Religious Typology Quiz

[Dutch Uncle]

You really are a silly boy, Perry PhD.

 

[Saint Guinefort]

You really are a silly boy, Perry PhD.

Business slow at the public bathrooms today? Not enough men coming through for you to give blowjobs to?

Sorry to hear that.

 

[Cypress]

I'll bite. What else do we use to know things?

Descartes says we use deduction and rationality.

Plato said there are things we know from experience, and things we intuit from reason.

Kant said we have phenomenal knowledge and noumenal knowledge.

Knowledge via deduction from first principles has been with us since Aristotle and Euclid. It doesn't require microscopes, mass spectrometers, or particle accelerator. It didn't even require sense perception.

I don't think John Stewart Mill ever used a piece of scientific equipment, or sensory perception for his theory of morality.


The empiricism of Francis Bacon seems to have played first chair in the Anglo-American tradition, which is probably why a lot of people assume empiricism is the only route to knowledge.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Descartes says we use deduction and rationality.

Plato said there are things we know from experience, and things we intuit from reason.

Kant said we have phenomenal knowledge and noumenal knowledge.

Knowledge via deduction from first principles has been with us since Aristotle and Euclid. It doesn't require microscopes, mass spectrometers, or particle accelerator. It didn't even require sense perception.

I don't think John Stewart Mill ever used a piece of scientific equipment, or sensory perception for his theory of morality.


The empiricism of Francis Bacon seems to have played first chair in the Anglo-American tradition, which is probably why a lot of people assume empiricism is the only route to knowledge.

Deduction is useful in working with people puzzles. Similarly, in science, if a ripple on the water is seen, then it can be deduced that something caused it per Newton's Laws of Motion.

 

[Cypress]

Deduction is useful in working with people puzzles. Similarly, in science, if a ripple on the water is seen, then it can be deduced that something caused it per Newton's Laws of Motion.

I think this whole thing started when I pushed back on the notion that science can pretty much answer most all the questions we have -- when most of the questions people have and knowledge they desire on a day to day basis aren't questions about nature, chemistry, or physics. Questions which don't lend themselve to the methods of scientific inquiry.

Deduction and rationality has always been considered sorta at odds with empiricism and experimentalism. It was represented by Bacon versus Descartes. The continent versus Britain. I think the human experience probably requires a synthesis of both.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

I think this whole thing started when I pushed back on the notion that science can pretty much answer most all the questions we have -- when most of the questions people have and knowledge they desire on a day to day basis aren't questions about nature, chemistry, or physics. Questions which don't lend themselve to the methods of scientific inquiry.

Deduction and rationality has always been considered sorta at odds with empiricism and experimentalism. It was represented by Bacon versus Descartes. The continent versus Britain. I think the human experience probably requires a synthesis of both.

Science can answer all the questions that deal with the Natural Universe. In this regard, if it exists, then it's knowable. At the moment, there are things that exist that are unknown such as dark matter, dark energy and what happens inside a black hole.

 

[Cypress]

Deduction is useful in working with people puzzles. Similarly, in science, if a ripple on the water is seen, then it can be deduced that something caused it per Newton's Laws of Motion.

You're the social scientist, so I'll defer to you on the study of people.

Strictly speaking, deduction is the domain of logic, math, and philosopy, while induction is the province of science and experimentation.

Deduction is deriving universal certain knowledge from self evident truths and first principles. The Pythagorean theorem was a deduction.

Induction is the derivation of theory and interpretation from the observation of particulars. Darwin used inductive logic to derive a theory of evolution by natural selection.

 

[Cypress]

Science can answer all the questions that deal with the Natural Universe. In this regard, if it exists, then it's knowable. At the moment, there are things that exist that are unknown such as dark matter, dark energy and what happens inside a black hole.

Love me some science! In my next life I'd like to be a cosmologist.

Yes, science is hands down humanity's best route to understanding nature. That's why we can't afford to pollute it with intelligent design and the creation science museum!

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Love me some science! In my next life I'd like to be a cosmologist.

Yes, science is hands down humanity's best route to understanding nature. That's why we can't afford to pollute it with intelligent design and the creation science museum!

It's surprising how some Christian denominations are anti-science, since science is merely the study of God's creation. Science should be considered to be divine work by them.

 

[Saint Guinefort]

Plato said there are things we know from experience, and things we intuit from reason.

Is there a good example of something we know that we arrived at through pure reason alone?

 

[Cypress]

Is there a good example of something we know that we arrived at through pure reason alone?

Pythagorean theorem

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Is there a good example of something we know that we arrived at through pure reason alone?

Alone? Most were reasoned first and then confirmed later. An example is the story about Christopher Columbus deducing the Earth is round by watching ship sails disappear over the horizon....which was about 2000 years after the Greeks deduced the same. In 240BC, Eratosthenes was the first person known to put this deduction to a test using a stick and a well. Even this wasn't solid proof the Earth was round, but it was a great indication that it was.

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200606/history.cfm

By around 500 B.C., most ancient Greeks believed that Earth was round, not flat. But they had no idea how big the planet is until about 240 B.C., when Eratosthenes devised a clever method of estimating its circumference.

It was around 500 B.C. that Pythagoras first proposed a spherical Earth, mainly on aesthetic grounds rather than on any physical evidence. Like many Greeks, he believed the sphere was the most perfect shape. Possibly the first to propose a spherical Earth based on actual physical evidence was Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who listed several arguments for a spherical Earth: ships disappear hull first when they sail over the horizon, Earth casts a round shadow on the moon during a lunar eclipse, and different constellations are visible at different latitudes....

...Eratosthenes’ most famous accomplishment is his measurement of the circumference of Earth. He recorded the details of this measurement in a manuscript that is now lost, but his technique has been described by other Greek historians and writers....

...Eratosthenes had heard from travelers about a well in Syene (now Aswan, Egypt) with an interesting property: at noon on the summer solstice, which occurs about June 21 every year, the sun illuminated the entire bottom of this well, without casting any shadows, indicating that the sun was directly overhead. Eratosthenes then measured the angle of a shadow cast by a stick at noon on the summer solstice in Alexandria, and found it made an angle of about 7.2 degrees, or about 1/50 of a complete circle.

He realized that if he knew the distance from Alexandria to Syene, he could easily calculate the circumference of Earth. But in those days it was extremely difficult to determine distance with any accuracy. Some distances between cities were measured by the time it took a camel caravan to travel from one city to the other. But camels have a tendency to wander and to walk at varying speeds. So Eratosthenes hired bematists, professional surveyors trained to walk with equal length steps. They found that Syene lies about 5000 stadia from Alexandria.

Eratosthenes then used this to calculate the circumference of the Earth to be about 250,000 stadia. Modern scholars disagree about the length of the stadium used by Eratosthenes. Values between 500 and about 600 feet have been suggested, putting Eratosthenes’ calculated circumference between about 24,000 miles and about 29,000 miles. The Earth is now known to measure about 24,900 miles around the equator, slightly less around the poles.

 

[Saint Guinefort]

Alone? Most were reasoned first and then confirmed later. An example is the story about Christopher Columbus deducing the Earth is round by watching ship sails disappear over the horizon....which was about 2000 years after the Greeks deduced the same. In 240BC, Eratosthenes was the first person known to put this deduction to a test using a stick and a well. Even this wasn't solid proof the Earth was round, but it was a great indication that it was.

Both really great examples of empiricism. Thanks.

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Both really great examples of empiricism. Thanks.

You're welcome. Thanks for agreeing it's also deduction.

 

[Saint Guinefort]

You're welcome. Thanks for agreeing it's also deduction.

Doesn't change the fact that knowledge came through observation of the physical world.

(Oh, yeah, btw, Columbus likely didn't actually think the earth was flat. It's a myth essentially invented in 1828 by Washington Irving.)

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Doesn't change the fact that knowledge came through observation of the physical world.

(Oh, yeah, btw, Columbus likely didn't actually think the earth was flat. It's a myth essentially invented in 1828 by Washington Irving.)

Agreed. How else can we understand our world without observation?

The point was whether we could deduce things about our world without direct proof. Yes, we can, as shown in the example of the Greeks and Columbus.

Son, there are dumbasses on JPP who think the world is flat. Yes, they are insane.....but maybe they're just over stressed from work, boyfriend troubles or other personal problems making them emotional hot messes. It happens.

 

[Cypress]

Agreed. How else can we understand our world without observation?

The point was whether we could deduce things about our world without direct proof. Yes, we can, as shown in the example of the Greeks and Columbus.

Son, there are dumbasses on JPP who think the world is flat. Yes, they are insane.....but maybe they're just over stressed from work, boyfriend troubles or other personal problems making them emotional hot messes. It happens.

Observation, in and of itself, isn't a synonym for empiricism. Empiricism is the derivation of knowledge from a collection of particulars. Deduction or rationality is the derivation of knowledge from first principles or self evident truths.

Aristotle's theory of logic was almost entirely based on deduction.

The Pythagorean theorem was a deduction.

Einstein's thought experiments about gravity and fields of acceleration were famously deductive rather than empirical.

Utilitarian moral theory is a deduction.

OTOH, I would say Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was empirical in it's approach

 

[Dutch Uncle]

Observation, in and of itself, isn't a synonym for empiricism. Empiricism is the derivation of knowledge from a collection of particulars. Deduction or rationality is the derivation of knowledge from first principles or self evident truths.

Aristotle's theory of logic was almost entirely based on deduction.

The Pythagorean theorem was a deduction.

Einstein's thought experiments were famously deductive rather than empirical.

Utilitarian moral theory is a deduction.

I would say Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was empirical in it's approach

Thanks. Why Perry is having a hard time with this is interesting. Notice how he qualified his questions with "pure reason alone".

Although, as in your example, Einstein came up with his theories through "pure reason alone", it means nothing unless it can be proved as has been done a few times. Gravitational lensing was proved. Time dilation has been proved.

The Greeks deducing the world was round was also proved several times before mankind first put a camera in space to take a picture.

 

[Cypress]

Thanks. Why Perry is having a hard time with this is interesting. Notice how he qualified his questions with "pure reason alone".

Although, as in your example, Einstein came up with his theories through "pure reason alone", it means nothing unless it can be proved as has been done a few times. Gravitational lensing was proved. Time dilation has been proved.

The Greeks deducing the world was round was also proved several times before mankind first put a camera in space to take a picture.

Yes, inductive experimentation is the essence of science.

But like I've been saying, not everything in the human experience is amenable to laboratory experiments or mathmatical analysis: freedom, justice, equality, etc.

The reason we tend to get confused as to the nature of knowledge, deduction, and induction is it doesn't get taught at school anymore. Formal logic has entirely dropped out of our educational system, and unless one actually reads the theorems in a high school geometry textbook, one never actually gets exposed to formal deductive logic.

The Anglo-American intellectual tradition at least since Francis Bacon has placed induction and empiricism in the forefront, while on the continent they sort of held on to deduction and rationality as modes of knowledge.

 

[Cancel 1 2023]

I am attaching below my original point which started this off. I do not believe it is particularly radical. The reason I started citing the great minds of the western intellectual tradition is because it didn't seem like you knew these were open ended questions explored by the greatest minds in world history.

You inferred that I didn't understand these were open questions just because I offered an alternative view?

That isn't how philosophical discussions go.

As for widgets and unicorns, that doesn't make sense to me because it seems to presume all knowledge comes from sensory experience, which is a proposition that hasn't been widely accepted for a couple hundred years.

But you could still answer the core question I asked which you seem to be studiously avoiding: why even hypothesize something for which you have no evidence?

That's been the whole point all along. WHY posit the existence of something with no evidence? ESPECIALLY when there is no NEED of such a thing to explain what is going on around you.

That has been my point all along.