Originally Posted by kidjordan
Well shit! It seems that the "ultimate nature of reality" is unknowable.
What I meant by that is we cannot have knowledge of the external world unfiltered through our consciousness.
Originally Posted by kidjordan
Empiricism is a metaphysical epistemology that doesn't believe in making metaphysical claims (obvious contradiction). The only alternative seems to be pragmatism. Pragmatism acknowledges that you can't really know the absolute truth ( if such a thing really exists).
Empiricism is not metaphysics nor is philosophy synonymous with metaphysics. Empiricism asserts that knowledge can only come from sensory experience. Metaphysics asserts knowledge can be attained from means other than sensory experience like Platonic forms which are only accessible through thought alone. Pragmatism is a form of radical empiricism. Pragmatism asserts that truth is merely what works or what is useful at the time and not some divine, changeless, eternal form or anything like that (Pragmatism is a rejection of metaphysics) and that the said truth is constantly open to revision and is incomplete.
Rorty holds the position that truth is not even useful or philosophically interesting. Questions like "what is truth?", "what is the good or what is reality?" are questions we have been asking since Plato and are no closer to answering. He asserts that we would be better off focusing our time on making the world a better place for its inhabitants than asking 2000 year old metaphysical questions over and over again. He advocates a post-metaphysics trying to distance philosophy from Plato as much as he can like Aristotle before him.
Originally Posted by kidjordan
Sorry if this isn't quite in depth. I'm quite tired.
But anyway, I think that you can't really prove solipsism and a lot of other metaphysical stuff either way so I just focus on pragmatic ethics. Although, that area of philosophy is almost as equally hard to get truth claims. I've sorta come to accept that truth is fuzzy. Sorry if this sounds like a bunch of BS. It is philosophy after all. Perhaps an equally good thread would be "what's the value of philosophy". It seems to be a bunch of unverifiable BS and nobody seems to have a complete theory of everything and yet it asks the most important questions imaginable. Sorry for rambling.
Solipsism, I agree is probably the most perennial metaphysical holdover. We cannot prove that other minds exist or that there is an external world outside of our consciousness. I don't really call myself an empiricist but I do think that asserting the the two above premises as true would be stepping out of our experience and into speculation. I have always found solipsism to be a childish, anthropocentric idea but as a skeptic I realize that asserting the existence of other minds would be stepping out of my experience although I think it is pragmatically useful to assume others have minds and subjective experiences because I would hope they give me the benefit of the doubt and not treat me like a dream character lol. We treat others with compassion and empathy because we assume that others can feel pain in a similar way that we do. Is that what you mean by pragmatist ethics? I dont think its a bunch of bs I really do enjoy discussing these issues even if other people find them to be useless. I would be down to make an auxiliary thread "what is the value of philosophy" but I dont really want to actually be the one to start the thread because I get on DV sporadically now I have work and school so I get on every couple days. Dont be sorry for the rambling, I ramble every post and Im not sorry.
Originally Posted by kidjordan
Ill read this later, I have to work in a bit but Ill comment on it later.
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