The Half-life of Facts.

So if logic is to be avoided and facts are transient, which criteria can one use to compare and assess philosophical ideas or any other ideas? Seems to me that anything goes, under these conditions. Is it still possible to be wrong, or to not make sense, or to make sense, if you go neither by your senses nor your logic?

Castles in mid-air, hmmm. Since you liked Daniel Dennett's concept of a deepity, would this be a good time to bring up his concept of a sky-hook, as opposed to a crane? Basically, A sky hook is a device, anchored in the sky, that's supposed to lift intellectual weigh. Alternatively, you could use a crane, which is more mundane but has the important advantage that it works.

IMO
What matters is the understanding of the species specific and culture specific functional nature of what we call' knowledge'. Good philosophical ideas are deconstructive in the sense that they play the role of uncovering this limitation which anthropocentric forces tend to obscure. Such forces are endemic to normal human language as shown for example by the counter-intuitive 'findings' of the metalanguage of mathematics which resist 'picturing of a reality'.

Why is that important, more so than understanding anything else, or more so than the opposite thesis??? Remember you can't use any 'fact' nor logic to argue your case...


I recognise here your own personal preference, but why can't good philosophy be constructive? Or both constructive and deconstructive? Or neither? Say, why can't explorative philosophy or poetic philosophy be good philosophy?

My answer is relative to the central issue of this thread . "Poetic philosophy" certainly has its place elsewhere, (I've given examples of my own on A2K), but in my experience it tends towards the ethical rather than the epistemological.
Deconstruction is certainly explorative and may be therapeutic. The main "offender" I have in my sights is traditional "analytic philosophy" in line with Richard Rorty's neo-pragmatic rejection of it.

Rejection? on what basis can one reject anything if logic is not required to make sense and facts are 'transient'??? Even Noddy, the children book character by Enid Blyton, makes perfect philosophical sense under these conditions...

Yes, and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.

No comment.

Honestly, on what basis can you reject anything? What differentiates agreeable or useful 'languaging' from the rest?

Generally it is differentiated by the results one gets when applying it.
Useful languaging serves to demystify and describe in such a way that it gives greater clarity and the opportunity to penetrate deeper into the subject matter.

This is contrary to what many people think, especially among those who frequent philosophy forums. Often obscurantism is mistaken for useful and agreeable languaging simply because it sounds impressive.

For instance, you might decide to describe the human perception of choice using concepts like free will vs determinism.
Not a very useful bunch of concepts, since you will end up with a lot of contradictions and general confusion. You might try defining things in such a way that you didn't even touch on free will vs determinism, and you might end up describing the human perception of choice in a much clearer way, with fewer contradictions and paradoxes.
If that is the case, you have used more agreeable and useful languaging.

Thankyou for that explicit rejection of dichotomous thinking (in line with both rejection of the law of the excluded middle, and suggestive of Hegel's dialectic), and suggesting "utility" as a key issue.

Rorty's iconoclastic rejection of traditional analytic philosophy is aimed at claims for any authoritative view about criteria for what constitutes "truth" or "knowledge" or "science". He takes the pragmatists view that the criteria are based on "what works". (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature).

Thanks Cyracuz for these suggestion, but are they anything else than your own personal preferences? I find free will and determinism to be rather simple and clear concepts myself... Some people, eg a politician, might find it useful to use language to mystify rather than demystify. If truth does not exist, lies don't exist either, so why is it better to demystify than to mystify???

Beside, to give a premium to the absence of contradictions and paradoxes doesn't tally with Fresco's approach. If logic is to be discarded altogether, then contradictions and paradoxes are A-okay.

How do we know that "what works" actually "works"? Or do you mean something like "whatever works for you, whatever you like"?

"What works" is by contextual consensus.

You can nit-pick on words and themes forever. I suggest that if you have an objection to the ephemeral nature of "facts" you should state it rather than play at rhetoric with side-issues. I have stated the basis on which I support the thesis. You may not agree with that basis but that does not detract from the thesis itself.

Good for you. They are not, however, and perhaps further exploration of them might reveal that to you. Then again, it might not, since you are entirely free to select the criteria of your own exploration.
That means that if you have some vested interest in either of these concepts, some motivation to carry them with you or some other point to prove that won't work without them, what works for you may be somewhat subjective.

In the end, the only true test is the test of time. And so far, precious few "truths" have stood that test for very long.

I disagree with the thesis, and I have made that clear already, including by showing how the thesis leads to a paradox (the 'fact' that 'facts' are ephemeral was itself ephemeral - it was once true but is now considered false).

You then retorted that this did not matter because logic is not to be trusted. So the point I am NOW trying to get across is that, if you want to do away with empiricism and logic, you will need to replace them by another set of criteria against which to assess ideas and philosophies, if you make claims to a superior philosophy.

Even if you move the emphasis from “what fits the data” to “what works”, you still need to explain how “what works” is to be ascertained. What works for me may not work for you… What if there's no consensus?

If you get rid of empiricism and logic, then you should consider philosophy a purely subjective endeavour, a matter of personal aesthetic choice like your preferred color or your favorite movie, i.e. whatever works for you. There's no right and wrong, there's no naive and not naive, no accepted and rejected. There is only what you like and what you don't like.

My point entirely. "What works" strikes me as a very subjective criterion. What you consider unwieldy I can find very useful, and vice versa.

We're left without commonly agreed 'truth criteria' to guide our discussion. I might as well post a poem then...

La fable et la vérité
by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian

La vérité, toute nue, --- The naked Truth
sortit un jour de son puits. --- Came one day out of her well,
Ses attraits par le temps étoient un peu détruits ; --- Her charms slightly damaged by time.
jeune et vieux fuyoient à sa vue. --- The young and the old fled at her sight.
La pauvre vérité restoit là morfondue, --- The poor Truth was left there all alone,
sans trouver un asyle où pouvoir habiter. --- Without a shelter where to live.
à ses yeux vient se présenter --- Then she saw coming to her
la fable, richement vêtue, --- The Fable, richly dressed,
portant plumes et diamants, --- Wearing feathers and diamonds,
la plupart faux, mais très brillants. --- Most of them fake, but very bright.
Eh ! Vous voilà ! Bon jour, dit-elle : --- Eh! There you are! Good day, she said
que faites-vous ici seule sur un chemin ? --- What are you doing here alone on the road?
La vérité répond : vous le voyez, je gele ; --- The Truth replied: "As you can see, I'm freezing;
aux passants je demande en vain --- I ask people in vain
de me donner une retraite, --- To offer me shelter,
je leur fais peur à tous : hélas ! Je le vois bien, --- I scare them all: Alas! I see that all too well,
vieille femme n'obtient plus rien. --- An old woman can't get much."
Vous êtes pourtant ma cadette, --- "But you are younger than I am,
dit la fable, et, sans vanité, --- Said the Fable, and without vanity,
par-tout je suis fort bien reçue : --- Everywhere I go, I'm very well received:
mais aussi, dame vérité, --- But also, lady Truth
pourquoi vous montrer toute nue ? --- Why show you naked?
Cela n' est pas adroit : tenez, arrangeons-nous ; --- This is not clever: listen, let's make a deal;
qu'un même intérêt nous rassemble : --- Let a common interest unite us:
venez sous mon manteau, nous marcherons ensemble. --- Come under my coat, let us walk together.
Chez le sage, à cause de vous, --- From the wise, because of you,
je ne serai point rebutée ; --- I won't be dismissed;
à cause de moi, chez les fous --- Because of me, among the fools
vous ne serez point maltraitée : --- You won’t be abused
servant, par ce moyen, chacun selon son goût, --- Serving by this way each according to his taste,
grace à votre raison, et grace à ma folie, --- Thanks to your reason, and thanks to my madness
vous verrez, ma soeur, que par-tout --- You will see, my sister,
nous passerons de compagnie. --- that everywhere we'll travel together.

No. I prefer my cited consensus to your uncited one. And there the matter ends.

Cited, uncited... again, that's a function of personal preference. There's no consensus on anything. Take any two philosophers and you'll get three different opinions. E.g. you'll never find two 'constructivists' agreeing about the existence of objective reality. One says yes, one says no, one says maybe...

So the matter does not end. It just remains unresolved. Constructivists need to construct a set of criteria by which to judge and compare ideas. It can't be all about deconstructing, even though deconstructing is always funnier and easier than constructing.

Examples ?......References ?....... Rhetoric ?.....Or simply last-wordism ?