GE Morton wrote: ↑August 7th, 2022, 1:39 pm
We're just quibbling here about the use of that phrase.
Yes, not about the words, or the phrase, but its
use, as you say.
The phrase asserts the existence of knowledge, claims to which need not be justified, nor do they need to be declared as an assumption or axiom, because truth somehow exudes from it in such a way that it is obvious to all? This is utter tosh, is it not?
[I ask this question in a scientific/philosophical context; everyday parlance/vocabulary is different.]
GE Morton wrote: ↑August 7th, 2022, 1:39 pm
They are honestly declared as "axioms" or as "assumptions", making it clear that these are things we believe to be true, but which might not actually be true, because we have no conclusive proof to offer or present.
Yes, the axioms of a theory might not have been true. But the evidence that they are true is so pervasive and consistent that there is no room for doubt about it --- we simply
cannot doubt them (just try to doubt that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West --- and don't confuse doubting that it does with imagining it being otherwise).
This looks like more of the same: utter tosh. And let's be clear: no-one denies that the Sun has, in the past, risen in the East and set in the West. It has already happened, many times, and been observed. There is no room for doubt there, and no need for it, as we have empirical observational evidence. But the past is one thing, and the future another. If your conjecture is 'self-evident', it would allow us to predict — without doubt — that the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow, and into the future.
The power of science, for example, is in its ability to predict the future, as well as to describe the present, and maybe the past. The means that science uses to predict things is testable and tested, many times. Those aspects that are not tested are clearly and honestly declared as axioms or assumptions: guesses. "Self-evident" is a deception that denies these things. It's like an axiom, in that it is to be accepted without any justification, but it is some kind of special case that need not be declared a guess either, as it has some magical property that makes its truth clear to any/all who look.
So, in the case of your Sun example, where and what is this magic? Where is the magic that predicts without doubt that the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow? I would be surprised to find this magic, given that science already knows of the possibility that the Sun will get bigger at some point, and swallow the Earth instead of 'rising'. Maybe tomorrow?
You claim that there is "evidence" to support your 'self-evident' dogmas, but I see none. Self-evidence is a lie and a deception; there is no such thing. There are things we know, backed up by evidence, and there are things we think are so, that we openly declare as axioms. There is no other valid and logical category, no 'self-evidence'.