Philosophical Errors Research Articles

The problem of tropospheric temperature trend measurements for global climate models: Complex versus direct empiricism

The troposphere temperature controversy concerns an empirical problem facing global climate models (GCMs), that the (tropical) troposphere is not warming as fast as predicted by these models according to observations made by a group of climate scientists – John Christy and colleagues – located at the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH). Elizabeth Lloyd argues that the UAH data, which conflict with GCM predictions, have been definitively discredited by a competing group of climate scientists, Ben Santer and colleagues, in a paper written in 2008. She also argues that Christy and colleagues make fundamental philosophical errors that undermine their empirical results. I argue that Lloyd's criticism is mistaken, both in terms of her assessment of the scientific value of the UAH data and in terms of her philosophical assessment of the reasoning Christy and colleagues use in support of this data. Contrary to Lloyd's assessment, Santor and colleagues have not definitively repudiated the UAH data, nor do they claim as such. Moreover, she misconstrues Christy and colleagues as philosophically committed to a direct empiricist viewpoint. As a result, I claim that the troposphere temperature controversy remains unsolved and continues to pose a potential problem for contemporary GCMs.

What can Kantian philosophy do for humanity? From Leonard Nelson to phildialogues

In this essay, I argue that broadly Kantian philosophy – by which I mean philosophy inspired by Kant’s work, but neither dogmatically restricted to Kant’s own texts nor in any way committed to Kant’s own philosophical errors or personal prejudices – is profoundly relevant to the world of today, insofar as it can promoteradical enlightenment. Radical enlightenment, in turn, is daring to think, write, speak, and freely act for ourselves, not only as individuals but also collectively via our social institutions, in order to change the world for the better. This should be sharply contrasted withenlightenment lite, orshallow enlightenment, which restricts critical thinking to narrowly-defined, coercively controlled social and political norms, according to Frederick the Great’s famous dictum: “argue as much as you like about whatever you like, but obey!” In effect, then, enlightenment lite or shallow enlightenment is nothing but “free thinking” inside a barbed-wire playpen. My argument has three parts. First, from the standpoint of Kantian radical enlightenment, I critically analyze the early twentieth-century neo-Kantian philosopher Leonard Nelson’s account of Socratic dialogical method. Second, I formulate a broadly Kantian, radically-enlightened conception of philosophical conversation,phildialogues, that corresponds constructively to my critical analysis of Nelson’s account. And third and finally, I argue that contemporary Kantian philosophers not onlycanbutshouldimplement and practice phildialogues, for the betterment of humanity.

Intuition and Ingenuity: Gödel on Turing’s “Philosophical Error”

Despite his unreserved appreciation of Turing’s analysis for being a “precise and unquestionably adequate definition” of formal system or mechanical computability, Gödel nevertheless published a short note in 1972 claiming to have found a “philosophical error” in Turing’s argument with regard to the finite nature of mental states and memory. A natural question arises: how could Gödel enjoy the generality conferred on his results by Turing’s work, despite the error of its ways? Previous interpretative strategies by Feferman, Shagrir and others have mainly tried to resolve the disparity by distinguishing different types of arguments in Turing and taking Gödel to approve only some of them. By a more integral examination of their ideas, especially Turing’s response to the “mathematical objection” based on Gödel’s incompleteness theorem and Gödel’s own conception of finite yet non-mechanical procedures, and taking some of the main ideas of current developments in machine learning into consideration, I will try to present a new explanation for the apparent disparity, arguing that there is no “error” on Turing’s side and the seemingly conflicting views held by Turing and Gödel should best be seen as complementary, keeping intuition and ingenuity together.

Hunting the Pseudo-Philosopher

AbstractIn False Wisdom, Gary H. Merrill develops criteria for distinguishing genuine from pseudo-philosophy, and then applies his criteria to several case studies, including Ayn Rand, all of whom he finds to be pseudo-philosophers. While offering a mostly helpful overview of better and worse ways of doing philosophy, Merrill fails to motivate adequately his way of distinguishing pseudo-philosophy from mere philosophical vices, errors, or failings. He is inconsistent in his characterization of the criteria for pseudo-philosophy and his application of those criteria, harbors a narrow conception of what counts as philosophy, and displays a lack of interpretive charity toward several thinkers.

Physics and Philosophy Meet: the Strange Case of Poincaré

Poincaré is a pre-eminent figure: as one of the greatest of mathematicians; as a contributor of prime importance to the development of physical theory at a time when physics was undergoing a profound transformation; and as a philosopher. However, I think that Poincaré, with all this virtue, made a serious philosophical mistake. In Poincaré’s own work, this error seems to me to have kept him from several fundamental discoveries in physics. The hypothesis that Poincaré would have made these discoveries if he had not been misled by a philosophical error is not one that lends itself to conclusive assessment; but what I wish to do is to lay out the main circumstances of the case so as to make clear, at least, that the issue of philosophic principle involved, and the questions of fundamental physics under discussion, are of considerable mutual relevance.

Logos to Bios: Evolutionary Theory in Light of Plato, Aristotle, and Neoplatonism (By Wynand De Beer)

Reviewed by: Logos to Bios: Evolutionary Theory in Light of Plato, Aristotle, and Neoplatonism by Wynand De Beer Aasim Hasany (bio) Logos to Bios: Evolutionary Theory in Light of Plato, Aristotle, and Neoplatonism Wynand De Beer Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2018. 278 Pages. Those familiar with the history of Islamic science undoubtedly recognize the influence of Greek philosophy, especially Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism, in shaping the Islamic scientific understanding of the natural world. It was after all the Greek philosophical understanding of causality (material, efficient, formal, and final) which set the context in which Muslims studied the natural world. Premodern science in Islam was therefore an empirical study of nature within the context of certain metaphysical presuppositions which were taken from both religious scripture and Greek philosophy. The rise of modern science occurred when the central tenets of Greek, particularly Aristotelian, philosophy were discarded in favour of a mechanistic [End Page 114] and materialist philosophy of nature. As such, a key ingredient in the metaphysical “glue” which held together much of the medieval Islamic scientific tradition was no longer relevant in shaping the modern understanding of the natural world. For many Muslim thinkers, especially those associated with the Traditionalist school of thought popularized by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the rejection of traditional philosophical principles by modern science has led to a catastrophic paradigm shift which has impoverished our understanding of the natural world. For Nasr, the separation of modern science from traditional cosmological doctrines has yielded a “profane” knowledge which while detailed in information is bereft of wisdom and empty of any connection to the sacred.1 Among the key linchpins which keep the wheel of modern science spinning is the Neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. This theory, while based on certain empirical observations and experiments is so inextricably linked to philosophical naturalism and materialism, that many leading evolutionary biologists fail to acknowledge that their so called “scientific” understanding of nature is laden with taken-for-granted philosophical commitments. This unfortunate reality is one of the reasons for the wholescale neglect of non-Darwinian theories of evolution from holding any sway in the mainstream scientific community. Logos to Bios, which is based on the doctoral dissertation of Wynand De Beer at the University of South Africa, challenges the supremacy of Neo-Darwinism on empirical and philosophical grounds. The book does not advocate a crude “creationism,” but rather seeks an alternate scientific theory of evolution which would be both empirically true and faithful to the major tenets of Greek philosophy. De Beer’s main argument is that Neo-Darwinism needs to be rejected for its empirical failures (i.e., it cannot adequately explain its claim of macro-evolutionary change among species) and philosophical error and incompatibility with Greek philosophy (i.e., its untenable commitment to “randomness” and “purposelessness” in nature). Although the book does not focus on Islamic thought per se, it is of definite interest to those engaged in the religion vs. science debates in Islam and is replete with quotations from several contemporary Muslim thinkers, including Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings (d. 2005), and Osman Bakar, whose critiques of modern evolutionary thinking assist De Beer’s attack on Neo-Darwinism. Chapters 1 to 3 offer a whirlwind overview of some seminal ideas in Greek philosophy and metaphysics. The scope here is wide and the author surveys Greek ideas on causality and cosmogenesis from the early Presocratics to the Neoplatonists (almost a millennium of Greek thought!). In these chapters the author asserts, rather than argues, for the supremacy of the Platonic understanding of evolution (as a teleological unfolding of innate possibilities) over the Neo-Darwinian model which views biological phenomena as a purposeless chain of events determined by random mutation and natural selection. De Beer’s Platonic [End Page 115] commitments are interjected throughout the first three chapters and make it clear that his goal in the book is to resuscitate a Platonic understanding of nature in which the world of nature (bios) is indelibly linked to the world of intelligence (logos). Unfortunately, the breadth is greater than the depth in these chapters, and the author would have done better in focusing more deeply on some of the more salient tenets of the...

Post Keynesian Economics Is Based on Joan Robinson’s Many Canards About Supposed Gaping Holes in Keynes’s Theory: The Real Problem Is Gaping Holes and Gross Ignorance in the Post Keynesian Understanding of Keynes’s a Treatise on Probability

There is no Post Keynesian economist or allied philosopher who can comprehend the following, basic 100 year old fact-Keynes, building on Boole ‘s The Laws of Thought (1854), created an interval valued approach to probability, as well as a decision weight approach, the c coefficient, that re-expresses interval valued probability as non additive and non linear probability, that has nothing to do with radical uncertainty or ordinal probability as asserted continuously for 50 years. Consider the example of R. Skidelsky. R. Skidelsky was very much like Joan Robinson in his academic skills, upon whom he has built his view of Keynes’s contributions. R. Skidelsky, like Joan Robinson, has admitted many times that he is mathematically illiterate, inept, and innumerant. This self admitted fact made Skidelsky very susceptible and receptive to the Frank P. Ramsey myth, recently resurrected by C. MIsak (2020). This myth purports that Ramsey, an 18 year old teenager who came to Cambridge University in 1921, was able to convince Keynes in 1922 that his logical theory of probability, as presented in his 1921 A Treatise on Probability, was full of logical, epistemological and philosophical errors that demolished the entire logical foundation and edifice of Keynes’s theory. Of course, given the fact that Keynes’s theory is built directly on a foundation and edifice of George Boole’s mathematical propositional logic and algebra,which Ramsey (nor any other supporter of Ramsey, such as R.B. Braithwaite) dared not challenge at any time in his lifetime, the belief that Keynes, who had used his approach to approximation and inexact measurement in his Indian Currency and Finance and Economic Consequences of the Peace successfully, would accept Ramsey’s purely academic theory based on additivity and linearity, which Keynes knew did not hold at all in the real world of decision making involving missing evidence and vague, conflicting knowledge, is simply silly. Keynes,of course, realized that Ramsey’s great formal, intellectual skills would make him a great academic thinker. The acceptance by all Post Keynesians and heterodox economists, that Keynes capitulated, either in part or wholly, to Ramsey, has led to a complete failure to properly connect the Keynes of the A Treatise on Probability to the Keynes of the General Theory. This is very similar to the failure of Adam Smith academics to properly connect the Smith of The Theory of Moral Sentiments to the Smith of The Wealth of Nations. Both Keynes’s and Smith’s are, of course, identical in both books. The Ramsey myth has been continually promulgated since 1921. Misak’s 2020 book on Ramsey continues to make assertions about Keynes which are directly contradicted by Keynes himself. The best exposition that explodes the Ramsey myth is the Keynes-Townshend correspondence over the TP of 1937-38, where non numerical probability, weight of the evidence, and the logical theory of probability, and the relation to the GT are covered. There is no mention made of Frank Ramsey or the subjective theory of probability by Keynes or Townshend. The elimination of the Frank Ramsey myth is a necessary step that must be taken before any progress can be made on understanding the linkages between the TP and GT. From Hahn and Skidelsky in 1986 to Walsh in 2001 to Togati in 2020, we can see that the real problem is not any gaps in Keynes’s theory, but the blindness of Post Keynesian and heterodox economists regarding the TP and GT, who are either unable or unwilling to read the TP and/or chapters 20, 21 and appendix to chapter 19 of the GT.

RUMUSAN SISTEM PENDIDIKAN YANG ISLAMI

This research is motivated by several reasons, including, First, at this time there was a philosophical error that was applied by educational institutions that is generally education in Indonesia is influenced by Western paradigms that tend to be secular. Second: it is time for Muslims to apply educational principles based on Islamic teachings that originate from the Koran and Sunnah. The writing method uses a descriptive analytical method that is philosophical normative that is adjusted to the sources of literature. The results of the study can be mentioned that the formulation of Islamic education is education that bases its conception on the teachings of monotheism, namely efforts to streamline the application of Islamic religious values that can lead to the transformation of values and knowledge as a whole to humans, society and the world in general in accordance with values which is transcendental

ANTROPOCENTRISM EPIDEMIC: THE STUDY OF SOCIAL ACTION OF COMMUNITY TO THE ENVIRONMENT OF JENEBERANG RIVER

Nowadays, the global environmental crisis is caused by fundamental philosophical errors in understanding the human way of thinking about themselves, their relation with nature, and their place in the whole ecosystem. In turn, these misconceptions lead to wrong actions. This research aims to comprehensively study the description of the anthropocentric actions of a community about the environment of the Jeneberang River. The approach used in this research is qualitative with a phenomenology method. The result of this research indicates that anthropocentric actions prioritize the desire to fulfill life's needs as if they are free to do anything with nature without considering the preservation and the balanced management of the Jeneberang River environment. There were some community anthropocentric actions found in Jeneberang River community, namely, the establishment of residence, garbage disposal, and storage of stockpiles, the establishment of the brick industry, clearing area for agricultural land, various kinds of entrepreneurial activities, and sand mining activities (have been dismissed since 2015). These actions critically impact the condition of Jeneberang River, worsening problems such as river water pollution, the silt of the river, and flash floods that happened at the beginning of 2019.

LA FILOSOFIA COME VISIONE DEL MONDO

EnglishIn the present essay is discussed the necessity of philosophy as critical Weltanschauung i.e. a critical vision of the world. A philosophical error is much more dangerous than a mistake made in other areas of human knowledge. A world without Philosophy is in danger of becoming dogmatism. Philosophy questions the scientific postulates, moral principles, the dogmas of faith and puts everything under the critical scrutiny of reason. Through skepticism, philosophy prevents totalizing and totalitarian visions of world, political and social ideologies, and requires a continuous exercise of a critical reason. portuguesNo presente ensaio se discute sobre a necessidade da filosofia como Weltanschauung critica, ou como visao critica do mundo. Um erro filosofico e muito mais perigoso do que os erros em outros âmbitos do conhecimento humano. Um mundo sem filosofia se encontra no perigo de tornar-se dogmatico. A filosofia interroga os postulados cientificos, os principios morais, os dogmas de fe e poe tudo sob o escrutinio critico da razao. Atraves do ceticismo, a filosofia preve visoes totalizantes e totalitarias, ideologias politicas e sociais, e requer um continuo exercicio da razao critica. italianoNel presente saggio si discute della necessita della filosofia come Weltanschauung critica, ovvero come visione critica del mondo. Un errore filosofico e molto piu pericoloso di errori in altri ambiti della conoscenza umana. Un mondo senza filosofia si trova nel pericolo di diventare dogmatico. La filosofia interroga i postulati scientifici, i principi morali, i dogmi di fede e pone tutto sotto il vaglio critico della ragione. Attraverso lo scetticismo, la filosofia previene visioni totalizzanti e totalitarie, ideologie politiche e sociali, e richiede un continuo esercizio della ragione critica.

A NICE game of Minecraft: philosophical flaws underpinning UK depression guideline nosology

Categorising mental disorders for purposes of diagnosis, research and practice has historically been justified on philosophical terms as a pragmatic activity; categories which have been subject to wide-ranging philosophical critique...

Hybrid psychology as a human science

Resolving some major philosophical errors in relating behaviour to brain structures and processes can provide a firm foundation for a hybrid science that gives equal weight to both meaning making (Cultural Psychology) and brain activity (Neuroscience). Neuroscientists, however, still fall for two mereological fallacies: the first involving their use of predicates and the second in the projection onto a whole of products of interactions with whole people and it is a fallacy to project them back into that person as constituents. While brains are parts of human bodies it is not clear that they are parts of persons. Clarification is then sought through the identification of four “grammars” linked by three specific principles. Finally, arguments are developed to show that objections to the idea that brains and their constituent organs are tools are misplaced.

The philosophical thought of Dai Zhen and Chinese tradition

This article examines the philosophical ideas of Dai Zhen (1724–1777), a prominent classical scholar and thinker in the Confucian tradition. The writer argues (i) that what triggered Dai Zhen’s criticism of Neo-Confucianism, especially Zhu Xi’s School of Principle, was his perception that its ideas were used to oppress people; (ii) that he derived this perceived oppressive function from the philosophical error of taking li, principle, as a subjective entity, which people could define at will, rather than as an objective feature of reality; and (iii) that he considered this error as a deviation from the early Confucian thought of Confucius, Mencius and others caused by Buddhist and Daoist influence. Convinced that the Confucian Classics contained the fundamental truths about human beings and our place in the universe, the idea that these classics contained serious errors was unthinkable for Dai Zhen. In this sense he still operated within the confines of a totalitarian intellectual order. Yet, he was as concerned with the abuse of power in the name of Confucianism as with philological errors. While he would not have questioned the authority of the classics, it is striking how he insisted that their interpretation must be determined by intellectual criteria rather than dynastic power. In this respect Dai Zhen anticipated an essential feature of modern thought, and so it is not surprising that he caught the attention of seminal early modern thinkers such as Zhang Taiyan, Liang Qichao, Wang Guowei, Liu Shipei and, especially, Hu Shi.

“Correlationism”: The Dogma that Never Was

The theoretical movements known as Speculative Realism and Object-Oriented Ontology depend on the “critique of correlationism” offered by the French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux in his 2008 After Finitude. There Meillassoux claims to have shown that Kant and all philosophers following him committed a grave and unseen philosophical error that he calls “correlationism,” in failing to see that humans can have access to absolute knowledge. Meillassoux's demonstration fails to deliver on this promise by equivocating on just the key argumentative points that philosophers from Kant onward have worked to clarify with precise language and argument, and by ignoring tremendous amounts of countervailing textual evidence. Far from blindly committing the correlationist “error,” much of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy takes the issues Meillasoux raises as central ones for any philosophical investigation, with a significant number of philosophers and theorists adopting the realist position Meillassoux claims has been eliminated.

Critical Realism and the Althusserian Legacy

AbstractThis paper undertakes an historical re‐evaluation of Louis Althusser's philosophical legacy for modern Marxism. While Althusser self‐consciously sought to defend the scientific character of Marxism, many of his closest followers eventually exited the Marxian paradigm for a post‐structural post‐Marxism. We argue that this development was predominately rooted in a series of philosophical errors that proved fatal in a period of retreat for European socialism. There has always been, however, a second post‐Althusserian legacy associated with the critical realist conception of Marxism initiated by Roy Bhaskar. Bhaskar found part of his inspiration in Althusser's successful posing of the question of Marx's science and this paper sets out to excavate the proper links between Althusser and Bhaskar in order to deepen the relationship between critical realism and scientific Marxism.

Philosophical Error and the Economics of Belief Formation

AbstractRecent work has demonstrated that academic research faces serious challenges. Incentives to defend publishable ideas often lead researchers astray. Despite their tendency to produce error, efforts to publish erroneous results typically help a researcher's career. In addition, errors often arise from seemingly innocent methodological assumptions that allow researchers to believe their research is sound. This article discusses this research, as well as research into difficulties facing epistemic rationality caused by nonepistemic incentives. It then applies the lessons of this research to philosophical practice. It explains why philosophy likely suffers from these problems. It then provides an example of a widely shared methodological assumption that allows such research to be pursued and regularly published. It claims that the significance philosophers place on arguments is inappropriate, and that typical evaluations of philosophical arguments involve an instance of the base‐rate fallacy. It concludes by discussing whether or not this article is self‐defeating.

A second look at the colors of the dinosaurs

In earlier work, I predicted that we would probably not be able to determine the colors of the dinosaurs. I lost this epistemic bet against science in dramatic fashion when scientists discovered that it is possible to draw inferences about dinosaur coloration based on the microstructure of fossil feathers (Vinther et al., 2008). This paper is an exercise in philosophical error analysis. I examine this episode with two questions in mind. First, does this case lend any support to epistemic optimism about historical science? Second, under what conditions is it rational to make predictions about what questions scientists will or will not be able answer? In reply to the first question, I argue that the recent work on the colors of the dinosaurs matters less to the debate about the epistemology of historical science than it might seem. In reply to the second question, I argue that it is difficult to specify a policy that would rule out the failed bet without also being too conservative.

Arnold Hauser and the multilayer theory of knowledge

The sociology of art as synthesized by Arnold Hauser is based on a theory of knowledge and articulates the cognitive role of art. In a brief analysis, this paper elaborates on the sources of this epistemological enterprise. The pedigree of Hauser’s main thoughts was oriented towards a Kantian and Marxist framework, respectively. As a Kantian, he tried to take into account the philosophical consequences of two (or even more) different sources of cognition that are equal in value, correlative and necessarily cooperating. Giving exclusive priority to only one of these leads to classical philosophical errors such as psychologism and intellectualism. As a Marxist, Hauser was anti-dogmatic and anti-deterministic, because he adopted an interpretive-hermeneutical meaning of Marxism and considered it an aid against distorting tendencies in our thinking. His basic insight that the different sources of value-equal and cooperating cognitive layers are in an everyday-life perspective intertwined, so that a kind of reservatio mentalis is needed to methodically separate them for the sake of better understanding, makes him a distant relative of classical phenomenology. This web of epistemological investigations is what I call the multilayer theory of knowledge.

Nietzsche Apostle

Nietzsche Apostle

In What Sense are Errors in Philosophy ‘Only Ridiculous’?

In one of the closing paragraphs of Treatise Book 1, Hume provocatively concludes: ‘Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous’ (THN 1.4.7.13: 272). Unlike the first clause, the meaning of the second clause is far from obvious. I claim that errors in philosophy are ‘only ridiculous’ for Hume in the sense that – unlike errors in religion – they fail to disturb us psychologically or in practical life. The interesting question, however, is why they fail to disturb us. I suggest that it is their critical role in resolving the psychological instability brought on by philosophical reflection that makes errors in philosophy quite helpful to us and necessary for re-stabilising ourselves. In recognising a positive role for philosophical errors, my account challenges the standard interpretation of Hume's claim according to which ‘ridiculous’ philosophical errors play the merely negative role of being innocuous or safely dismissed.