbage in, garbage out.

"If our conceptual structures shape our observations as much as vice versa, then we are stuck inside a subjective system with no direct access to reality."

Emmanuel, buddy, I love ya.
But, see, I have this nail in my pocket, and with it, I am going to teach you to respect the existence of objective reality. Or you could chose solipsistic insanity, to decide that rather than it really being me, an external, objectively real, nasty, sadistic human being who is going to poke your eyes out in order to force you to admit to something you don't want to admit, that actually you've imagined all of this, me, the nail, and your permanent blindness for the next 40 years, in a never-ending nightmare. You're being stubborn, Immy, very stubborn.
Admit what you are doing: you are TRYING to establish the empire of MIND which you control, over matter and space and time, so that the ultimate AUTHORITY for everything reposes in mind, and THEN, if you're clever enough, you can deconstruct death and live forever. That's what all deconstructionist philosophy is really after.

You're going to have to make it work a lot faster, to disintegrate me into illusionary thought bubbles before I stick this nail in your eyeball.

"In this case "gravity" would be a fuzzy concept but the Analytical School would probably go farther and say our perception of gravity was theory-laden to begin with, which means our concepts can never be neutral or objective."

That is NOT a nail you're holding!
It's not a nail...
It's NOT a nail...
It's NOT A NAIL...
MAMA, HELP, HE'S GONNA STAB ME WITH A NAIL!
Objective reality proven, Mr. Analytical Schooler. Now please shut up and don't pretend that there isn't an objective reality again.
Do I have to come over there and get out my NAIL again?

"Therefore, there can be no reality check to our theories --unless, as you say, you jump out of a window and fall and hit the ground."

Oh, ok. But let's just get the Analytical Schoolers up on the ledge and we'll throw one off and see how long the rest decide that they want to keep on asserting that Mickey Mouse exists.

They'll cave. That may not objectively prove gravity. But it will objectively prove that concrete external threat can always cause the "subjective" mind to behave in a very linear and UTTERLY predictable way, thereby demonstrating that even if the universe is all just MIND, that MIND ITSELF is bound by objective rules.

"Hicks states that by the middle of the century the mainstream conclusion about concepts and propositions of logic and mathematics was that they are conventional. Logical and mathematical propositions were disconnected from experiential reality."

Mr. Hicks, my name is the Vicomte de Mengele. I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine. His name is "Mr. Nail". I keep him in my pocket. Mr. Nail is a powerful philosopher. He has the amazing effect of proving logical propositions and experiential reality.

"An example is 2 + 2 = 4, while being necessarily true, must not be about the world of experience."

Of course it is. Arithmetic was developed using fingers in animal husbandry. 2 sheep and 2 more sheep. Four fingers. Four sheep. It is about the world of experience. That's where it comes from.

Geometry is about drawing lines on land to delineate parcels and fields. It's an experiential art which was then abstracted to other stuff.

"Wittgenstein is also quoted: 'All propositions of logic say the same thing. That is, nothing.'"

Proposition of logic: "Mr. Witty, if I take this nail, and stick it directly in your eye, you will be blind. I will do it in one minute unless you get out of that chair. Feel free to ignore me, because, as you say, I have said nothing, and you need not fear blindness, for the proposition of effect logically arising from cause says nothing. Just sit there, because I really love what I do.

"However, Hick goes on to say that the conclusions about logic and mathematics are devastating for science."

Hicks have said a lot of strange things over the course of history. Like "That goat over there is cute." He SAYS that these conclusions are devastating for science. And I say they are not. As men, we have equal authority and therefore cancel? Ah, no, because Hicks is a PHILOSOPHER, and THEREFORE has that mystical authority which means HE has to be listened to and pondered and respected. But I, without that authority, can be disregarded. Unless you are in the room with me and I have my nail in one hand and a .44 in the other hand. Then it's Yes SIR!

"If logic and mathematics are divorced from experiential reality, then the rules of logic and mathematics hardly say anything about that reality."

If pigs had wings they'd be eagles. But they don't and they're not.

"The implication is that logic or mathematical proofs cut no ice in adjudicating competing claims of fact."

In a sense this is true, but only because real facts stick out like sore thumbs and don't beg proof. Like "That nail is pointy and sharp, and that scares me the way you're holding it." Only if you can't actually SEE the nail, or me, would you propose all the reasons why the threat of violence doesn't prove anything. But, of course, the threat of violence DOES prove something, something concrete and real, because nobody will reason on blithely in the presence of it. Too bad that empirical reality, objective and subjective, have to be proven by Vlad the Impaler, but he DOES prove it.

"Hicks quotes Ayer: 'Analytic propositions are entirely devoid of factual content. And it is for this reason that no experience can confute them.' Offering logical proofs about matters of fact is thus pointless. And conversely, it is pointless to expect any amount of factual evidence to add up to a necessary or universal conclusion."

Ok, so maybe if we watch the Saddam execution video again, there will be one time where he doesn't fall through the hole dead.

Bottom line: Hicks, Witty, Immy: pull yourselves together. The Christians have gotten around the fear of death by making themselves not have to die, because they get to believe they live on and go to Heaven. And you know, there are now 4 peer-reviewed controlled hospital studies of near death experiences which show that maybe they're right at least in part about consciousness going on.
But you guys, with your attempts to deconstruct reality by making it all dependent on words and thoughts which you can transmute? You're not going to define death away that way, won't work. And none of you would actually go to the cross, the lions and the flames to defend this nonsense, which means you don't REALLY believe it, you're just posturing.

"Hicks then asks where do logic and math come from?"

From our natural, animal beings. Cats count their kittens. Math. Monkeys take a sticky stick and pull out ants. Logic. We're smarter and do more of it.

Ok, I'll put my nail away now and be nice.
You can calm down and sit back down comfortable. The danger is past.

[By the way, I didn't notice that your screen name was "Blind Eye Jones" until just now. I probably knew it subconsciously. If I were a better person, to avoid an alarming display of callousness, I would go back and replace the nail-in-the-eye with a cattle prod to the nutsack. But I am lazy and instead will apologize for the possibly painful reference, leaving behind the alarming words, argument, and proof that I am in fact the mean bastard that I sound like.

Don't too glibly dismiss the universal reaction to the threat of violence as empirical proof of objective reality. It is the best proof there is that even the SUBJECTIVE reality is bounded by objective limits.

I am always trying to do, first up, is to nail down the question of authority.

I didn't think a man with a nail can demolish nearly the whole modern western philosophic tradition. You've proved that point (ouch)!

Reason can get you back far enough to recognize that there IS a final authority in any belief system, but it cannot go so far as to actually make you BELIEVE that authority.

How is anything final? What is the final authority on Christianity?

Of course it is. Arithmetic was developed using fingers in animal husbandry. 2 sheep and 2 more sheep. Four fingers. Four sheep. It is about the world of experience. That's where it comes from.

But we don't see two and two walking hand in hand in the world. Nothing like that there for the five senses to experience.

Don't too glibly dismiss the universal reaction to the threat of violence as empirical proof of objective reality. It is the best proof there is that even the SUBJECTIVE reality is bounded by objective limits.

I take it that the reaction to the threat of violence is more than an empirical proof of objective reality. It is an authoritative proof and, by your account, subject to faith and not pure reason.

***************************

Vicomte13 you're a man of my heart with all this talk of God and dying for some belief worth dying for and dying because we will die anyway. Christians and Philosophers (Athens and Jerusalem), mind and body, objective and subjective, etc., it all appears very grand. But what would you die for? If some Bastard comes up to you with a nail and does the Gloster/Lear thing ("out vile jelly where is thy luster now") about you beliefs, would you die and prove your point that people die objectively? You wouldn't. So what credibility do you have to offer if you too would decline a horrible death? Therefore, aren't you as much a poseur as Bertrand Russell?

Your argument is that people fear death and this is proof of an objective world. However, you are also stating that if one really believes in this proposition he would die for it to prove his faith in his argument. Somehow this proof of faith destroys the argument.

And why expect this brutal rigor from philosophers who are not hemlock drinkers like Socrates? Most of these philosophers are dry department hacks more worried about tenure and funding -- or even worse, worried about whether the phallic symbol i representing the square root of negative one really shows a human desire to conquer nature and penetrate its secrets -- than about dying horribly to prove conviction in their beliefs. According to Socrates, philosophy is a preparation for death... but not in the flip way you are thinking.