Philosophy Discussion Forums

Tamminen wrote:I mean it in the same sense as Descartes found that it is impossible to doubt his experiences and therefore concluded that he exists, or in the same sense as I have found the necessity of the subject.

Okay, so it seems to me that you mean it in the first sense that I mentioned. You mean that you regard it as self-contradictory to doubt the existence of an objective world.

For my part, I favour the second sense that I mentioned. I think the idea that there exists an objective world about which we can make objective propositions is useful and that this utility is part of the the definition of existence. Or, at least, the only definition of existence that can be made unambiguous.

Steve3007 wrote: ↑December 4th, 2019, 11:26 am

Tamminen wrote:I mean it in the same sense as Descartes found that it is impossible to doubt his experiences and therefore concluded that he exists, or in the same sense as I have found the necessity of the subject.

Okay, so it seems to me that you mean it in the first sense that I mentioned. You mean that you regard it as self-contradictory to doubt the existence of an objective world.

For my part, I favour the second sense that I mentioned. I think the idea that there exists an objective world about which we can make objective propositions is useful and that this utility is part of the the definition of existence. Or, at least, the only definition of existence that can be made unambiguous.

There is nothing wrong with your pragmatic approach, I like it, but my philosophical ambitions go deeper into questions like: "What is this all about?" and "What is the ontological structure of reality?" So I find the phenomenological approach a better way of dealing with those questions, and that approach seeks essences and a priori truths. The aim is to build an adequate metaphysical interpretation of modern science and our everyday being in the world.

The a priori I am speaking about is not analytic a priori like "all bachelors are necessarily unmarried", because that kind of a priori gives us no information, being only the definition of 'bachelor' in other words. But saying that all being presupposes a metaphysical subject says something about the ontological structure of reality. If it is true, it is an a priori truth. It is impossible to verify or falsify empirically. Nevertheless, it is either true or false. There is no ambiguity in it. I think we should not reject the idea of synthetic a priori truths.

Tamminen wrote:...but my philosophical ambitions go deeper into questions like: "What is this all about?" and "What is the ontological structure of reality?" So I find the phenomenological approach a better way of dealing with those questions, and that approach seeks essences and a priori truths. The aim is to build an adequate metaphysical interpretation of modern science and our everyday being in the world.

Ditto. ...and very well said Tam!

Knowledge starts with math, learning values, and what "equal" means and how equal also applies to the fairness of others. Math teaches truth - 2 plus 2 is always 4 - that's a true statement. Learning to identify truth and to value truth.
I believe man has the ability to discover truth by seeking it and using Logic, but it can be a difficult road, there is a lot of misunderstanding in the world.