(And for no particular reason, I'm going to emphasize importance throughout this post with font size.)
i. The future of philosophy
ii. Journal Entry - The Philosophical Jigsaw Puzzle
iii. What's left of metaphysics
iv. phi‧los‧o‧phy |fəˈläsəfē|
v. "..." 2
vi. My problem with philosophy
vii. Random accumulated thoughts and quotations
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For the most part I still agree with all of these, but I've lately reconsidered a few things and acquired a different appreciation for what I called 'dogmatism' in one post. Since that post is rather short, I'll repost it here:
noun ( pl. -phies)
the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, esp. when considered as an academic discipline.
or...
1. the synthetic clarification of language
2. dogmatism
3. the intermingling of the above two (esp. in a scholarly arrangement)
Ignoring the sardonic undercurrent, you may wonder: "Where does epistemology fit in then? Does it rest in the meaning of words? Is it only dogmatism--non-sense?"
One could imagine two possibilities on this matter:
(1) There is a distinct form of meaning—independent of language (though conveyed by it)—that says fundamentally what we may intuit or not intuit in order for those thoughts to have sense... that is, there is a greater meaning behind the words than their relation to each other and their use in our language-game. This would require the creation of another category and ostensively posit realism.
(2) Thoughts of the sort necessary for epistemological inquiries are bound to language. That is, language is a medium necessary for abstract thought processes to take place.. and as such, the evaluation of the boundaries of interrelated concepts rests in the way that they are described—for this so-called "abstract" thought is of the kind that is rooted in language-games and in no other domain.
I'm struggling to provide a proposition unique to the former... perhaps the Cartesian "I think, therefore I exist"? But this statement wouldn't work on two levels: (1) it expresses a contingent, empirical fact, and (2) it expresses analytic synonymity ("I" think, presupposes I; "I exist" confirms that "I" is presupposed... i.e. I = I).
On this note, I'd like to say something about the mention of "synthetic" in 1. above. I've read that Quine found the analytic-synthetic distinction to be superfluous.. and although I haven't read his arguments proper, I disagree to some extent with the shorthand explanations I've found.
Take, "All bachelors are unmarried" and "2+2=4". Admittedly, the latter has the form 'P = Q', but the former does not. The word bachelor, if it may be said to be so for our purposes, is composite. It contains two aspects: the first is that it is a man, the second is that the man is unmarried. The statement "All bachelors are married" takes the latter aspect and isolates it—in other words, it denotes that the predicate is a constituent element of the subject, although the subject and predicate are not identical. Similarly, a statement like "All black things are black" would operate on similar grounds if the subject is understood to be "black things" or a single word with that meaning. And of course something like "2+2 = 4" or "black is black" would be analytic without the composite aspect.
Synthetic statements, on the other hand, are not true by virtue of meanings alone—they're true pending contingent, empirical validation, e.g. "All frogs were once tadpoles." So in my mind the distinction is merited on some levels.
Now, when I wrote 'the synthetic clarification of language', I must have been under some spell or overlooking something. The possibility for the 'clarification of language' is undoubtedly there.. but whether the elucidations that stem from philosophical inquiries are synthetic or something of a different sort still seems a little fuzzy to me. Regardless, it seems clear that these elucidations operate strictly within the domain of language and not outside of it. So instead let's ask, "Can statements tell us something about language that is not encapsulated within that very language?" I had thought for a while that philosophy could say things about the very nature of, say, ethics (i.e. metaethics) by examining our relation to it and its limits, but lately I've been thinking that the answer to the posed question is "assuredly not."
At this point, the list could be re-evaluated as:
(1) an elucidation of concepts and relationships in language
(2) dogmatism
(3) a combination of the above
Next, let's re-consider (2).
What I meant by 'dogmatism' when I wrote the post were personal aesthetic convictions that are not founded in logic but in possibilities... these have more of an emotional or psychological basis than one that is necessarily rational (in short, they are opinions rather than propositions founded from the ground up).
* In hindsight, how does it make sense that one should express an opinion without a rational basis? Perhaps the implications are discussed but not the formulation? Or maybe it would make more sense for aesthetics to be rational, but intrinsically linked to the somato-psychological. That is, it's rational, but only when considering the somato-psychological aspect (again, provided that it is a word) as an input. Thereof, one wouldn't say something rather pallid with logic, such as proving that two propositions do not contradict one another; instead, one would say, "This is how I feel... and with that feeling as a presupposition..."
Lately, however, I've begun to think that this sort of philosophy is quite possibly the most valuable.
This kind of philosophy is the one that asks questions to which there may not be an answer... it is not concerned with the 'Truth' in the Western philosophical tradition, but of possibilities. It provides a means for one to re-evaluate their contextualization of the World—and to understand it anew from different angles. Whereas logical explication and the elucidation of concepts and relations in language-games are tasks of philosophy proper (i.e. philosophy in a narrow sense), 'dogmatic' philosophy is philosophy in a loose sense: non-sense, but in a non-pejorative, constructive way.
Disagree? What if I were to claim that axiology is 'dogmatism'? Or for that matter most of what you've just read?
1/29 update:
Suppose this were scribbled in the margins, if there were any:
You know.. maybe there is a therapeutic aspect of philosophy. The mind constructs interpretations that are independent of philosophy---all aesthetic experiences put together and interwoven---and while philosophy can proffer the "truth", which is independent of those experiences and rather vapid and inconsequential—impotent, even—in its own right, it can also make one realize the inadequacies of one's disposition, even if this revelation and its cause are quite artificial.
2/28 update:
One may find that the fluctuating font sizes make the post chaotic. This should underscore the fact that it's wrong on a few accounts; a conclusive statement on the role and domain of philosophy would not permit uncertainty to stand unattended. Then again, I also thought that the post's lack of academic treatment made it somewhat interesting.
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