Cause

kennethamy wrote:

It is? Do mean we never had to look to see whether all mammals had livers? How did we know it, then.

Yea, how do we know they all do? I know of a mammal you haven't seen.

actually I have a directly relevant comment that I actually recall from my first year of philosophy, in my first lecture, by Alan Chalmers, on Empiricism. (Yay!) It was the anecdote (probably well known) whereby a group of medieval monks were debating how many teeth a horse had. They all scurried off to consult Aristotle. No luck, nothing to be found there, and dejected, they decided they couldn't find the answer. One bright monk said 'I know! Let's go and look in a horses mouth!'

He was roundly condemned for his audacity and no such investigation was carried out, of course.

Of course this seems ridiculous to us moderns. But in medieval times, people were like that. It makes you realize how far we've come. BUT I think we have lost something, also. I personally think empiricism, starting with the likes of Hume, has gone much too far, and now scientists will deny many truths which were understood as apodictic in the traditional view, and mainly truths of an a priori, metaphysical sort.

Not 'truths' but Truth, with a capital T, which I have mentioned before, and you reject, as you no doubt will again on this occasion. For example, that we are part of, and an expression of, Nature, not simply a large set of isolated persons living in an artificial environment. The kind of feeling with which I anticipate you will have little sympathy.

Speaking of W Somerset Maugham, he wrote another splendid title on the theme of freedom called The Razor's Edge concerning exactly the search for Truth, with a capital T, which the west doesn't believe in any more, but which India still regards as of paramount importance.

It is one of the things we have lost in the transition to modernity.

Arjuna wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

It is? Do mean we never had to look to see whether all mammals had livers? How did we know it, then.

Yea, how do we know they all do? I know of a mammal you haven't seen.

We don't, of course, know it for certain. But we do know it on inductive grounds, for how could a mammal live unless it had a liver, since we know how the liver functions in the economy of the body.

"The liver has many functions. Some of the functions are: to produce substances that break down fats, convert glucose to glycogen, produce urea (the main substance of urine), make certain amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), filter harmful substances from the blood (such as alcohol), storage of vitamins and minerals (vitamins A, D, K and B12) and maintain a proper level or glucose in the blood. The liver is also responsible for producing cholesterol. It produces about 80% of the cholesterol in your body".

Now unless a mammal had such an organ, it could not live. And that is excellent reason for thinking that all mammals have liver (and lungs, and a heart, etc.) So we do know that all mammals have livers.

kennethamy wrote:

Arjuna wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

It is? Do mean we never had to look to see whether all mammals had livers? How did we know it, then.

Yea, how do we know they all do? I know of a mammal you haven't seen.

We don't, of course, know it for certain. But we do know it on inductive grounds, for how could a mammal live unless it had a liver, since we know how the liver functions in the economy of the body.

"The liver has many functions. Some of the functions are: to produce substances that break down fats, convert glucose to glycogen, produce urea (the main substance of urine), make certain amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), filter harmful substances from the blood (such as alcohol), storage of vitamins and minerals (vitamins A, D, K and B12) and maintain a proper level or glucose in the blood. The liver is also responsible for producing cholesterol. It produces about 80% of the cholesterol in your body".

Now unless a mammal had such an organ, it could not live. And that is excellent reason for thinking that all mammals have liver (and lungs, and a heart, etc.) So we do know that all mammals have livers.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Liver failure stinks.

ughaibu wrote:

You have stated earlier that causes are not descriptions, so, what are causes?

Why causes are connection between kinds of events. . . . what kind of connections these are, is a question for philosophers.

The existence of change characterizes a number of the pre-Socratic dialogs. As far as I can tell, Aristotle's Physics was his general response to these questions of change, as well as his specific response to several thinkers in his day. It is from here that we (the Western Tradition) derive a notion of cause.

What Aristotle meant by cause was not what we generally mean by cause -- he had four, the material, the efficient, the formal, and the final. Cause, in our modern world, is the cause of cause-and-effect, or to use Aristotle's terms, the efficient cause. It is from this notion of causation that we obtain the Cosmological argument, the denial of free will, and scientific certainty.

But is this notion of causation defensible, or is it too metaphysical for science?

Do we need to think of cause in the efficient cause way in order to make a solid scientific contribution?

Do we need to think of cause in any way at all to generate scientific knowledge?

Lastly, what is cause? If you don't have a good definition that you're willing to defend, that's fine. In that case, what is your concept of cause?

Does that mean that you now see that you have been mistaken, and the we do know that all mammals have a liver, and that we do not know this a priori? (But that you don't want to admit it, so you try to divert from your error by making a feeble joke?)

kennethamy wrote:

Does that mean that you now see that you have been mistaken, and the we do know that all mammals have a liver, and that we do not know this a priori? (But that you don't want to admit it, so you try to divert from your error by making a feeble joke?)

You're funny. All mammals do have livers... they always did... and they always will. Vaya con dios.

I think you are one of those who was born too late. You would have been happier before "the death of God" which occurred in the Victorian age.

Arjuna wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

Does that mean that you now see that you have been mistaken, and the we do know that all mammals have a liver, and that we do not know this a priori? (But that you don't want to admit it, so you try to divert from your error by making a feeble joke?)

You're funny. All mammals do have livers... they always did... and they always will. Vaya con dios.

where are both of you going with this liver thing ? as far as an argument towards or against , cause ?

I don't get it

where are both of you going with this liver thing ? as far as an argument towards or against , cause ?

I don't get it

north wrote:

where are both of you going with this liver thing ? as far as an argument towards or against , cause ?

I don't get it

I had interpreted Hume as observing that our confidence in contiguity past to future is not based on rational thought. He struggled to explain it in some other way.

Ken affirms that this confidence is based on reasoning and gave the example of being able to predict that humans in the future will have livers.

This is similar to a person declaring that combustion engines in the future will have spark plugs. All this person is doing is demonstrating that they know the definition of combustion engine.

We did learn at one point that mammals have to have livers. What we were learning was the definition of mammal. You weren't born knowing what a bachelor is. Once you've learned it, you can get your a priori on in regard to it by making statements that are implicit in the definition.

A lot of our confidence in our ability to predict the future is based on empirical observation and reasoning. It's the assumptions at the base of our predictions that don't have logical justifications. Hume lived at a time when it was important to people to establish some basis for knowledge. They were revolting against the heavy hand of the Church, which had previously obstructed any such investigations. And they were right to do that.

There's nothing wrong with looking for empirical and logical foundations to thought. Hume was just reporting on his own journey in regard to it.

kennethamy wrote:

ughaibu wrote:

You have stated earlier that causes are not descriptions, so, what are causes?

Why causes are connection between kinds of events. . . . what kind of connections these are, is a question for philosophers.

Recently you have been claiming that causes are explanations in the deductive nomological model. There are two problems with this claim:
1) it doesn't encompass two of your favourite examples
2) it fails to the same objection raised by Huxley.
As the latter is admitted by you, it can not be consistently maintained, by you, that causes are Hempelian explanations. So, do you know what causes are or do you not? Your above answer is as uninformative as telling me that rain is a type of meteorological phenomenon.

it is not part of the definition of "mammal" that all mammals have livers.

Causes are connections between events, which explain why events occur.

kennethamy wrote:

Causes are connections between events, which explain why events occur.

For the third time, there is often more than one equally adequate explanation. On top of this, you have already declared that such explanations are not causes but descriptions.

They are descriptions of something, namely, causes.

Causes are connections between events, which explain why events occur