/lit/ - Literature

Whispering my sins to the priest a confession box.

>>6384323
Wasn't born yet

>>6384323
>science killed
>science still exists

lol you ape cock

>>6384332
Just because people still buy horoscopes, doesn't mean that astrology is true.

>>6384323
i wash washing pigs when pyrrho called

"can't know le nothing."

"no."

>>6384378
Where were you when knowledge was killed once and for all?

>>6384382
i was taking a fat ogre shit in the swamp when baron münchausen pulled himself out of the water by his own hair

"knowledge is kill"

"no."

>>6384323
You've never actually read Feyerabend have you?

>>6384323
Feyerbend a shit

>>6384431
Greatest philosopher of all time.

Last I checked scientists were still doing science, discovering things and advancing knowledge all while not caring even slightly about what he thinks.

>>6384475
>advancing knowledge
>implying "knowledge" can be "advanced"

Nice magazine-speak, idiot.

>>6384475

>>6384476
>idiot

And the guy who thinks its unjustified for science to criticise nonsense like astrology is any better? Why should anybody who thinks the direction of research should be decided by a fucking popular vote be taken seriously?

>>6384323
it began with the King's chamber somewhere in Egypt

>>6384431
>>6384457
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* /lit/ A.D. 2015: the Thread *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

So what did Feyerabend say about science that is so groundbreaking?

>inb4 link to wikipedia

>>6384478

>methods in science have limitations
>therefore they're all equally valid
>feyerfags actually believe this to be a valid line of reasoning
>mfw

>>6384619
He proved it was all a bunch of language games, and academic intimidation.

>>6384368
But it definitely still exists.

>>6385322
That sounds like a massively oversimplified statement. Reminds me of "all art made after year X is garbage".

>>6384323
i calculate derivative when feyerabend call

"science is kill"

"no"

>>6385399
that's a pretty shitty comparison, compadre

>>6384323

where were you when metaphysics was killed once and for all?

>>6385390
In the same way that the toothfairy exists yes.

>>6384323

where were you when God was killed once and for all?

>>6384323

where were you when philosophy was killed once and for all?

>>6385322
But knoweldge=language games+intimidation, anon.

>>6384323
Probably masturbating. It's what I'm doing now.

>>6385668
It's an entirely accurate comparison. Both are people insulting what they don't (or don't want to) understand.

>>6385956
>being edgy WHILE edging

Where were you when altruism was killed once and for all?

Science is its own field. It does things within a certain system just like something like a soccer player would follow the rules of her game

Where were you when death was kill?

I was contemplating being when kurtzweil call

"death is kill"

"no"

>>6384323
Why do people take this guy seriously again?

>>6385936

Witty rekt 90% of philosophy, and it never recovered.

> Their generation got Witgenstein.
> We get Derrida and Zizek.

> Le wrong generbation

>>6386184
Their generation also got WW1 and the Spanish flu so I think we win

>>6386197

we win in history but lose in philosophy

> it's like my undergrad courses all over again

>>6386141

where were you when the jews were being sent to Auschwitz?

I was rector at the university of Berlin when my gf Hannah call

"jews are kill"

"YES"

>>6386184
Actually Derrida is closer from Witty's generation than from our own. The philosopher of our generation, whoever it is, cannot be older than 40 barring time-travel.

>>6386345

He has nothing in common with Witty. Vague comparisons, but they had completely different aims.

>>6386436
>closer to someone's generation
>must have something in common

I'm talking about chronology here, how come 18+ people with the ability to read still believe a guy born fourty years before their dads is the philosopher of their generation ?

>>6385985
"your reasoning seems arbitrary" and "what you like is fucking shit" are quite different statements

>>6386436
Debatable. Look up Rorty's reading of Derrida

>>6386497

It was a joke.

And yet, it's not. Witty's contibution was colossal, Derrida's was to inject meaning into ailing fantasies.

Don't take me seriously. And don't say you don;t.

>>6386511

I have not read that, I acknowledge first hand.

But surely a comparison between the two would fall into the same trap as those who sought to compare Zen and Witty. It works, when it does, and it doesn't when it doesn't.

They are similar in terms of those terms when they're similar, but they're vastly different. I say this as a cynic. And I know both.

An objective, tenured, published, peer-reviewed, Harvard and Yale educated, PhD was teaching a class on evolution, a widely accepted theory.

He marched to the front of the class and announced: "before class begins, you must accept that the theory of evolution is accepted by the vast majority of credible scientists, and that this establishes its truth and the fact that he should be taught in all classrooms across the world, in perpetuum, forever, until the extinction of our species or of the evolutionary descendants of our species, or until the heat-death of the Universe due to entropy."

At this moment a lover of wisdom, who was ever gazing inwardly and acknowledging that all that he knew was that he knew not a thing, who feared delusion and falsehood more than he feared death, and who understood the necessity of reducing all arguments to first principles, stood up with a desire for sophia:

"Professor, I am a humble student, a mere chaser after wisdom; but you have spent your a lifetime now embracing her intimately. I therefore humbly ask that rather than intimidating us with credentials in the manner of the sophists, implying that truth is to be determined by popular assent or by the fame of the men that profess it, that you simply state your theory so that we all might admire its Goodness, Truth, and Beauty.."

The objective scientist smiled quite scientifically, "I can see that you're eager to get an A in this class; very well, we shall proceed! But first I must inform you that the scientific method and peer review process are well established and have provided us with technological advancements and progress that is unprecedented in the history of mankind, and that with over a century of peer review supporting it the theory of evolution has been raised to the status of objective fact."

>>6386530
Actually I think Witty and Zen are similar. All three, at their core, I believe, are about distrusting theories, beliefs, doctrines etc. and emphasising the importance of practice, action, and understanding over reflection and knowledge. Obviously they inevitably differ in detail (Derrida is, for example, suspicious of ordinary things; Witty is suspicious of suspicion of ordinary things) but the radical anti-metaphysics is what binds them imo. Sextus Empiricus is also similar in this regard.

>>6386537

> bud it dah theory bud fact XDDDDD
> bud mu philo lesans leeeeeeeeel
> bud derrida say u wrong XDDDDD
> downboat"""""!!!! hahaha

>>6384323
>science
>killed

Why are philosophy fags so goddamn retarded?

>>6386537
The student, still inwardly gazing at sophia whose bright face shone through the veil of this changing world of phenomena, teased the professor, "professor, please, I have a much higher concern than getting an "A" in this class, which would to be a sophist who only seeks wisdom insofar as he can reap some worldly benefit from having her - such people are not true lovers of wisdom, as are you and I. And as for recent technological advancements, professor, we must remember that antiquity was rife with sorcerers who could perform marvels to enchant the multitudes, but that by know means indicated that they were wise. So it might be with these technologists, who know not deeply how their marvels are performed and whether they are ultimately for good or for evil. Let us not behave as the masses do and allow ourselves to be impressed by the outward display of seeming wisdom rather than with the contemplation of wisdom herself. Another remark of yours that I found amusing was that on the progress of mankind, as though it were "mankind" that progressed in wisdom and not the individual human soul. I'll forgive you for that error, professor, if you can tell me how the scientific method and the peer-review process came to be adopted by wise men such as yourself; surely the scientific method itself cannot have been discovered via the scientific method, and the peer-review process was not itself chosen through peer-reviewing."

The scientist replied with emotion uncharacteristic for his occupation in objectivity: "that, sir, all that that you rambled on about, I believe is the /philosophy/ of science, not science. If you want to discuss those "ideas" you can take a course in philosophy, though you can enjoy selling coffees with your impractical philosophy degree afterwards", he laughed to himself robotically.

The student acquiesced, but lamented quietly how the scientist was more interested in professing to have knowledge than in engaging in dialectic to discover more of it - for who can ever say that he has ever fully arrived at wisdom, other than God? - and he also lamented that the love of wisdom was hardly present in modern academics, and that a different spirit of desire for certificates, of desire for worldly promotion, and of pedantic understanding reigned instead.

>>6386565

They are similar, that's the point I wished to make. They are very similar. But it's what their objective is that separates them. I've some knowledge of Zen, and I believe it to be a more accurate theory of mind than the vast majority of Western philo, but this cannot extend to some base mathematical amplification of its relevance to Witty. Wit was concerned over the construction of arguments, of logic, of the primordial soup that forms a human's establishment of a theory. That was what he was interested in. I won't elucidate his theory, let's leave it, but Zen is very different. Zen, a combination of Buddhism and Taoism was concerned with the nature of the mind, how it operates in relation to itself. Purely because it always acts in relation to itself, and it's just, in broad terms, concerned with the conceptual framework we have for conceiving of how we operate. And Zem finds that model wanting, and rightly so.

But Witty and Zen are different animals, as a function of their objectives, they have parallels, but they differ. Strongly.

>>6385929
Where were you when God rose from the dead once and for all?

>>6386590
I don't have time to give a long response but I recommend the exegesis of Wittgenstein by Cora Diamond and James Conant that puts him very much in line with Zen (and even that the Tractatus is a kind of Zen pedagogy) and which differs from the interpretation your describing here. It should also be noted that this reading of Witty is growing in popularity and influence.

>>6386581
>>6386537
incredibly verbose, unfunny, contrived sounding and riddled with grammatical errors ("by know means"? seriously?)
also /lit/ of all places should know better than still believe in the false philosophy/science dichotomy

>>6386581
"So then", continued the learned professor, a genius in his field, "the theory of evolution begins with the observation that we see in nature an increasing degree of complexity in biological forms, from the single-cellular organism, to the species Homo sapiens", he nodded at the Homo sapiens before him, "from this observation we deduce that there has been, over the course of our earth's 4 billion or so year history that there has been a gradual transformation of species from a common ancestor, from the more simple forms to the more and more complex, until we finally arrive at the great variety in organic forms that we observe presently in nature. Now, there is debate about the /mechanisms/ through which this transformation takes place, but it is widely established that this transformation has indeed taken place and that it continues to take place; however, the great Charles Darwin developed the mechanism which is most agreed upon today, which is that by natural selection. Natural selection states that organisms preferentially select to breed with organisms that have suitable genetic material to produce fit offspring - and by fit we mean adapted for survival in its given environment - so that by the selection of healthy mating partners and over many generations, and with the assistance of random genetic mutation which innovates genetic material and allows for the creation of new organs and biological mechanisms, a species will gradually transform as the less fit members die off and the most fit survive, until the species has evolved enough to classify as a new species altogether, distinct from its now ancient ancestor; so that an aquatic species in one age may through gradual transformation become an amphibious species in another age, and that species might evolve into a land mammal, and so on. The beauty of this theory is that we now have a picture of human origins which is totally natural and requires no supernatural woo woo, as we now have a well-developed and self-sufficient materialist cosmology wherein the Big Bang banged itself to spontaneously create all matter in the known universe, and that matter congealed into the complex physical structures which we observe in the universe due to the continued action of the natural laws that came into being at the Big Bang acting upon matter, and eventually this matter formed our planet as one planet in trillions and trillions, which had just the right conditions that over millions of years the chemicals in its oceans would react to form life, and that first organic life on our earth gradually developed over millions upon millions of years to the species that we ourselves are, which species is able through the majesty of science to recount this epic story of the Universe and relate it back /to/ the Universe! Huzzah! Hail science!"

>>6386622
And it was in this moment that the goddess sophia revealed herself to her votary in her eternal form and beauty. He was transported from the material realm to the realm of ideas, where sophia existed in her unchanging, everlasting state of perpetual truth and beauty. Enlightened now by a secret gnosis and moved with godly inspiration, he stood up in his toga, raising his right arm in a lofty manner towards the heavens in classical oratory posture, and defended his goddess thusly,

"Sir, I cannot for a moment accept the truth of anything that you have just now said to us, for you see that in your attempt to enlighten us with truth you have inadvertently undermined the very foundations of truth, removing truth and all need of the truth from the cosmos! For, if a human being is, as you say, but a bundle of cells rubbing against one and other competing with other bundles of cells for survival - and all this from the chaos of billions of years of chance collisions between material particles - then the truth means nothing, there is no truth!. Indeed, if evolution is true then we should consider abandoning it, for if it is true that we owe our existence to the law of survival of the fittest, then we ought only to spread those ideas in our society which makes us "fit" - for example, we might teach that human beings are immortal, simply because it might make us braver and more likely to succeed against our genetic competitors - we should choose whatever theories make us "adapted to our environment", and disregard truth as a phantom, something that might hinder us in our great evolutionary project. Do you see how evolution undermines itself? This is but the sophism of Heraclitus, that all is flux. But if all is flux, the notion of everything being flux is itself in flux, and therefore it is no more true or false than any other notion! Your entire picture is repugnant, for you depict intelligence arising out of unintelligence: tell me, O wise one, how an intelligent effect may arise out of an unintelligent cause, how a mere rock can make itself into a truth-contemplating man, through the sorcery of "millions of years"! Tell me, also, how Order arises out of Chaos. If truth be eternal, and man is able to contemplate such truth, does it not follow that man must have some part in himself that is like eternal?; but if truth is just secretion of the chemicals in our brain, then why announce it as being something else? Why is the chemical reaction in your brain better than any other, O proud sophist?."

At this point one of his fellow students accused him of being a virgin, and another of being a conspiracy theorist. The professor told the student to shut up as this was a science class, and the rest of the students had paid to receive an education in science, and their money was more important than his opinion. The student then quietly dropped out of University and spent his life selling coffees, eventually to poison himself and die without recognition.

>>6386611
it's a work in progress, just like evolution

>>6386184
Wittgenstein is nothing new. Everything he had to say was already present in the ancients (particularly among the Greek sophists).

>>6386514
>It was a joke.

I must have spent too much time here today, can't even tell basic banter from serious misreading.

>And yet, it's not. Witty's contibution was colossal, Derrida's was to inject meaning into ailing fantasies.

Whatever, all of this is playing language games and losing.

Good night on you all.

>>6384390

>>6386707
*us playing language and losing miserably.

Sorry.

>>6386668

nice quads

>>6384489
Just because a practice is unjustified (and unjustifiable) doesn't make it wrong.

>Why should anybody who thinks the direction of research should be decided by a fucking popular vote be taken seriously?

Because we've democratised everything else? Because the rule of the Professoriate is intensely hostile to research? Because ECRs will never get to specify fundable research? Because the Grantsmanship system encourages only bourgeois scientists to success?

>>6385946
That's the point.

I personally view the destruction of the normative arguments for method as liberating.

>>6384619
That science is only one path to knowledge. Also he was concerned about how authoritarian science is in that it has a lot of control over the public's way of thinking.