Philosophical nonsense?

Thought this might spark some interesting discussions:

http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Irrational_Deduction.html

and this:

http://www.importanceofphilosophy.com/Irrational_Faith.html

It says what I've been thinking for a long time. It seems to apply to a few philosophers here...

There is more of interest at this site.

What say you all?

 

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Could you elaborate?

 

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Ayn Rand was a pretty nifty lady.

 

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Interesting indeed.

What a moron that clown is.

1st problem: the clown fails to clarify what it is he means by his usage of the term 'certain'. Under layman's definitions, yes, sorry, it's true, certainty can only derive from deductive arguments.

2nd problem: the clown, throughout his 'argument' (sic) makes full use of the logic he seems to claim is erroneous.

What's most interesting about all this however, is that the author's misapprehension of philosophy, and logic in particular, is the real cause of the seeming pointlessness of the works of philosophers.

And by the by, despite his use of the term, at no point whatsoever does the author establish, let alone try to establish, that the derivation of certainty is fixed to deduction.

What a clown...

 

Anyway, this website is decent. The "Fallacy of Deduction" is a bit nonsensical, though. Whereas in some ways I will argue that the a priori/a posteriori are not as opposed as we would like to think, it is not proper to say that "things exist because it is obvious they do". Certainly the empirical is not trivial or absurd, but it must be substantiated by at least some degree of deduction. This is important even in the pragmatic concerns of optical illusions in regards to distance and other such things.

 

Glaucon:

Yes, there are some serious flaws in this website. The problem is that few people besides Ayn Rand herself have ever been able to make good claims for her philosophical system.

 

Cool!

And here I thought he was spot on with at least the observation that reference to reality was in some way necessary to accurately describe the world. What a clown I am.

 

Ummm... no?

 

You place deduction (the joining of two or more empirical entities) above empirical evidence? Must I deduce that my apple is an apple?

I think I am philosophically challenged.

 

If you say so.

But no, he's not necessarily spot on there. Now, as P_J pointed out, from a pure empiricist point of view, then yes, one can go about ostensively defining one's reality. But there's the key: one's ontological structure will directly affect one's use of logic.

 

Can you pretend that I am a linguistically challenged philosophical dullard and point out some of them using small words?

 

Exemplify, please.

 

You've got deduction confused with induction.

Deduction is an argument where one cannot assert the premisses and deny the conclusion without contradiction.

Induction is the 'joining' act.

 

So, tell me. What important things can philosophy of any sort tell me about the lamp sitting in front of me on my desk that empiricism can't?

 

Woops.

 

Is this a baiting thread?

 

Firstly, empiricism is a philosophical school of thought.

Secondly, it's not a question of what it can tell you or not. The main problem (as philosophers see it...) with the empiricist approach, is that it is subject to error, and that it is incomplete.

 

Methinks so....

 

Excuse me? I'm frustrated and frankly sick to tears with the philosophical drunken wanderings displayed in this and the religion forums (by those who will remain nameless).

Educate me. Explain to me why the methods of "philosophy" I've witnessed here lead to anything useful. Explain to me how, after six thousand+ posts, you and LG and others can respond in exactly the same way to the simple questions myself, Q, and others have been posing for months? And there is never the smallest sign that the gap of light-year proportions in our understanding is doing anything but getting wider.

That's what I really want to discuss. See thread title.

 

It's never a question of getting any kind of useful result, is it? See thread title. It's all mental masturbation with zero convergence on anything useful.