Truth course
From Huben's Wiki
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* "The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date" Samuel Arbesman | * "The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date" Samuel Arbesman | ||
* Walter Lippman, "Public Opinion" | * Walter Lippman, "Public Opinion" | ||
| + | * Philosopher: "What color is the sky?" Student: "Blue." Philosopher: "Let us then proceed from the fact that the sky is blue to reason thusly...." If only the student would observe that the sky is not always blue: it can be gray on a cloudy day, it can be black at night, and sun, moon, stars, clouds, birds, etc. can all make it different than plain, solid blue. If we say the sky is blue, that is not a fact: it is a vague observation or generalization, ignoring the many exceptions, ignoring the scientific explanation of scattering of sunlight and privileging daytime over nighttime conditions. It is not a valid premise that philosophy can be built upon. Most philosophy actually starts with such invalid premises, and it is not too difficult to spot them. | ||
| + | ** Is this what Socratic dialog exposes? | ||
| + | ** If this why Socrates claims how little he really knows? (may have the wrong philosopher here) | ||
| + | ** Tradeoff between generality and accuracy? | ||
| + | ** Why does this not apply to science? | ||
| + | ** Or is it true that hardly any philosophy starts with such clear premises, and never states the premises precisely because it would be so easy to spot why they are invalid? | ||
