The Elimination of Metaphysics
Are the ideas of Metaphysics truly something that should be abandoned? Should we no longer think about that which is beyond our scope of reality, and simply trust that which we know to be true, or even false, just so long as either can be shown to be empirically verifiable? According to the readings from the excerpts of A.J. Ayer's book Language, Truth, and Logic one would be forced to agree that Metaphysics should be abandoned as a form of philosophy. Ayer uses may different backings to let forth his opinions on the ideas of metaphysics; using the very sentences that metaphysical philosophers write against them, and showing that if an idea cannot be formed through that which we can readily, or actively understand then the ideas themselves have no bearing on philosophy. Ayer states, "A simple way to formulate it would be to say that a sentence had literal meaning if and only if the proposition it expressed was either analytic or empirically verifiable."
Ayer starts his justification of the elimination of metaphysics as a science with the simple statement that any metaphysical philosopher is merely spouting nonsense. Ayer believes that in order to truly have any thoughts on the metaphysical world that one must have knowledge above the world of reality, and must actually have empirical evidence of that which is referred to as metaphysical. Ayer does seem to leave a backdoor open for those who refer to themselves as metaphysicians by stating that "it is possible to be a metaphysician without believing in a transcendent reality." Ayer states that most metaphysicians do not deceive their readers on purpose, but they merely are using language that does not purport logical thinking. Ayer als...
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... the metaphysician is mistaken in his wordings and his errors in judgment. It seems that the metaphysical philosopher would gladly lead us into a world of untruths and a world that could never be true. Ayer lets the metaphysicians keep some dignity by states that, " although the greater part of metaphysics is merely the embodiment of humdrum errors, there remain a number of metaphysical passages which are the work of genuine mystical feeling; and they may more plausibly be held to have moral or aesthetic value." Ayer ends his papers letting the readers know that metaphysics should be reduced to a mere "mystic" reading, and that it should be left off as an idea of philosophy. He says we must forget that which is beyond our empirical understanding and focus on that which is within our realm to truly understand our lives, and the way they are, or should be lived.
Metaphysics, in summary, is “a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology.” Metaphysical questions are always being asked, whether intentional or not. Many books, films, and T.V shows have raised metaphysical questions. The film Pleasantville raises the metaphysical question of the existence of a possible world. A possible world is what the world as we know today could have been or might have been like. In this film, possible worlds could exist. Protagonist David and his sister Jennifer are sucked into a world where there is no violence, no sexuality, no corruption, etc. Everything in this world is pleasant. This is a possibility of
I'll first talk about how Searle was lead to question the claim of computers being things that could actually think and were considered to have a strong sense intelligence based on the assumptions made by Alan Turing. He developed a test called the "Turing test" or, in other words, the "Imitation Game". The "Turing test" was a test that used a person (interrogator) who asked two subjects (a human and a computer) a series of questions that aided the integrator in determining which of the subjects was actually a human. (A.M. Turing, 1950, pg.) The assumptions based on the test included: If something has the ability to have thought then it is considered a thinker. The other assumption in question is that not only humans have the capability of having a mind, but other things including objects could also have a mind which makes them a thinking thing. These assumptions made Searle question on how the assumptions could be accurate, so in order to try to find a way to argue that the assumptions are not valid, so he created his experiment called the "Chinese Room Experiment". With this experiment, Searle was able to provide arguments that go against the claim proposed from the "Turing test" which I will discuss
There is a modest version and a robust version of descriptive philosophy of science. The aim of the modest version is the historical reconstruction of actual evaluative practice. Given that scientists preferred one theory (explanation, research strategy...) to a second, the modest descriptivist seeks to uncover the evaluative standards whose application led to this preference. For instance, the modest descriptivist may seek to uncover the standards implicit within such evaluative decisions as Aristotle's rejection of pangenesis, Newton's rejection of Cartesian Vortex Theory, or Einstein's insistence that the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics is incomplete. Pursuit of a modest descriptive philosophy of science may require a certain amount of detective work, particularly for episodes in which the pronouncements of scientists and their actual practice do not coincide.
Talwar Anmol Ms. Giron For thousands of years many philosophers had argued that life must have been created by a supernatural being / creator / God due to the incredible complexity of Nature (in particular, we humans and our minds). *Darwin’s theory of evolution* *is based on five key observations and inferences drawn from them. These observations and inferences have been summarized by the great biologist Ernst Mayr as follows:* *1) Species have great fertility. They make more offspring than can grow to adulthood.
In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume begins by contrasting two aspects of human reasoning, which falls under moral philosophy, or the science of human nature (Hume 1). One aspect focuses on shaping human actions while the other focuses on reason. The first is easy and obvious and the other is abstruse and accurate. Hume shows that the easy and obvious philosophy appears more in common life; it allows humans to become more of what is considered virtuous and encourages sentiments. People who prefer the easy philosophy often think that it is more useful and acceptable than abstruse philosophy. In Section 1, he says that if the advocates for easy and obvious philosophy would cease to belittle abstruse and accurate philosophy, he would have no agreement and would leave it up to people to choose according to their personal desires. However, it is not the case and some advocates suggest that abstruse philosophy also referred to as “metaphysics,” be banished, and so Hume attempts to defend the abstruse philosophy.
Scientists are constantly forced to test their work and beliefs. Thus they need the ability to embrace the uncertainty that science is based on. This is a point John M. Barry uses throughout the passage to characterize scientific research, and by using rhetorical devices such as, comparison, specific diction, and contrast he is able show the way he views and characterizes scientific research.
(4) Hans Georg Gadamer and Thomas Kuhn also contributed to the decline of identifying knowledge with only true (propositional) belief, with assent to rational understanding. Barry Allen has recently taken up this theme in various articles. See for example "The Ambition of Transcendence," forthcoming in Religion without Transcendence? edited by D. Z. Phillips, London, McMillen, Claremont Studies in Religion; "Forbidden Knowledge," in The Monist, April 1996, 79,2, pp. 294-310; and "What was Epistemology?" in Rorty and his Critics, edited by Robert Brandon, London, Blackwell, 1997.
I have read that the aye aye is a lemur that is found inhabited in the rain forests of madagascar. There is one set of species that is this type, its habitat is very dense and very dry. The aye aye is closely related to the lemur species their colors are brown and sandy white, and they are very ugly. It spends most of all its life living high in the trees. The male aye ayes climb high up the trees and cover 4km at night because they search for food. Whenever the aye aye was first discovered, it was so strange in appearance that it was thought to be a large species of a squirrel they spend their entire life in the rainforest of the trees because of the fact that they do not want to come down to earth the aye ayes are nocturnal meaning they
avoids the metaphysics of presence. The fact that his theory is not vulnerable to logical difficulties because logic itself is precisely what is being called into
Do inanimate technologies think? Do they genuinely have a consciousness and real knowledge or are they simply machines? Are they made up of just algorithms and math medical equations? This is the argument many philosophers and scientists have been arguing over for years. John Searle, who is a professor at University of California, Berkeley, believes that not just Watson, but all higher-level information holding technologies do not have an active consciousness. They are only products of the human brain’s ideas and programs. Even though many esteemed mechanisms may demonstrate extraordinary knowledge even beyond human recognition, I agree with Searle. Computers do not have original thought. They are the result of high cognitive thinking
Moore, Brooke Noel., and Kenneth Bruder. "Chapter 6- The Rise of Metaphysics and Epistemology; Chapter 9- The Pragmatic and Analytic Traditions; Chapter 7- The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries." Philosophy: the Power of Ideas. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.
Book XII of the Metaphysics opens with a clear statement of its goal in the first line of Chapter One: to explore substances as well as their causes and principles. With this idea in mind, Chapter One delineates the three different kinds of substances: eternal, sensible substances; perishable, sensible substances; and immovable substances. The sensible substances are in the realm of natural sci...
Robinson, R. R. (1994). Some methodological approaches to the unexplained points. Philosophy 2B/3B (pp. 27-34). Melbourne: La Trobe University.
In many aspects of our lives, the use of faith as a basis for knowledge can be found. Whether it is faith in the advice of your teacher, faith in a God or faith in a scientific theory, it is present. But what is faith? A definition of faith in a theory of knowledge context is the confident belief or trust in a knowledge claim by a knower, without the knower having conclusive evidence. This is because if a knowledge claim is backed up by evidence, then we would use reason rather than faith as a basis for knowledge . If we define knowledge as ‘justified true belief’, it can be seen that faith, being without justification, can never fulfill this definition, and so cannot be used as a reliable basis for knowledge. However, the question arises, what if a certain knowledge claim lies outside of the realm of reason? What if a knowledge claim cannot be justified by empirical evidence and reasoning alone, such as a religious knowledge claim? It is then that faith allows the knower to decide what is knowledge and what is not, when something cannot be definitively proved through the use of evidence. When assessing faith as a basis for knowledge in the natural sciences, the fact arises that without faith in the research done before us, it is impossible to develop further knowledge on top of it. Yet at the same time, if we have unwavering faith in existing theories, they would never be challenged, and so our progress of knowledge in the natural sciences would come to a standstill. Although I intend to approach this essay in a balanced manner, this essay may be subject to a small degree of bias, due to my own non-religious viewpoint.
Ever wonder how the world would be today only if our great researchers implemented a different attitude towards their experiments? It is possible that the results would remain same. However, some argue that the consequences may be altered. Nonetheless, this does not make the earlier learned knowledge valued less or false, just supplementary. Abraham Maslow’s theory challenges nearly all ways of knowing, suggesting that if we limit our thinking, the outcomes remain homogenous, therefore, limiting the amount of knowledge we acquire. Dilemmas are mentioned in order to repudiate from the opinions that are profoundly accepted in the society. If Newton had eaten that apple, instead of using it as a tool to apply the theory of attraction, he may not have exposed gravity. Because he had more tools than a mere hammer and he was sagacious enough to expand his philosophy beyond hunger, he made such an innovation. It is widely claimed that inventions are accidental. In fact, all the chemical elements in the famous periodic table are a result of different tactics towards scientist’s research. As ToK teaches us that there is no possible end to a situation for it is influenced by the perceptive skills of the arguers. There is never a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or the ‘ultimate answer’ in the conflict, but the eminence of rationalization is what poises the deliberation. This suggestion explains that there is always that one more way to approach the conclusion. Thus, pursuit of knowledge habitually requires dissimilar ways of knowing for it lengthens the verdict.