Difference between revisions of "Fallacies Of Philosophy"
From Critiques Of Libertarianism
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; Presuming that a clear and sharp idea can be used as a starting point. | ; Presuming that a clear and sharp idea can be used as a starting point. | ||
| − | : In Jorge Luis Borges essay "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins", there is a [ | + | : In Jorge Luis Borges essay "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins", there is a [[wikipedia:Those_that_belong_to_the_Emperor|classification of animals from an apocryphal Chinese encyclopedia]]. The categories include: |
# those that belong to the Emperor, | # those that belong to the Emperor, | ||
# embalmed ones, | # embalmed ones, | ||
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All of these are very clear categories, but they do not work well together. Compare this to scientific classification by common descent, which does work well for pretty much all life. | All of these are very clear categories, but they do not work well together. Compare this to scientific classification by common descent, which does work well for pretty much all life. | ||
| − | That's how I view most philosophical ideas such as truth, justice, good, evil, etc. While you can study the relationships between such ideas endlessly, as you can the relationships between the Chinese categories, you do not have much hope of getting to the root explanations, as we have in biology, because the unifying basis is not obvious in these far descended ideas. Starting with such ideas is a pretty clear [ | + | That's how I view most philosophical ideas such as truth, justice, good, evil, etc. While you can study the relationships between such ideas endlessly, as you can the relationships between the Chinese categories, you do not have much hope of getting to the root explanations, as we have in biology, because the unifying basis is not obvious in these far descended ideas. Starting with such ideas is a pretty clear [[wikipedia:Skyhook_(concept)#Skyhooks_and_cranes|skyhook]]. These ideas need to be explained from much simpler, preferably positivist ideas rooted in evolution, anthropology, game theory, etc. |
