Comment by mannykannot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mannykannot | Hacker News Reader

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> Modern philosophy focuses on arguments from Axiom where a statement is taken to be true as a starting point for an argument.

What this means is that philosophy ultimately becomes an extended argument over which propositions to take as axiomatic. One commonly-used technique in this is the thought experiment, and some well-known, much-debated examples, such as Frank Jackson's "Mary's Room", are not even anecdotal evidence.

While, I suppose, analytical philosophy could always be presented in the form an analysis of what follows from a given set of axioms, what almost invariably happens in practice is that individual philosophers act as advocates for the particular axioms that they believe actually hold.

There also seems to be a pervasive shared assumption in current analytical philosophy that analysis of the use of language can be the ultimate arbiter on questions of how the world actually is - a questionable belief that is not questioned as much as it should be, or so it seems from my very limited perspective.

>What this means is that philosophy ultimately becomes an extended argument over which propositions to take as axiomatic.

I agree. It also involves extended arguments over the statements that follow from these axioms even amongst philosophers who agree the axioms are true.

>[W]hat almost invariably happens in practice is that individual philosophers act as advocates for the particular axioms that they believe actually hold.

I agree with this as well. My main point was about the structure of the arguments. I don't think arguing from an axiom you hold to be true turns the argument anecdotal.

> It also involves extended arguments over the statements that follow from these axioms even amongst philosophers who agree the axioms are true.

It is certainly not that uncommon for people to publish claims arising from mistakes in logic, but it is rare for any dispute over them to become extended, as they can be resolved by reason. While it is possible to disagree over the meaning of words, or even of which axioms of logic to accept (such as over axiom B in modal logic), these are still issues of what to take as axiomatic.

Edit - On reflection, I can think of cases, such as Searle's non-sequitur of a response to the 'systems reply' to his 'Chinese Room' argument, that have not been promptly eliminated. In the cases I can think of, however, there are unstated assumptions being made - and any such assumption is implicitly axiomatic, as, being unstated, it could not have been derived from other axioms.

> I don't think arguing from an axiom you hold to be true turns the argument anecdotal.

Indeed - nominally, one is merely presenting a deduction of what a set of propositions imply - but no-one persues philosophy just to do that.

When reading papers, I have learned to make note of the points where the language turns to what is likely, plausible or conceivable, as this is often close to the crux of the matter. It is here that one might find what Daniel Dennett has called the Philosopher's Syndrome: "mistaking a failure of the imagination for an insight into necessity."

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