my opinion of much philosophy is that it is complete nonsense. It is playing with words, and does nothing to explain reality or solve genuine problems facing humans. What is 'big' about rationality? Either something is rational or it is not rational, for example. We give too much importance to the thoughts of these people, especially the existentialists. Much of their work is little more than musings of people with m ental health problems.

Thanks for the reply Dear teacher,

I believe you have something there, but it would be a happiness we don't seem entitled to if skepticism about "obvious things" was silenced. I tend to see it with eyes like yours sometimes, and sometimes not. Many people maintain, even today, that direct inference to large numbers is not justified. We all know that statistical research is a constitutive part of the composition of the rationality of our collective life, in all branches of professional seriousness. In that case those skeptics would be holding to a "big" concept of justification, that may be entirely superfluous. But the absence of a philosophical justification - or "phenomenological", "epistemological", etc. - for what seems obvious can be the trigger for a very serious crisis, insofar as it tells something about the broad capacity for self-justification and defense of a culture or way of life.

Now, even if we assume that from a scientific point of view there is nothing to worry about, since a crisis of rational parameters will resolve itself through natural selection filtering out the irrational beliefs (as if flat-earthers would simply disappear because of evolutionary justice), there are still several doubts about the nature of the self-justification that reason can or cannot give itself.

Thanks for the response, Lucas.

Dear Professor,

I think there is one more thing to say about the accusation of non-sense to philosophy. I don't know if your argument comes from a naturalistic or a wittgeinsteinian quietism (https://read.dukeupress.edu/common-knowledge/article-abstract/15/3/365/6634/Wittgensteinian-QUIETISM) point of view. I suspect you speak from a naturalistic perspective.

In either case, It must be said that on the side of a version of philosophy as the locus of the "big questions" is not just postmodern skepticism, mystical agnosticism (spiritualism), anthropologism, existentialism, political-ideological, and other ultra-dramatic forms of looking at the human problem. There are also other institutionalized intellectual sectors that adhere to a "big" vision of questioning our parameters of division between what is rational and what is absurd. On this side are also mathematicians, logicians, epistemologists, meta-scientists and some semanticists, who still believe that questions of validity and truth are different from naturalistic questions about brain cells or biological survival strategies.

This I remember only to contextualize more broadly who your "opponents" are.

This said, if you apply the same judgment to the latter group as you applied to the former, namely, that they speak nonsense, it is difficult to sat where can we go from there. Among theorists who believe that philosophy has nothing to say about questions of validity, truth, and rationality, It seems to me that there are three options left:

1. Silence whenever the question arises.

2. listen to the arguments pro-philosophy and argue against it (in which case it will be difficult to defend that it is non-sense - although not impossible)

and 3. to defend the end of the academic institutionalization of this type of questioning, in order to make it a kind of subscience of the same kind as other marginalized "knowledge".

The latter case is the most radical, as it would involve the cut of a large part of the humanities. Hermeneutic theories about historical, sociological and psychological methodology - would be cut through the same filter.

Besides that, in order to develop arguments that justify this exclusion of philosophy from the list of useful "knowledge's", one would inevitably engage in a great deal of philosophical and ideological argumentation.

Cordially, Lucas.

hi Lucas,

although i studied phiosophy at university as part of my BA degree, I now label myself a social or behavioural scientist. My opinion is derived from an indepth knowledge of human societies, as well as knowledge of mental health disorders. I am not a Wittgensteiniam or any other branch of philosophy, but a rationalist if you need to label me.

I am wholly in favour of free speech, and everyone being able to express an opinion without fear or favour.

I understand that many philosophers will be annoyed at my opinions. This is their right. It is also my right to suggest that in all probability anyone who is so annoyed may possibly be in denial.

Bring on the debate.

Hi Dear professor,

There are some ways to test the scope of your conclusion on philosophy, discuss alternatives, learn about theses similar to yours (early and late positivism, naturalism, etc) and the historical challenges they faced, as well as the current state of the polemic. , whose consensus - by the way - is not on their side.

I would love to engage in that discussion, and would gladly do so, as it is a subject that interests me. However, your debating strategy seems unproductive and, to some degree, a bit manipulative and staged. So unless that's exactly what you're aiming for - in which case I'm not interested in the game at all - we don't have much to learn from each other.

Cordially, Lucas.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Vollet & readers,

your comparison of Davidson to Kant strikes me as quite a stretch.

I would venture that Davidson on "truth" (or perhaps better "truth in a language L") avoids dogmatic philosophy simply by separating truth and talk of truth from dogmatic claims to knowledge of truth --which conflation often creates much of the related confusion. We need have no certainty about great Truths or contentious disputes in order to be comfortable with the concept of truth.

The concept of truth is well established in the semantics for first-order deductive logic--involving claims that are chiefly hypothetical. For example, "If 'p or q' is true, then so is 'p.' Or, "If 'p & q" is true, then so is 'p.'

Or consider the concept of deductive validity of arguments.

An argument, with the premises A1, A2, A3, ...Ax and the conclusion B, is deductively valid if and only if the set of sentences (A1, A2, A3, ...Ax, not-B) is inconsistent, i.e., there is no way for all the sentences of the set to be true together.

For example, consider the argument,

All men are mortal

Socrates is a man

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

We needn't know whether any of the three sentences is true, in order to know that the argument is deductively valid. That's because the combination of the premises with the negative of the conclusion is inconsistent. It can't be that All men are mortal and Socrates is a man and Socrates is not mortal. We know that the three can't all be true, though we may not know that any of them are true.

The acceptability and usefulness of the concept of truth doesn't depend on answering contentious questions.

H.G. Callaway

Domnule H.G. Callaway,

Cu tot respectul şi considerentele mele, îmi cer scuze dacă un necunoscut ca mine îşi permite să vă deranjeze cu gândurile sau ideile lui neconvenționale (convențional/neconvenționale. În general nu intervin în discuții, din păcate trebuie să spun ceva în legătură cu transcendentalul şi transcendența din întrebarea dumneavoastră. Altfel discuția ar trebui prelungită mult mai mult decât un simplu răspuns, cu atât mai mult cu cât răspunsurile filozofiei nu sunt științifice, în sens clasic, ele sunt doar direcții ale răspunsurilor ştiinţei percepute (matematică, fizică, etc.) sau metaforă (religie, parapsihologie, zodiac, ghicit, astrologie, alchimie, etc. Transcendentalul nu trebuie înțeles ca semnificaţie limitată dicţionarului clasic de

„TRANSCENDENTÁL, -Ă, transcendentali, -e, adj. (în filosofia lui Kant) Care se referă la formele apriorice ale cunoașterii, care premerge experienței și o condiționează. ♦ Care este deasupra lumii reale. – Din fr. transcendantal, lat. transcendentalis. sursa: DEX '09 2009 permalink”.

Unde (loc sau spaţiu) şi când (vreme sau timp) totul este limitat la gândurile şi ideile umane, să nu uităm că dincolo de identicul şi egalul ideilor noastre umane ca identificare (raport/extraraport) a ştiinţei există asemănarea (comparaţie/extracomparaţie) dincolo de ştiinţa (în sens clasic) pe care o venerăm şi care este o identificare dincolo de percepțiile umane sau științifice unde şi când nu putem ajunge acum sau niciodată datorită nelimitatului (limitat/extralimitat). Trebuie să observăm că expresia de nelimitat ca limitat/extralimitat nu are limite, excepţii, nedeterminat în sens clasic, absurd sau imposibil, etc. chiar dacă nu are limite, neutru şi este în aceiaşi clipă/moment o simultaneitate/dialecticăde limitat. În condițiile în care extralimitatul este un limitat (alt sau altfel de limitat, neconvenţie sau neconvenţional) dincolo de percepțiile noastre dar nu dincolo de simțurile noastre ca natură sau natură/realitate. În acest sens trebuie analizat netranscendentalul ca transcendental/extratranscedentalşi nu doar transcendental limitat la gândurile şi ideile umane sau egalul şi identicul lor ştiinţific sau teoriile lui Kant care pleacă şi se termină cu Dumnezeu. Care Dumnezeu cel atotputernic şi fără limite sau nelimitat sau doar acel Dumnezeu al lui Nietsche care este doar gând sau idee despre cel nelimitat şi poate muri o dată cu omul şi evoluția lui?

În acest context aprioricul lui Kant este tot o experiență ca extraexperienţă (altă sau alt fel de experiență, neconvenţie) în nici un caz idee pură cum se poate crede. Trebuie să evităm ideea că spațiul şi timpul sunt tridimensionale (iluzii de altfel a locului şi vremii neconvenţiile) în condițiile în care trebuie să recunoaștem că nu există trecut sau viitor decât ca gând sau idee umană. Justificarea este simplă trecutul nostru a fost un prezent care a trecut iar viitorul un prezent care va veni doar iluzia noastră comparat sau raportat la noi ca reper sau sistem de referinţă duce la concluzia că timpul sau spațiul sunt tridimensionale. Animalele, plantele, atomii sau moleculele nu știu ce este acela tridimensional, iar ca exemplu liliecii sau delfinii ca şi radarele sau sonarele, tomografele, etc. nu măsoară tridimensional ci unidimensional ca dimensiune unică spaţiu/timp pe care o transformă în tridimensional pentru noi şi idile noastre umane. La fel fac şi filozofii cu anteriorul şi posteriorul dimensiunii spaţiu/timp prin aprioricul sau postprioricul lor, etc. care plecă de la un prioric ca instant sau prezent al experienţei.

Mă opresc aici deși discuția este mult mai amplă şi ar putea deveni fără limite în context neconvenţional dar să nu uităm că lumea ca iluziei naturii în generalul ei se rătăcește o dată cu evoluția ei care nu este un favor făcut omului şi umanității, este doar o consecinţă a devenirii veșnice (singular/contiguu) şi transfromării ei (iluzie a devenirii) eterne (unic/continuu), indiferent dacă om simplu sau intelectual. În acest caz ar trebui să respectăm principiul în care „dacă te rătăcești trebuie să te întorci acolo de unde ai plecat”, la fel şi noi sau orice fiinţă (umanoidă, umană sau nu) sau lucru trebuie să ne întoarcem acolo de unde am plecat mai exact la natura sau natura/realitatecare suntem şi în care existăm, indiferent dacă discutăm de natură sau iluziile ei ca filozofie sau doar de ştiinţă ca filozofie a percepţiei sau metaforei. (cazuri particulare ale filozofiei ca oglindire a naturii şi neconvenţionalului ei.

Dear Dr. Callaway,

Thanks for the smart contribution.

I tend to agree with you on everything, and thank you for refreshing my memory with a quick and accurate description of Davidsonian philosophy.

About the comparison with Kant, I believe that, in the first place, it can only be, in fact, a long stretch. But I also confess that the quote I used was more in the sense of an epigraph to start the discussion. If you will, the citation paper was not intended for a broad comparison between authors.

Be that as it may, the discussion you brought up is not irrelevant, and it seems to me that we can see in Kant and Davidson at least this common thread. There is an excerpt from Kant's work, right at the beginning of the analytic of principles, where Kant speaks of the concept of truth and states that there cannot be a "formula of truth" - there is nothing substantial answered by the predicate "is true". This statement, in my view, is in perfect alignment with the Tarski-Davidsonian notion of truth and with some kinds of deflationism (although Davidson himself is only partially committed to deflationism).

Thanks again for your input, dear Callaway... I confess that I'm not directly prepared for the detour you proposed to the discussion, but I also like this topic and I can try to delve into it if you suggest something in that direction.

Sincerely, Lucas.

Philadelphia, PA

Dear Păroiu & readers,

Notice that what I say above about 'truth' says very little about Davidson in particular; and I concentrated on the semantic concept of truth in connection with first-order logic. That territory is about as scientific as things get within philosophy. We might equally say that philosophy of science is not itself a science, and that point would make very little difference to specific topics in the philosophy of science. In a similar way, whether or not logic and its semantics are a science makes little difference to the acceptability and usefulness of the concept of truth.

The semantics of "true" can be viewed as an application of the mathematics of model theory to the specific topic of reference and co-reference of the language employed in argumentation--any argumentation. Just about everything in both philosophy and science depends on the evaluation of arguments; and in consequence, the concept of truth is not a plausible focus for skeptical doubts.

H.G. Callaway