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Perhaps in ancient times all could be called philosophy. But as we fill our world with more and more truth, where will philosophy be squeezed into? Already there is no point philosophizing about established reality, unlike before with elements and matter and aether. And I have faith that one day we will produce a complete model of human consciousness (then invent ourselves into obsolescence with AI...), so the free will stuff will finally be put to rest.
 
Perhaps in ancient times all could be called philosophy. But as we fill our world with more and more truth, where will philosophy be squeezed into? Already there is no point philosophizing about established reality, unlike before with elements and matter and aether. And I have faith that one day we will produce a complete model of human consciousness (then invent ourselves into obsolescence with AI...), so the free will stuff will finally be put to rest.
That's a nice philosophical thought you just had there.

Jesus, are you getting it now? Reflective thought is philosophy, that's all that philosophy is, and will ever be. Until there's nothing to reflect upon, philosophy will exist.
 
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How is that progress? What do you define as progress?

The Dictionary said:
3. advancement in general.

4. growth or development; continuous improvement:
He shows progress in his muscular coordination.

5. the development of an individual or society in a direction considered more beneficial than and superior to the previous level.

It isn't nebulous, as I've already said, and pretending that it is, doesn't assist your argument. Ignoring the textbook definition of progress to ask me what progress is?... I don't understand, are you failing to grasp progress as a concept? There are dozens (if not hundreds) of books on this, it's clearly visible in the progression of storytelling from one medium to another over time... Here's a free book you can read, even, going into great detail in how literature has changed and impacted society. Progressed it.

Society is constantly growing and changing, and stories both cause the changes and are affected by the changes. The same can be said of philosophy, which has evolved both to suit the times, and to help create and define the times they existed in. For instance, the Greek version of democracy is fairly backwards to what Western Society has now. The same Western Society that, while it still uses some Greek philosophy, also uses other western philosophers as the baseline for setting up the ideology, such as Rousseau, or Hobbs. Given more time, as society continues to grow, philosophy will change, new philosophers will be born with new ideas, or modified versions of the old ideas.

One does not exist independently of the other. The entire thing is an organism: Philosophy is an organ, society is an organ, literature is an organ--do you see it yet? One helps to further the other, as the organism grows, changes, evolves. Sometimes it fucks up and dies. (ex: Soviet Union.) Sometimes it succeeds and it successfully self-replicates itself. (ex: Western Democracy.) Philosophy may not make the same boastful, revolutionary strides that it used to, but it's by and far not useless. Even if it's at a dead end, philosophy is still important to understanding ideology and society, it should still be taught and understood, and it can still contribute to the overall progression of the human race.

Do you understand what it is I'm trying to say yet? To summarize...
  • Progress is easily definable, in multiple ways, at multiple levels.
  • Philosophy has been proven to both be affected by, and cause changes in, society. Which is progress. Textbook progress.
  • The effects of philosophy can be seen in government and ideologies, as just one of several places in which philosophical thought has had incredible impact on our lives. (Confucius in a lot of eastern cultural values (ideology), as one non-western example.)
 
Let me try again ...

The problem is that the definition of superior in and of itself is nebulous, and I am sure you will find much more learned men than me who will debate with you the benefits of every political system known to man. Each is convinced their system is the best, yet anarchy and socialism are at the opposite ends of the spectrum with respect to the amount of social order imposed by the state. In what case is one system 'superior' to the other? It is impossible to measure. Philosophy has made no progress.

Can you say one political system fosters more economic growth? Perhaps I do a test and find that capitalism ensures that more money is circulated every year. There is no statement about whether capitalism is superior or not. All we have found is that capitalism gives more more year over year. You will endlessly debate with other pundits whether this is a good thing or not. Science does not tell you whether things are good or not.

You are conflating societal and technological progress with philosophical progress. The mechanization and industrial revolution are advancements ('progress') in the sense that humans of today have a greater capacity to produce goods than humans of yesteryear. Notice how I used the word greater. All it says is that one number is larger than another. It does not make any claims of superior, advancement, or movement towards some goal. There are people in the world who are content with less. There are people in the world who want more. But they are both governed by the laws of physics. Scientific truths hold regardless of world view.

Science advances by revealing truth that holds regardless of points of view. Philosophy can not claim to have revealed to us a point of view that is universally true. Philosophy has made no progress.
 
The problem is that the definition of superior in and of itself is nebulous
So I see your argument has changed from progress to superior.

It's just too bad superior also has a clear definition.

The Dictionary said:
2. above the average in excellence, merit, intelligence, etc.:
superior math students.

3. of higher grade or quality:
superior merchandise.

4. greater in quantity or amount:
superior numbers.

I'm still not certain what you're finding confusing. Modern society has granted us longer lifespans, greater civil and social liberties--

In what case is one system 'superior' to the other? It is impossible to measure. Philosophy has made no progress.
... I... What?... Name a single successful anarchist state in the modern era that could, in any way, compete with a western power, in any measurable manner?... Name a single, true communist state, that didn't implode or adopt capitalist ideas like private enterprise?...

I'm... Honestly not sure we can have a discussion on equal ground here, when our perspectives are obviously so far flung from each other that I appear to be speaking Spanish to you, and you appear to be speaking Mandarin to me. We're just not translating at all, so I'll politely leave you with the last word if you should so choose to have it, and be merrily on my way. My, horrible confused way.

im-so-confused.gif


I will at least give your paper a read though. The concept is intriguing and I at least give opposing trains of thought the benefit of logic and reason as divorced from bias as possible.
 
Your own quoted definition #5 in progress: "the development of an individual or society in a direction considered more beneficial than and superior to the previous level." Even your other two definitions don't apply to philosophy - how has philosophy advanced or improved? It has not shown us any truth, merely created more view points as culture and thought have changed with the times.

I'm still not certain what you're finding confusing. Modern society has granted us longer lifespans, greater civil and social liberties--

Separate longer lifespan from the other two. The former comes from a greater understanding of biology. The other two are not examples of progress, but view points accepted in present societal context. You will find people who passionately argue that more social control is better than none. There is no way to objectively say one or the other is better. Entire cultures are based upon the idea of swearing off all worldly pleasure, while others throw themselves into hedonism.

... I... What?... Name a single successful anarchist state in the modern era that could, in any way, compete with a western power, in any measurable manner?... Name a single, true communist state, that didn't implode or adopt capitalist ideas like private enterprise?...

Your (hypothetical, I am not claiming this is what you believe) definition of superiority involves a state that competes or dominates the competition or has a strong economy. My definition of superiority is ancient china, for reasons [x] and [y] and [z]. There is no objective measure that we can apply to society - it is a riot of contradictory viewpoints.
 
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Let me try again ...
The problem is that the definition of superior in and of itself is nebulous, and I am sure you will find much more learned men than me who will debate with you the benefits of every political system known to man. Each is convinced their system is the best, yet anarchy and socialism are at the opposite ends of the spectrum with respect to the amount of social order imposed by the state. In what case is one system 'superior' to the other? It is impossible to measure. Philosophy has made no progress.
Can you say one political system fosters more economic growth? Perhaps I do a test and find that capitalism ensures that more money is circulated every year. There is no statement about whether capitalism is superior or not. All we have found is that capitalism gives more more year over year. You will endlessly debate with other pundits whether this is a good thing or not. Science does not tell you whether things are good or not.
You are conflating societal and technological progress with philosophical progress. The mechanization and industrial revolution are advancements ('progress') in the sense that humans of today have a greater capacity to produce goods than humans of yesteryear. Notice how I used the word greater. All it says is that one number is larger than another. It does not make any claims of superior, advancement, or movement towards some goal. There are people in the world who are content with less. There are people in the world who want more. But they are both governed by the laws of physics. Scientific truths hold regardless of world view.
Science advances by revealing truth that holds regardless of points of view. Philosophy can not claim to have revealed to us a point of view that is universally true. Philosophy has made no progress.
Progress does not require step 2 to be superior to step 1. If you step forward, even if you step on dog shit, you're still making progress. Even so, philosophy has made progress in many areas since it first started, especially those of human and civil rights. If not for philosophical advances, women and minorities would not be allowed to vote because people would still view them as lesser beings or incapable of political thought. Those were not scientific advances, they were philosophical advances.

Just because some people can argue against this state of things being better than the past does not mean it isn't progress. If simple disagreement were enough to negate progress then plenty of science would in fact not be progress because Christians who believe the Bible is literally true argue that things like anthropology and archaeology are total bullshit. Their arguments do not actually negate the progress made by science, but not because science can turn to objective measurements; people can and do argue that those objective measurements are also wrong, so it would be a pointless circular argument forever if you were to give credence to the idea that disagreement negates progress. The reason those people are wrong is because science has moved forward from where it started and has added new things to their pool of knowledge. That's it. Even if they had produced nothing physical from scientific discoveries, even if it was all theoretical stuff passed down from person to person, it would still be progress.

However, even if you want to get into saying that physical products are the measure of progress, that showing something is greater than the previous state can prove progress, philosophy can still do that. What is the physical product of science? All sorts of things, machines and medicines and so forth, tons of things to measure, all of it greater in number than when science first started, thus progress is clear. What is the physical product of philosophy? Books and other writings on philosophy. There is a greater number of philosophical writings today than there was when philosophy first started, therefore there is advancement ('progress') in science.

As I've said before, you cannot judge science and philosophy by the same standards for progress. You do not require an objective measurement of anything at all for progress to exist. You do not need to be able to prove something is true for it to be progress. In fact, speaking of truth, you're using the word in a funny way. Remember that one of the core tenets of science is that nothing is 100% true forever no matter what, because even one piece of evidence to the contrary is enough to completely blow it up; to say that anything is unequivocally true no matter what potential evidence might be brought against it would be to disregard the scientific method. Even science cannot be said to have totally ironclad perfect truths about the universe unless you ignore the principles of the scientific method: they say nothing can ever be unequivocally proven true, only unequivocally proven false. The majority of scientific progress has been proving things false (to crib a phrase from that philosophical paper you've decided is the one true word of philosophy, science is essentially destructive), not proving them true, because that is now science actually works and progresses. Science does not find something and say "aha, another objective truth of reality!" Science looks at things and says "okay, all these other ideas about how this works are complete garbage, throw those out... now here's how I think it works, based on other scientific findings in the past." It is objective in the sense that it is devoid of emotion, but it is not truth in anything like an absolute sense, which seems to be what you're claiming with the way you're talking about scientific progress.

Even so, despite the fact that you have to call it 'scientific truth' instead of 'truth' because a good scientist cannot view it any of it as absolute truth in a literal sense, science has made progress. It is not in fact a set of absolute truths of the world/universe, it's just the closest thing to the absolute truth that we've got so far. Despite that lack of absolute objective truth within science, it has made progress. Philosophy has made progress as well, it's just doesn't claim to be seeking absolute truth about the physical world. Philosophy admits that it is based on immeasurable things, thoughts and concepts and ideas, so it doesn't try to measure itself. Different methods, different kind of progress. Both have made progress, just in different ways.
 
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Progress absolutely requires that the next is superior to the prior. That is how we discuss progress. If it is not, what you are discussing is change. That is what philosophy does. It changes and adapts itself to the new generation and prevailing societal thought. Never has there been a undeniably true standard of ethics and morals.
If not for philosophical advances, women and minorities would not be allowed to vote because people would still view them as lesser beings or incapable of political thought.
This is untrue. You are falling into the trap of thinking on the precedence and context of western history. Ancient china already had a system of meritocracy in place where people could test into bureaucracy by passing state exams. Some of its most famous statesmen where women. No philosopher needed to write a treatise on human rights for that to happen.

people can and do argue that those objective measurements are also wrong, so it would be a pointless circular argument forever if you were to give credence to the idea that disagreement negates progress.
You are free to accept deny the result of measurement, but then you would not be rational and this entire discussion would be pointless. The point of objective measurement is that it exists whether we believe it or not. You can believe forever and forever that you can fly if you jump off a building. That does not change the result. The same cannot be said for points of view in philosophy!
What is the physical product of science? All sorts of things, machines and medicines and so forth, tons of things to measure, all of it greater in number than when science first started, thus progress is clear. What is the physical product of philosophy? Books and other writings on philosophy. There is a greater number of philosophical writings today than there was when philosophy first started, therefore there is advancement ('progress') in science.
Science does not need physical products to prove it has progressed. Those are merely results of a greater understanding of the world. The myriad philosophical publications are rehashings of old arguments or merely new viewpoints. That is not progress.
In fact, speaking of truth, you're using the word in a funny way. Remember that one of the core tenets of science is that nothing is 100% true forever no matter what, because even one piece of evidence to the contrary is enough to completely blow it up;
The whole point of science is that a hypothesis is, like you say, provably false. The same cannot be said for any point of view in philosophy. Philosophy never produces universal truths.
Philosophy has made progress as well, it's just doesn't claim to be seeking absolute truth about the physical world. Philosophy admits that it is based on immeasurable things, thoughts and concepts and ideas, so it doesn't try to measure itself. Different methods, different kind of progress. Both have made progress, just in different ways.
How can you claim philosophy has made any progress if you cannot even measure it? If philosophy is completely based on points of views and axioms, none of which can be proved true, then philosophy has made infinite progress because infinite view points exist: we just haven't set down to list them all out. Something that takes all possible paths and all possible viewpoints basically does not. Philosophy cannot make progress because we can't prove anything true or false.
 
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*reads only Unanun's last comment, like a pro*

Isn't the measurable product of philosophy the ever-expanding resources available to philosophy students? Even a dumb-fuck trailer park kid can hop on the internet now and read about Locke's theories of ontology. The same cannot be said for any previous period of history. These ideas simply weren't in print, word-of-mouth circulation or media access.

Now, in the Age of Information, you can measure philosophical progress on a person-by-person basis, or by the number of resources, books, speculative fictions, etc.

Sure, the Chinese worked out that women could be trusted to vote. But the idea probably came from a few powerful statesmen. Nowadays, if you throw a bunch of kids in a room and give them enough marijuana, they'll come up with the notion themselves, rather than defaulting to folklore, religion or "it's not my place to say".

And that's because we've inherited insolence and questioning across the generations. And we've also inherited a ballooning info-sphere.



Measure it like that. Ask a kid a question and count the number of answers he can come up with by accessing the various ideas around him. Then compare that to the number of ideas a pig farmer's bastard would have.

Better yet - survey the entire world and ask them how many philosophical schools of thought they can explain back to you. If people know the ideas, there's a chance they'll use them to better their conduct. And that's more than can be said for the smelly peasants of yore.

PROGRESS!



*high fives his gang-mates and steps backs into line with arms folded*
 
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Progress absolutely requires that the next is superior to the prior. That is how we discuss progress. If it is not, what you are discussing is change. That is what philosophy does. It changes and adapts itself to the new generation and prevailing societal thought. Never has there been a undeniably true standard of ethics and morals.
While I agree with Jorick's definition of progress, I shall, for now, accept yours as having merit.

What makes you think that science is making progress? For many individuals, ignorance is bliss. We aren't supposed to understand our world, we should just live it as it is presented to us. The more we understand the world around us, the less likely we are to achieve wonder. It is the incomprehensible that creates wonder, and many devote themselves to finding things that they cannot understand just to make themselves feel insignificant.

Is the discovery of nuclear fission and fusion superior to its non-discovery, if that discovery leads to the creation of the atom bomb?

Progress in science is thus just as subjective as progress in philosophy. Truly, there is no such thing as an entirely objective thing—or at the very least, none that we shall ever be able to access.

This is untrue. You are falling into the trap of thinking on the precedence and context of western history. Ancient china already had a system of meritocracy in place where people could test into bureaucracy by passing state exams. Some of its most famous statesmen where women. No philosopher needed to write a treatise on human rights for that to happen.
Did you know that the ancient Chinese meritocracy was instated in response to Confucianism, a philosophical movement?

You are free to accept deny the result of measurement, but then you would not be rational and this entire discussion would be pointless. The point of objective measurement is that it exists whether we believe it or not. You can believe forever and forever that you can fly if you jump off a building. That does not change the result. The same cannot be said for points of view in philosophy!
There may be objective truths, but there are no objective ways of measuring them. Considering such possibilities as the brain-in-a-jar theory, we have no way of determining if any of our senses are actually to be believed, or if they are just fabricated by some other entity.

Science is a belief system, like any other. It just so happens to be the most consistent belief system, due in large part to the philosophy of science, upon which all science is founded.


Science exists because of philosophy. Neither can be objectively measured, only believed in.

Science does not need physical products to prove it has progressed. Those are merely results of a greater understanding of the world. The myriad philosophical publications are rehashings of old arguments or merely new viewpoints. That is not progress.
All science does is rehash with new viewpoints. The change between having a flat planet and a round planet was not a new Earth—it was a new way of looking at how the Earth worked that made more consistent sense.

Even things like the atom were thought of in Ancient Greece. All we've done since is rehash the idea and expand upon it, much like the ideas philosophy rehashes from ancient Greek philosophers.

The whole point of science is that a hypothesis is, like you say, provably false. The same cannot be said for any point of view in philosophy. Philosophy never produces universal truths.
Science also does not produce universal truths. For it to be universal, it would have to be accepted by everyone. Quite a number of individuals are still faithful to Creationism and other such belief systems, so science is not universally accepted, and thus not a universal truth.

How can you claim philosophy has made any progress if you cannot even measure it? If philosophy is completely based on points of views and axioms, none of which can be proved true, then philosophy has made infinite progress because infinite view points exist: we just haven't set down to list them all out. Something that takes all possible paths and all possible viewpoints basically does not. Philosophy cannot make progress because we can't prove anything true or false.
Once again, the same goes for science. Science attempts to approach an absolute truth, but it can never reach it.

We have "proven" many things true in science in that past that decades later were shown to be false. Nothing we know in science is irrefutable, even the things we take as false. Science just assumes certain things function in every context, just because it functioned in the limited number of contexts we studied.

Just as in philosophy, there are infinite pseudo-truths and pseudo-falseties.
 
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Nobody cares what dictionaries says brovo tsk tsk think4urself.
Yeah, screw universally understood language! Lets go back to Babylon! The one without the five! That really sucked! :bananaman:
 
Yeah, screw universally understood language! Lets go back to Babylon! The one without the five! That really sucked! :bananaman:
Ad absurdum. Tsk tsk brovo.

Using dictionary definitions for the sake of conveying a message and understanding is fine. However when the other's argument holds the prerequisite of challenging the dictionary definition (much like the gender wars and the definition of feminism), then it's silly to use it.
 
@Asmodeus but I am not convinced that access to more information is progress. For all the access to new information, no new truth has been produced.
While I agree with Jorick's definition of progress, I shall, for now, accept yours as having merit.
The entirety of your post can be refuted by requoting my example given. Objective truths care not about your belief. If you feel so strongly about that, go jump off a building and see if you fly, or jump into the ocean and see if you can breath in water. Science is not a belief system, although it can become that way to people who only half understand it.
The change between having a flat planet and a round planet was not a new Earth—it was a new way of looking at how the Earth worked that made more consistent sense.
A round earth is provably true with overwhelming amounts of evidence. Until it is falsified, it is acceptable beyond reasonable doubt that we live in at three dimensional universe (with a fourth, I suppose, for time ...) which should hold until a more accurate, testable, hypothesis is brought forward.
Considering such possibilities as the brain-in-a-jar theory, we have no way of determining if any of our senses are actually to be believed, or if they are just fabricated by some other entity.
You can't test that 'theory' (which is a hypothesis, if we are going to debate on semantics). That is outside the realm of science to test until someone, perhaps, comes up with a clever way of doing that. Therefore it is a viewpoint. It is not a hypothesis. It is untestable, and you will never be able to ascertain its truthiness, just like creationism.

Did you know that the ancient Chinese meritocracy was instated in response to Confucianism, a philosophical movement?

You are completely right about that, actually. What I am trying to show you is that, although you may peg me as a devil's advocate, such a viewpoint is not provably superior to any other system of governance. The measures by which you judge society are completely subjective and based upon points of view. If you were able judge based upon economic growth alone, you could do that. But interpreting that meaning is based upon points of view of which none are demonstrably superior to another.
 
Yeah, screw universally understood language! Lets go back to Babylon! The one without the five! That really sucked!
None of what society has done in all of human history can be construed as progress. If we separate out the technological progress, which is real and measurable by saying "we can now produce more widgets per day than before", what progress is left?

What nebulous measure of progress will you use? Give me any example and I will show you how it does not define progress.

I'll can start with happiness. We will never move forward from the definition of happiness because we will never agree on a viewpoint. Is happiness having more money? Is it having time for leisure? What is it? There are a million individual definitions of happiness. In fact, I will argue that Earth as a whole is doing much worse than Earth as before. To claim otherwise is to completely ignore the world outside of America and Western Europe. Of course, you are free to disagree on that. That is your viewpoint, your interpretation of available data such as socioeconomic, political, etc. The data is there, it won't change. But our interpretations of it will be endless.
 
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Ad absurdum. Tsk tsk brovo.
Using dictionary definitions for the sake of conveying a message and understanding is fine. However when the other's argument holds the prerequisite of challenging the dictionary definition (much like the gender wars and the definition of feminism), then it's silly to use it.
None of what society has done in all of human history can be construed as progress. If we separate out the technological progress, which is real and measurable by saying "we can now produce more widgets per day than before", what progress is left?
What nebulous measure of progress will you use? Give me any example and I will show you how it does not define progress.
I'll can start with happiness. We will never move forward from the definition of happiness because we will never agree on a viewpoint. Is happiness having more money? Is it having time for leisure? What is it? There are a million individual definitions of happiness. In fact, I will argue that Earth as a whole is doing much worse than Earth as before. To claim otherwise is to completely ignore the world outside of America and Western Europe. Of course, you are free to disagree on that. That is your viewpoint, your interpretation of available data such as socioeconomic, political, etc. The data is there, it won't change. But our interpretations of it will be endless.

No, really, it was a joke. As in, something to generate humour. I suppose I may as well respond anyway though, since y'all seem eager.

@scribz #1: Humour relies on absurdity. #2: Redefining every single term that inconveniences you isn't progress, it's damning the language because it doesn't suit your particular world view. The reason feminism is a nebulous term is because it represents something that isn't universally understood, a movement, an organic idea that is constantly changing with the times, and which fits a personal definition, much like Christianity or Capitalism: There are many differing variations on them.

I feel like I shouldn't need to explain that. If we don't have a universally understood language with which to have a discussion, than there can be no discussion because the opposing faction will constantly redefine every single term to fit their argument, and that's just shitty for holding any kind of fruitful debate.

The point is, Unanun wanted a definition for progress: There are multiple, clear, measurable definitions for progress. He wanted a definition for superiority: There are multiple, clear definitions for superiority. He wanted examples from the real world, Jorick buried him in them... Yet the discussion still continues because he still protests clear definitions with his own, personal definitions. Now, before someone jumps on me for proclaiming Viewpoint Nazism or some other absurdity: No, I don't necessarily think Unanun is wrong. He could very well be making a great point and I'm just not capable of seeing it with my current set of beliefs and practices, maybe it's too foreign, or maybe it is wrong and I'm right to reject the idea. Regardless of what the reality of the situation is, the moment he started to change multiple, clearly understood, universally defined terms to become nebulous to fit his argument, is the moment we failed to have any further fruitful debate.

I cannot debate someone who doesn't speak the same language I do, and who will change the language to suit their views. No amount of words will ever convince him otherwise of his views because he will simply change the meaning of what I say with his own interpretations of the words. When I proved that progress is a well understood concept, he changed to superiority. We could go on like this for eternity, with him finding new words in my arguments to have a differing opinion on the definition of... Plausible until we run out of words in the English language, which is likely expanding faster than we could debate on them. Again, not saying he's necessarily wrong, from my perspective he is, but that's just my perspective.

Which is why I tipped my hat, and why I'm not directly engaging him in this discussion anymore, and why I gave him the last word. The only reason he's even quoted here is so I could fire off a second joke, via the YouTube video, in case that one is misunderstood as a serious response as well, I'm just making it clear here: It is a joke, it relies on absurdity.
 
There are multiple, clear, measurable definitions for progress. He wanted a definition for superiority: There are multiple, clear definitions for superiority.
I went through each and every definition of both and showed to you why nothing philosophy has done can be done as progress or be considered as superior to previous versions of philosophy.

Progress is basically saying 'gradual betterment.' Of course, betterment in measurement is easily quantified - more precision, more knowledge, etc. The same cannot be said for philosophy. Jorrick attempted to convince me that philosophy makes immeasurable progress. If you can't measure even define how to measure it, how are you supposed to say it underwent 'gradual betterment'?

The same idea falls under the word 'superior'.
He wanted examples from the real world, Jorick buried him in them
I'm pretty sure I refuted most of them, including his claim that science is never 100% correct o_o.




Also, I am very bad at picking up humour in a serious discussion. 1) because it's a bit disrespectful, and I think on my side I have completely refrained from being anything ruder than 'terse' when I debated with you, and 2) it is very pointless to discuss things with people who don't take it seriously.
 
You 'refuted' them allright. With no hard evidence, no point to your argument other then circling back to "muh progressaiahn" and trying to claim that philosophy needs some predetermined metric. You are discounting thousands of years of civilization, societal progress and great thinkers becouse of your own hardon for science. When you yourself is doing a terrible job actually representing said science. Science is about evidence, it's about theories and hypothesis and constantly questioning and asking questions as to how things work. Yet you try to metaphorically dickslap anyone who do not take your word for the truth. You would make a god awful scientist if you treat everyone of a different opinion then you that way.
 
A round earth is provably true with overwhelming amounts of evidence. Until it is falsified, it is acceptable beyond reasonable doubt that we live in at three dimensional universe (with a fourth, I suppose, for time ...) which should hold until a more accurate, testable, hypothesis is brought forward.
I never said the round Earth was unable to be proven. That was not my point.

(At least, it wasn't my point in that section of the argument. ;])

The point was this was just a different way of viewing the same thing. It's just rehashing the way we understand the world to make more sense.

The entirety of your post can be refuted by requoting my example given. Objective truths care not about your belief. If you feel so strongly about that, go jump off a building and see if you fly, or jump into the ocean and see if you can breath in water. Science is not a belief system, although it can become that way to people who only half understand it.
This is an argument based around the belief in objectivity vs subjectivity. I believe in absolute subjectivity, and from previous debates, I know it is fruitless to try to convince either side to believe the opposite, so I'll let this part go.

You can't test that 'theory' (which is a hypothesis, if we are going to debate on semantics). That is outside the realm of science to test until someone, perhaps, comes up with a clever way of doing that. Therefore it is a viewpoint. It is not a hypothesis. It is untestable, and you will never be able to ascertain its truthiness, just like creationism.
I also never said it was provable. It is a philosophical idea, not a scientific one. That was not the point.

It was used to support the lack of objective truths. However, as I said above, I'm gonna let that go, because objectivity is a personal belief, and I don't want to attempt to argue that core belief.

What I am trying to show you is that, although you may peg me as a devil's advocate, such a viewpoint is not provably superior to any other system of governance. The measures by which you judge society are completely subjective and based upon points of view. If you were able judge based upon economic growth alone, you could do that. But interpreting that meaning is based upon points of view of which none are demonstrably superior to another.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the same can be said of science.

Of course, betterment in measurement is easily quantified - more precision, more knowledge, etc.
Is more precision better? You think so, but not everyone does. As science has so often shown, if somethng is false once, it is no longer true. And there have been many time where being more precise has led to "worse" situations than otherwise.

"Worse" and "better" are very much dependent on who you ask. You cannot have something that is better for everyone, or worse for everyone. It is a human, social construct, that cannot even be proven by science.

And more knowledge happens to be true of philosophy, too, as shown by many others. We're constantly expanding our knowledge of philosophical ideas, even if their core is the same as Ancient Greece.

Just because many people can see beauty in a world of science, doesn't mean that everyone does. Science is not objectively bettering us.

(Also, didn't the guy in that video start saying "I like not knowing everything" about halfway through? Although that kinda derails things, never mind.)
 
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