Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[Blog of Reason]

Discussion thread for the blog entry "Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy" by theowarner.

Permalink: http://blog.leagueofreason.org.uk/philosophy/internet-encyclopedia-of-philosophy/

 

[lrkun]

The internet sometimes serve as a repository of information.

Sometimes said information is not accurate or effective, because anyone can write about anything.

Said information must be checked if one were to rely on it.

Of course, said information is sometimes used to support a certain position by their framers.

 

[TheMaw]

The internet sometimes serve as a repository of information.

Sometimes said information is not accurate or effective, because anyone can write about anything.

Said information must be checked if one were to rely on it.

Of course, said information is sometimes used to support a certain position by their framers.

Well it is peer-reviewed.

 

[lrkun]

The internet sometimes serve as a repository of information.

Sometimes said information is not accurate or effective, because anyone can write about anything.

Said information must be checked if one were to rely on it.

Of course, said information is sometimes used to support a certain position by their framers.

Well it is peer-reviewed.

Yes, it is. ^-^

 

[Nucleogenic]

You might find the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy more to your liking http://plato.stanford.edu/.

 

[Andiferous]

Wow! :shock:

The cool thing about philosophy though, is that you can argue anything, and can you 'prove' it or are persuasive enough, it doesn't matter what conventions you employ in the task. So /bonk internet encyclopedia of philosophy. It's about free thinking.

 

[Prolescum]

The cool thing about philosophy

is that there's nothing cool about philosophy :lol:

 

[Nucleogenic]

Wow! :shock:

The cool thing about philosophy though, is that you can argue anything, and can you 'prove' it or are persuasive enough, it doesn't matter what conventions you employ in the task. So /bonk internet encyclopedia of philosophy. It's about free thinking.

Said by someone who knows nothing about philosophy.

 

[AndromedasWake]

Wow! :shock:

The cool thing about philosophy though, is that you can argue anything, and can you 'prove' it or are persuasive enough, it doesn't matter what conventions you employ in the task. So /bonk internet encyclopedia of philosophy. It's about free thinking.

Depends which philosophy you're using.

You can indeed argue anything from a philosophical stand-point, if you can conceive of an approach to legitimise it, but by no means should that undermine philosophy itself. Take epistemology for example. There are productive/pragmatic approaches such as empiricism, rationalism and skepticism, which can be applied to the natural and social sciences (and to a certain extent the humanities) and then there are completely impractical (and unnecessary) responses like the reformed epistemology William Lane Craig is so hot for.

Science itself is a branch of philosophy, one which deals in testing claims about the world. it's no surprise that it's become colloquially separated from "philosophy" because of its unique and unmatched success, but as a proponent of skepticism it wouldn't be consistent for me to abandon all other philosophy and promote strict scientism, because science cannot be proven to be the absolute most authoritative method just as a given scientific theory cannot be proven to be an absolute truth.

Philosophy is useful, and whilst Thunderf00t and some others would probably advocate strong scientism, I personally regard that as naive. Nevetheless I've been accused of being a "scientismist", but then again I've also been accused of being a communist. The emerging pattern is that those who send me charming PMs labelling me without asking first always turn out to be idiots.

@Theo,

The first one really struck me. The number is pulled out of thin air and obviously included to make some kind of a point. If there may be a billion non-believers, why not two billion? The second part of it I can understand. Polling to grasp the scale of non-belief is like polling to grasp the scale of homosexuality (which has of course been narrowly constrained to somewhere between 2% and 20% :roll: )

It'd be hard to gauge non-belief in a place like the Maldives, where such an admission will more often than not result in a death sentence.

As for the other two examples. Wow. Just.. what? :|

Another internet encyclopaedia to put on the "serve with lashings of salt" pile.

 

[Andiferous]

Wow! :shock:

The cool thing about philosophy though, is that you can argue anything, and can you 'prove' it or are persuasive enough, it doesn't matter what conventions you employ in the task. So /bonk internet encyclopedia of philosophy. It's about free thinking.

Depends which philosophy you're using.

You can indeed argue anything from a philosophical stand-point, if you can conceive of an approach to legitimise it, but by no means should that undermine philosophy itself. Take epistemology for example. There are productive/pragmatic approaches such as empiricism, rationalism and skepticism, which can be applied to the natural and social sciences (and to a certain extent the humanities) and then there are completely impractical (and unnecessary) responses like the reformed epistemology William Lane Craig is so hot for.

Science itself is a branch of philosophy, one which deals in testing claims about the world. it's no surprise that it's become colloquially separated from "philosophy" because of its unique and unmatched success, but as a proponent of skepticism it wouldn't be consistent for me to abandon all other philosophy and promote strict scientism, because science cannot be proven to be the absolute most authoritative method just as a given scientific theory cannot be proven to be an absolute truth.

Philosophy is useful, and whilst Thunderf00t and some others would probably advocate strong scientism, I personally regard that as naive. Nevetheless I've been accused of being a "scientismist", but then again I've also been accused of being a communist. The emerging pattern is that those who send me charming PMs labelling me without asking first always turn out to be idiots.

It's interesting you mention this. I was taught in philosophy that when philosophy is "proven," it ceases to be "philosophy" and becomes "science." I do agree the two are intricately connected, although I think the philosophy side is the more creative, free-flowing part that inspires hypothesis and the beginning of scientific observation. Or this is my corny interpretation.

 

[Story]

The writer/s appear to be very careful, but their opinions spill into the writings like a stain.

If you want to find biases, look for subjects that people are biased about like "evolution" and "god". It's interesting how tentatively the writer speaks about the opinions of atheists and avoids tentative wording when talking about the opinions of people on god.

On Atheism
"For the most part, atheists have presumed that the most reasonable conclusions are the ones that have the best evidential support. And they have argued that the evidence in favor of God's existence is too weak, or the arguments in favor of concluding there is no God are more compelling." Tentative speech is like an invisible disclaimer, it distances the writer from the arguments.

On God
"It was the medieval philosophers, such as Augustine, who began to incorporate teleological views of nature with religion: God is the designer of all creatures, and everything has a purpose and a place as ordained by Him." Where is the tentativeness we saw before? Where is the invisible disclaimer? We have a colon, but the statement just seems too gratuitous to me.

 

[Andiferous]

Yeah, agreed. I can't help thinking that the editors were not thinking very philosophically. Because philosophy is built on objectivity, or its arguments cannot be effective.

 

[doctormo]

The cool thing about philosophy though, is that you can argue anything, and can you 'prove' it or are persuasive enough,.

Er no, philosophy isn't the same as random illogical ranting. Even if your studying the philosophy of fantasy, it has to be internally consistent. The worth of man as a species and cynical nihilism are mutually exclusive for instance.

This new encyclopedia can't be all that great for philosophy, they don't even have an entry on Apatheism or Naturalistic Embodiment.

 

[Andiferous]

Er, did you just see the point of objectivity above? Not sure how that become illogical ranting, or would be curious to understand how this came about.

I speak of philosophy in common terms and make effort to never get trapped in impressive sounding terms and definitions that confuse most everyone (even me) anyway. There's no point in applying a principle if you can't show how that principle applies, and after you've shown it, why bother naming it anyway? I am sorry if I speak plainly, but I rather communicate in a way people understand. That' the cornerstone of philosophy anyway. We don't have a couple months to study each term and principle or teach it on the fly, or assume anyone gets close to understanding their meaning. But philosophy is self evident anyway. Right?

I don't like the encyclopedia because it really does little to explain the concepts but just gives terms to toss around. There is no point to giving a term without explaining why it applies, and people sometimes take the easy route and do so. And communication breaks down and so on.

Anyway, I do hope this cleared stuff up.

 

[Gnug215]

[...]

Er no, philosophy isn't the same as random illogical ranting. Even if your studying the philosophy of fantasy, it has to be internally consistent.

[...]

But... but... Isn't William Lane Craig a philosopher??