correct answering

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Advocate
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Re: correct answering

Post by Advocate »

[quote=Sculptor post_id=508554 time=1619190796 user_id=17400]
[quote=Advocate post_id=508448 time=1619138732 user_id=15238]
correct - free from error; in accordance with fact or truth.

There is at least one correct answer to every question in philosophy.
[/quote]

How can there be "at least" one correct answer. Surely if the intention of the question is clear then only one answer can ever suffice?
Any multiple answers are a response to ignorance, lack of clarity in the question or the fact that there is no actual answer.
[/quote]

Because there is one Truth but there are infinite perspectives on it at infinite resolutions according to infinite intents, which each require addition or removal of various aspects, there may be many sufficient answers or none at all depending on your purpose; but if your purpose doesn't admit of possible answers, it's useless. When scale, perspective, priority, and salience are accounted for, there's an answer.
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RCSaunders
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Re: correct answering

Post by RCSaunders »

Advocate wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:45 am correct - free from error; in accordance with fact or truth.

There is at least one correct answer to every question in philosophy.
What is certain is that for most questions there are an infinite number of possible wrong answers, and philosphers have discovered and believed almost all of them. Those wrong answers, in fact, fill the entire corpus of all current philosophy.
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RCSaunders
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Re: correct answering

Post by RCSaunders »

Advocate wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:08 pm In my experience, running across "there are no answers" is quite common, both in philosophy and regular reality.
It's the dominant, "philosophy," today, but the infection began with Plato and the sophists. "Nothing can be known for certain," and, "the best that is possible is only statistically likely," are held like religious doctrines from philosophy to science.
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RCSaunders
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Re: correct answering

Post by RCSaunders »

uwot wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:35 pm
Advocate wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:33 pmIf there is only one possibly correct answer in philosophy, there's nothing else for your to do here. Go home.
... Anyway, beyond ontology and epistemology, you get into science, ethics, politics, aesthetics none of which admit answers that are 'correct' ...
It must be tough going through life, never being certain one is dead or live, or
whether heavier than air flight is possible, or refrigeration is possible, or if sound and pictures can be transmitted electronically anywhere in the world, or whether getting to the moon is possible, or X-rays or lasers are possible, or if anaesthesia (painless surgery) is possible, or if bacteria causes disease, or lasers are possible, or if blood really circulates out of the heart and back again. Maybe someday we can discover whether any of those things is correct. We may even be able to verify that all the chemical elements identified in the periodic chart really exist and have their natures correctly described.

When a clerk gives you change after your purchase, do you count it? Why would you? You can never be certain it is correct.
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RCSaunders
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Re: correct answering

Post by RCSaunders »

Sculptor wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 4:13 pm How can there be "at least" one correct answer. Surely if the intention of the question is clear then only one answer can ever suffice?
Any multiple answers are a response to ignorance, lack of clarity in the question or the fact that there is no actual answer.
Of course, that's true for all questions of fact. A thing cannot be A, and also non-A (anything other than A).

Quadratic equations frequently have two "correct" solutions, however, they do not identify any actual existents, of course.
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Re: correct answering

Post by Advocate »

[quote=RCSaunders post_id=508611 time=1619226059 user_id=16196]
<said things>
[/quote]

What's your problem with "the best that is possible is only statistically likely"?
uwot
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Re: correct answering

Post by uwot »

RCSaunders wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:18 amIt must be tough going through life, never being certain one is dead or live...
Not really. 'I am alive' is a perfectly functional working hypothesis.
RCSaunders wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:18 am...or
whether heavier than air flight is possible, or refrigeration is possible, or if sound and pictures can be transmitted electronically anywhere in the world, or whether getting to the moon is possible, or X-rays or lasers are possible, or if anaesthesia (painless surgery) is possible, or if bacteria causes disease, or lasers are possible, or if blood really circulates out of the heart and back again. Maybe someday we can discover whether any of those things is correct. We may even be able to verify that all the chemical elements identified in the periodic chart really exist and have their natures correctly described.
Ah well, all those things are empirically testable. That's science. The thing with science is that it would work just as well in a variety of ontologies. You are not the first to express exasperation at this fact:
After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed that though we are satisfied, his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, 'I refute it thus.'
 James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson
RCSaunders wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:18 amWhen a clerk gives you change after your purchase, do you count it? Why would you? You can never be certain it is correct.
Ah well, that's mathematics. Simple arithmetic is probably true in even more ontologies than science.
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Re: correct answering

Post by Terrapin Station »

Advocate wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:56 pm
uwot wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:35 pm
Advocate wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:33 pmIf there is only one possibly correct answer in philosophy, there's nothing else for your to do here. Go home.
The only logically watertight fact is 'There is something'. It is the only thing that can be represented of which the antithesis would be self refuting. The sentence 'There is nothing' cannot be true if that sentence exists. That is the entirety of sound ontology. As for epistemology the logical necessity starts and ends with 'I think, therefore I am.' We could argue the toss over that, but it's way over your pay grade. Anyway, beyond ontology and epistemology, you get into science, ethics, politics, aesthetics none of which admit answers that are 'correct', and then you have the rules of the game which is logic, which again doesn't admit 'correct' answers or even correct logic. Long story short: any proposition that is not self refuting could be true, and I'm not even certain about that.
Logic represents relationships that hold true 100% of the time. There are many such relationships. Causality and measurement are examples. The question isn't which story is true, many are trivially so, but which is both necessary and sufficient, pragmatic and poetic. tiny.cc/TheWholeStory is more than adequate to address everything you've said from multiple angles, coherently.
There are incompatible species of logics, where what's the case, what counts as true in one logic, isn't the case/doesn't count as true in another logic.
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Re: correct answering

Post by commonsense »

RCSaunders wrote: Sat Apr 24, 2021 1:51 am
Advocate wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:45 am correct - free from error; in accordance with fact or truth.

There is at least one correct answer to every question in philosophy.
What is certain is that for most questions there are an infinite number of possible wrong answers, and philosphers have discovered and believed almost all of them. Those wrong answers, in fact, fill the entire corpus of all current philosophy.
Well said.

I am reminded of the heuristic that once philosophical enquiry is begun, there is no end to it. Of course, we must ask whether this is correct.
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Re: correct answering

Post by DPMartin »

uwot wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:26 pm
Advocate wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:45 amcorrect - free from error; in accordance with fact or truth.

There is at least one correct answer to every question in philosophy.
There is only one question that has a definite answer in philosophy - does anything exist? As long as that question can be asked, the answer is yes. Everything else is up for grabs and any question that has at least one correct answer isn't philosophical.
you're wrong there, philosophy is the search for the truth, not a search for the next brain fart that some one else might buy into.
uwot
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Re: correct answering

Post by uwot »

DPMartin wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 4:59 pm
uwot wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:26 pmThere is only one question that has a definite answer in philosophy - does anything exist? As long as that question can be asked, the answer is yes. Everything else is up for grabs and any question that has at least one correct answer isn't philosophical.
you're wrong there, philosophy is the search for the truth, not a search for the next brain fart that some one else might buy into.
So tell us another philosophical question that we know the answer to.
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Re: correct answering

Post by Advocate »

[quote=uwot post_id=509333 time=1619805712 user_id=7941]
[quote=DPMartin post_id=509317 time=1619798341 user_id=13848][quote=uwot post_id=508513 time=1619180779 user_id=7941]There is only one question that has a definite answer in philosophy - does anything exist? As long as that question can be asked, the answer is yes. Everything else is up for grabs and any question that has at least one correct answer isn't philosophical.[/quote]you're wrong there, philosophy is the search for the truth, not a search for the next brain fart that some one else might buy into.[/quote]So tell us another philosophical question that we know the answer to.
[/quote]

Every question in epistemology and metaphysics has a definitive answer.
uwot
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Re: correct answering

Post by uwot »

Advocate wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 9:04 pmEvery question in epistemology and metaphysics has a definitive answer.
The bummer is we can never know which definitive answer is the right one. That is why a good story is a source of wisdom, and anyone who believes a story isn't wise.
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Re: correct answering

Post by Advocate »

[quote=uwot post_id=509345 time=1619814112 user_id=7941]
[quote=Advocate post_id=509344 time=1619813081 user_id=15238]Every question in epistemology and metaphysics has a definitive answer.[/quote]The bummer is we can never know which definitive answer is the right one. That is why a good story is a source of wisdom, and anyone who believes a story isn't wise.
[/quote]

tiny.cc/TheWholeStory has those answers, and you can know them to be true by looking for exceptions. If there are no exceptions, it's the best story because it does the best work.
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Re: correct answering

Post by uwot »

Advocate wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 9:40 pmIf there are no exceptions, it's the best story because it does the best work.
There are no exceptions to the story 'God did it'. So is god the best story?
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