Random thought on metaphor: in engineering, your "argument" is always grounded in a structure "beneath" your construction: the UI is grounded in code, which is grounded in the OS, which is grounded in the processor's logic, which is grounded in circuitry and ultimately physics.
-
-
So, unlike in engineering, philosophical arguments have a strange dual character, in which the chain of abstraction is simultaneously beneath (the grounding, the roots) and above the argument in question, in a metaphorical sense.
Prikaži ovu nit -
It is true that physics "wraps around", the empirical method generates questions of subjectivity which lead back to a metaphysics. But a characteristic of engineering is not wanting to know about what lies beneath one's domain of construction. I don't need physics to code.
Prikaži ovu nit -
The problem raised is "why?" and to answer that we need to contrast the goals of engineering vs philosophy. Both construct objects for use, but the former builds something concrete, the latter builds something abstract and psychological.
Prikaži ovu nit -
The psychological (read: not formal) "proof" of any construction is in its successful use as object. Engineering objects, at least in 2020, are intended for use with as little knowledge as possible, through physical interaction with the construction.
Prikaži ovu nit -
On the other hand, the use of a philosophical object is in symbolic argumentation (with oneself or others), and the "rational aesthetics" of philosophical argument, the property which convinces others, is best with a formal chain of grounds leading to axioms which must be true.
Prikaži ovu nit -
Hence in philosophy, one must both engineer a useful argument from the grounds beneath, and must ensure its ultimate connection with the heavens above, with transcendent, self-justifying truth.
Prikaži ovu nit -
Of course, which transcendent truths people accept is another matter entirely, on which plenty of philosophy already exists (it seems to involve social authority and lived experience), but that's for another conversation.
Prikaži ovu nit
Kraj razgovora
Novi razgovor -
-
-
This is the case until modernism, right? Hobbes pulls political philosophy out of the heaven of metaphysics and grounds it in the motions of the human body understood as a kind of machine; Descartes doubts until he arrives at the self, the one undoubtable thing...
-
Are these still not, ultimately, forms of metaphysics, even if not in the classical sense?
- Još 2 druga odgovora
Novi razgovor -
-
-
I see your point, but I think the concern for foundational studies speaks to actually a similarity here, in both philosophy and mathematics. infra seems a better prefix than meta or super, the heavens may be stormed by infernal convulsions
-
I would call mathematics as a field a form of philosophy and not engineering (when used in engineering, one uses as little as possible but as much as necessary). Also I agree that we could (and should!) invent a better metaphor, I'm simply following the colloquial language.
Kraj razgovora
Novi razgovor -
Čini se da učitavanje traje već neko vrijeme.
Twitter je možda preopterećen ili ima kratkotrajnih poteškoća u radu. Pokušajte ponovno ili potražite dodatne informacije u odjeljku Status Twittera.