Can you "prove" philosophical positions or statements? For example, if I'm a mathematical platonist, is there a chance I'm "wrong"? Are there any philosophical positions that are obsolete and "proven wrong"?
Has disputation ever ended? Have any philosophical questions been answered to the satisfaction of everyone? Have any theses proven immune to criticism?
>>990507
Of course not. What I'm asking is is it even theoretically possible to prove a philosophical position beyond a reasonable doubt? Like, it's something I'm actually interested in. Is everything really relative?
I'd say that it's impossible to be wrong about something that you can logically prove, unless it can also be demonstrated to be false.
Mathematical platonists are right, unless you can find some way to prove that numbers can't not-exist.
>>990558
>numbers have no reality
So what happens when you construct a geometric object in real 3-D space?
Did we discover math or did we invent it?
>>990570
Total non sequitur. Where are the numbers in that object? That it can be described by a mathematical language does not prove the immanence of the language in the object.
Numbers only exist as descriptions. Where is the number 5? It cannot be demonstrated, only 5 units of something -- 5 fingers, 5 hexagons.
"Prove" in what sense OP?
If you are asking if it possible to gain knowledge, yes, if you accept the ancient Greek definition of what knowledge is, i.e justified true belief.
It is possible to "justify" many things, i.e have reasons for why you believe them, the question is whether those reasons are good enough to stand further scrutiny.
>>990484
Gonna have to go with your gut, just remember that some guts try to be less biased than otherz
>>990593
That doesn't matter.
The core of the whole Platonist argument is you can construct a geometry, but in doing so you will produce an error. And the only reason that you can prove you've made an error is because there must actually exist a theoretical geometry to compare your construction to.
For example, if I told you I have 5 things, it's possible that I actually have 4 things. You can only know that because the number 5 actually exists.
>>990558
>professes absolute truth without proof
Nice meme
>>990531
So all views on something that can't be proven aren't false?
>>990484
You can't prove anything if there's nobody to prove something to.
>>990647
No, they're just unfalsifiable.
And now it's up to interpretation as to whether or not it's true, unless you can demonstrate it false.
>>990735
Shit, I said that wrong. What I mean is that all statements that can't be proven true or false aren't true or false.
>>990757
What sort of statement can't be proven true?
>>990622
Sure, numbers "exist," as a creation of the human mind. Constructed geometries approximate a Euclidean one which is not itself "real." The only real geometries are the flawed ones which can actually be constructed.
>>990816
I'm sure there are statements who's truth values are neither true nor false.
>>990835
So riddle me this: if a constructed geometry approximates something, surely it's approximating a perfect mathematical object which has to exist, otherwise it would be impossible to compare its shape to an approximate shape and then determine a difference.
If you assume that Euclidean geometries don't exist anywhere, you run into a contradiction immediately whenever you try to measure or count anything that exists in the world we live in.
>>990880
Backwards. Euclidean geometry is an extrapolation from concrete objects. The extrapolation only exists as representation. In both counting and measuring, you pair concrete objects with each other -- never do you compare to a supposed Platonic object.
This is the world of the rationalists:
mathematics are about formalizations of your speculations (which you form from your desire to see things that you experience [the empirical world], through induction, as similar or dissimilar) to the point that you have a structure more formalized than your speculations structured in natural languages.
Logic is just a the formalization of your speculations about *validity of inferences*, so here logic is a formal part of mathematics.
It turns out that plenty of mathematical structures are cast into some formal deductive logic (like set theory formalizes your structures of numbers).
I meant your usual set theory cast in FOL.
Set theory is just a structure too and it turns out that you can interpret a part of this structure as some kind of numbers.
Philosophy is just structuring and formalizing in natural languages.
Science is just claiming that your formalized structures (in formal languages or not) gives you access to some *reality*, more or less hidden with respect to what you are conscious of[=<the empirical world].
Same thing for the religions which go beyond empiricism.
Some mathematicians, typically Brouwer, think that mathematics should, equally to the speculations (however formalized) of the scientists, talk about the empirical world. So typically, your formal symbols are real entities: these entities belong to some world and they connect or not back to the empirical world.
to be clearer,
the symbols are names of real entities and, since you begin always from the empirical world, this world constrains you on the creation and usage of these real entities. then these real entities can or cannot belong to some other world as well.
[For brouwer, you never leave the empirical world I think]
>>990953
Conclusion:
logic and any rationalism is a disease embraced by people who despise enough empiricism to choose to dwell into their mental proliferation, then trying to claim that their speculations are less speculative and nihilistic than what they are, typically in fantasizing about speculations which give access to truth, reality or even back to their fantasy of empirical world, but this time with a better hedonism for everybody (because pains must be abolished and pleasure be pursued ).
You can only prove something to someone when they are operating within a framework that it can be allowed to be correct. Socrates and his musings that the soul is persistant and we are only ever remembering when we learn cannot be allowed to be proven in sceince for example, because there's no empirical way to determine if souls are in fact real. So you cannot prove such statements to someone of a scientific mind. Likewise, evolution cannot be allowed to be proven to a Creationist, because they'll just say the devil put all the evidence there.
Why is science always the evil boogieman of his?
>>991869
Half is STEMfags going "nuhh humanities is useless"
The other half is butthurt from post-modernists who hate anyone that has any sympathy for rationalism or striving for objectivity.
