philosophical inquiry (cont.)

Yes, that's true, and that's because in English the subject "you" can be implied without changing the definition of the sentence at all.

Hence why

"Take out the trash"

and

"[You] take out the trash"

mean the same thing, and are both complete sentences, even though the first doesn't technically have a subject.

 

The translator could have done whatever he thought was appropriate to portray the best meaning, and he could have been wrong, but that's for another discussion.

Flasche, do you or do you not accept that Kant asserted that it was always wrong to deceive others and argued that such a conclusion was inevitable if one accepted the categorical imperative?

 

The you is still their because it only works with a sentence that has a you
in the first place.

„Handle so, daß die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Prinzip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten könne.“

Act so that the Maxime of your will can at the same time become a principle of the general law.

Another version of the categorical imperative their are like 20 and most of it
dont use a you they, like this one, point exactly out that its about "your will"
or "what you want".

 

So you're saying that Kant was wrong about his own categorical imperative's interpretation and the conclusion that you never want to be deceived and therefore you should never deceive others is incorrect?

 

Can you answer the question please?

In addition, do you believe these three principles called the three formulations (quoted from Kant) summarize the categorical imperative?

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction."

"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end"

"Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were through his maxim always a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends."

 

You saw "Yes" and dropped some tears of happiness and stopped reading?

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.
Most of philosophy is purely virtual.

 

is not the scientific method a completely "virtual" construct? Was not the scientific method constructed from epistemological inquiries?

Furthermore, is there anything about the definition of philosophy which necessarily excludes all of the things which you have listed? is not natural philosophy based exclusively on observable phenomena?

 

My point is, when philosophy goes on scientific method approach, it turns into science. Philosophy is plain speculative. Science is based on lots and lots of facts.
I just knew you were going to say that science is virtual.

I cba to do this anymore. COH tiem.

 

The scientific method is exclusively virtual. It is a philosophical construct designed to interpret facts. The scientific method itself can't be based on science or it would be useless for the similar reason that the bible can't prove god if god at the same time relies upon the bible for proof. It is instead based upon philosophical concepts such as "truth" and "knowledge."

I will take your withdrawal as a concession. Thank you.

 

Wait a sec... if I go by the golden rule (not Kant), of:

Do unto others what you would have done unto you.

Right?

Then i'm habouring jews, 'cos i'm a nice dude and they get to stay free, and they're good with furniture an' all. Then a couple of Nazi's turn up (nazi's who weren't pressured into the job at all and really just hate jews and gypsy's and pretty much anyone who isn't all cool an' shit), and ask me if I have any jews in da house.

And of course i'm like "nah bro, I don't hang wit dem hippies! Christ all the way! Heil!"

How did I come to this conclusion? Basically you weigh it on a scale - you'd want people to be truthful to you, right? But then you look at the Jews and think "would I want to get killed because someone couldn't lie for me?" and the answer is no, not really. So you weigh the lives of the Jews, and the weight of the lie to the Nazi's together...and the jews come out top (especially 'cos one was a hottie and she totally digs your hair).

You could also weigh it like this; you wouldn't want someone to lie to you, but would you want someone to tell the truth if you were hunting down jews to kill them? According to your personality and psyche now, you would probably think "I don't want to kill any jews" and rationalise (based purely on your own world view - i.e. biasedly) that in fact you were acting in the Nazi's best interests by not telling them the truth.

Eh?

The other thing is, what sane and intelligent person lives by only one rule in their life? Would that kind of person not understand that different situations require different approaches, and sometimes in life, some rules have to be broken? I don't understand this dedication to the rule. Surely it's "this rule, generally speaking, is good to live by", not "this rule should always be lived by because obviously, I, the creator of this rule, am infallible." Which doesn't work for gods either, i'll have you know, as they can only speak directly to a few people and those people aren't infallible so the message ends up like "defend the faith!" but also "make love, not war!"...and people get confused.

'cos like..."make love to my enemy? hope i'm fightin' the amazons.."

 

I'm not saying this is the wrong thing to do (what you're doing is in fact utilitarianism, which is the OPPOSITE of the categorical imperative, as I've repeated). I'm saying that a person following the categorical imperative MUST tell the truth. This process of "weighing on a scale" is exactly what Kant is trying to get people to stop doing, as intuitionism and other teleological ethical paradigms are based on subjectivity. Kant was trying to develop an objectively founded ethical system.

And in fact, the golden rule (as it is a rule, and not a method of looking at consequences) mandates that you must as well tell the nazis the truth.

You are violating both of these rules and you are using some sort of intuition or other ethical reasoning to conclude that lying to the nazis is the best thing in this circumstance.

And flasche very clearly does not even understand the basic precepts of what Kant was saying; that's the other point I'm trying to make out of all of this.

This is exactly what Kant wants you to do, which is why Kant's ethical system is so insane. Thank you for seeing the light.

 

Cheers.

And you know, you're not the most intelligent person here. The fact that you continue to think you can range over everyone else means a lot of people will intentionally bait you and slide through your arguments or just ignore them to goad you. The fact that you yourself practice this, amuses me too.

If you really wanted answers to your questions, you would post them concisely (without explanation) and we could close this thread after you had the answers. The way you pretend to debate is actually not a debate at all, but an insistence that people answer your arbitrary questions in an fashion that suits you. There is no debate here, this is merely you wanting to make a question, then have people answer it - seemingly to show you've won, so you can boost your ego.

But only a certain type of person needs to do that, amirite?

Evidence is here:

You arbitrarily pitched in, removing the idea from the context within which it was used, to bring it out and discuss the concept on a battleground of your choosing. There was no argument there, merely a rebuke from Brutos to Sirex for him to be a little nicer to people, if he expected the same in kind. Kinda like the popular version of Karma (i'm talking about the unacademic version where you say "what goes around, comes around"). But you decided that because someone quoted a famous philosopher that you needed to fight the ideal.

Not the intent.

 

Ignoring the ad hominem, you bring up some interesting points.

Yeah. I run plays from someone else's playbook. He was a famous Greek philosopher. Anyway, this same method forced Chris0132 to admit that reality didn't exist in order to defend his absurd propositions that he had made earlier in a thread, so I'll just keep sticking to it, TYVM.

You are exactly right in that I never had any intent to enter a real debate where someone else had any chance of convincing me that I was wrong. I entered (even created) this debate knowing exactly what the right side was and knowing where I stood.

I did this because not only do I like stoking my own ego, but I also feel that "the golden rule" and other philosophies like it are harmful to practice in some tough situations (Nazis) and useless in all the others. I mean, do you really consider the ethical nature of all of your mundane, everyday actions under the light of the golden rule or a more sophisticated Kantian principle, or don't you just use some form of intuition?

As far as the other listed characteristics of my behavior; well, every good debater uses the same method. I don't take that as an insult but as a complement.

 

Don't really use either tbh, I have a cricket that tells me what to do - she's called Constance or summat. Isn't using your own form of intuition just the same as saying "you do what you think is right/what you wanna do"? Most people figure that the golden rule should be applied in the case of being polite. It doesn't really apply in many situations, it's just what parents/teachers and responsible adults tell children to make them behave, or to give them a guiding principle for when they don't know any better.

Two hundred years on, Kant's brilliant principle is reduced to parental advice for children who don't know any better.

Oh really? I thought a good debater would have furtherance of knowledge at the forefront of their agenda and thus would take the situation and turn it into many equatable situations so that the opposition would understand more where he or she was coming from.

Not randomly make a question and then demand your opposition answer it. That doesn't usually work very well, because the other party just consider you a jerk and an idiot and you end up with a standoff.

Had to look "ad hominem" up, as i'm neither educated or intelligent

 

That's right. That's also called egoism. And it's not a bad thing.

Ironically it does not apply to the people who preach them. The universal principle is not even capable of universalization (I guess that just makes it another Principle)

If you participated in debate as a student, you were typically given one side of an issue and were told to defend it stringently whether or not you agreed with it. Questioning someone until they invariably shot themselves in the foot met with the most success for me.

Anyway, whether or not it's just my fragile ego creating a defense mechanism or because it's the truth, any time someone ignores my lines of inquiry I take it as a concession, so if they think they're "goading" me, they couldn't be further from the truth.

 

Got a link?