"Philosophy is a Waste of Time" | Language, Truth, and Logic

Have you ever got the idea that a lot of philosophy is sort of...off somehow. Maybe you have heard philosophers make some deeply implausible claims about time being made up and the world not existing. Well, there is one notable philosopher who thought that a lot of philosophy is a waste of time. AJ Ayer was a British philosopher and verificationist who wanted to purge philosophy of nonsense and make it into a beautiful and precise discipline. And while he did not fully succeed, he raised some important points that are worth considering.
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00:00 Language, Truth, and Logic
01:05 A Crisis in Philosophy
03:31 The Verification Principle
07:39 The Victims of Verificationism
10:40 A New Philosophy
13:50 The Fall of Verificationism
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  • @unsolicitedadvice9198
    @unsolicitedadvice91985 ай бұрын

    If you want to work with an experienced study coach teaching maths, philosophy, and study skills then book your session at josephfolleytutoring@gmail.com. Previous clients include students at the University of Cambridge and the LSE. Support me on Patreon here: patreon.com/UnsolicitedAdvice701?Link& Sign up to my email list for more philosophy to improve your life: forms.gle/YYfaCaiQw9r6YfkN7

  • @swerremdjee2769

    @swerremdjee2769

    5 ай бұрын

    I dont know how old you are i think arround 25?🙂 (Im 40). But i like how serious you take philosophy👍

  • @lultopkek

    @lultopkek

    5 ай бұрын

    ultimatively you will come to the conclusion that many things, including logic are wasting peoples time, and that the truth does not even exist inside the philosophically only relevant sphere, which lies in the connections between humans. logic is symply technology. we will always be fooled and exploited by others or do it by ourselves, because within the human realm truth can not exist. which ultimately touches only practically relevant aspect of philosophy, which is ethics. and there you will find that even in the material world, the boarder of facts fade into obscurity

  • @marcokite

    @marcokite

    5 ай бұрын

    What a truly sad, sad man Ayer was. By its own criterion poor Ayer's main principle was meaningless, since there is no way of verifying it!

  • @marcokite

    @marcokite

    5 ай бұрын

    @@swerremdjee2769 - 'serious' is the word! 😐

  • @KAIZORIANEMPIRE

    @KAIZORIANEMPIRE

    4 ай бұрын

    yeah except for the fact that those imaginations are what allowed for abstract maths and physics... these imaginations are what allow us to reach exponential growth lol. You are kinda low ish level, sure your iq is high but you have literally no intution and creativity lol. philosopy or rather imaginations are what let us get to the next level because there are somethings we can't observe lol we can intuite. i am just a 70 iq african but have a phd from uk university lol,

  • @trevorable04
    @trevorable045 ай бұрын

    To me, philosophy is about the pursuit to know oneself. It's about how can I better understand myself and the world around me. I don't think it's about unveiling the deepest mysteries of existence.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    That’s a really interesting perspective!

  • @isaacm4159

    @isaacm4159

    5 ай бұрын

    It's both, philosophy could lead you to non-duality If you stick to it.

  • @trevorable04

    @trevorable04

    5 ай бұрын

    @@isaacm4159 Good point

  • @trevorable04

    @trevorable04

    5 ай бұрын

    @@unsolicitedadvice9198 thank you! I’m looking forward to watching your video when I get home.

  • @ECLECTRIC_EDITS

    @ECLECTRIC_EDITS

    5 ай бұрын

    Look, I think you're overcomplicating it. Just accept Jesus as your savior in your heart and your heart will tell you the truth.

  • @passenger9777
    @passenger97775 ай бұрын

    Very happy to find this channel It really makes philosophy digestable without the need to read hundreds of pages Hope you continue the good work.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you! I’m glad you are liking the videos

  • @1hundred1
    @1hundred15 ай бұрын

    Keep up the amazing work man. Seriously this channel is NEEDED nowadays & you articulate yourself very well.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you! That’s a very kind comment and gift

  • @AskTheAIOracle
    @AskTheAIOracle5 ай бұрын

    Mate you are absolutely brilliant. To be as fluent with words with the level of confidence behind them as you demonstrate should be a primary goal for any a man who wishes to make an impact. Great work.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you so much! That is very kind of you to say

  • @alineharam
    @alineharam5 ай бұрын

    The most exciting channel on KZread. Seriously fun and edifying. Unsolicited Advice dude, you have made my life a tiny bit better. Thanks from California

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Ah thank you! That’s so kind of you to say!

  • @a.i.1905
    @a.i.19055 ай бұрын

    I've seen a few of your videos now and I am baffled you don't have more subscribers! You present your points very clearly in a way that grips the viewer, well done and keep it up!

  • @dovydas4483
    @dovydas44835 ай бұрын

    Your channel is amazing, keep making those videos they are literally the most informative videos on philosophy, logic, writers and other stuff. You manage to say so much in such little time you don't waste words either. Great job dude

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Ah thank you! That means a lot!

  • @dovydas4483

    @dovydas4483

    5 ай бұрын

    ​@@unsolicitedadvice9198no problem, also wanted to say that finding such a channel like yours amongst the sea of useless and non-informative content is very difficult. You teach me more than my teachers do 😂

  • @diegoangulo370

    @diegoangulo370

    2 ай бұрын

    To top it off he’s quite the posh chap with a nice British accent 🫡 salute you

  • @zaclovesschool2273
    @zaclovesschool22735 ай бұрын

    I personally see great value in the western esoteric ideas of balance between the intangible (emotional, nonphysical, mental world) and the tangible (physical, material, observable) realities. I can see arguments for sticking to the logical side strictly, but it ignores a huge part of what makes being human so wonderous and meaningful. It's a quick way to end up where we are today, obsessed with material means of production and an 'objective' reality. Would be tragic to erase our ability to imagine and be curiously engaged with ideas that don't exist logically yet, because how else are we supposed to invent new things and conceptualize new ideas that have never previously existed?

  • @athanasios328

    @athanasios328

    5 ай бұрын

    Why should we invent new things and conceptualize new ideas?

  • @Umbrellagasm

    @Umbrellagasm

    5 ай бұрын

    I don't know if i see any particular tension between logical positivism and imagination - logical positivism does not denigrate imagination, it simply seeks to clarify what is imagined from what is observed.

  • @pawejankowski9364

    @pawejankowski9364

    4 ай бұрын

    ​@@athanasios328because that is the purpose of life, ergo humanity, ergo You and I.

  • @athanasios328

    @athanasios328

    4 ай бұрын

    @@pawejankowski9364 yeah, that sounds nice, but justify it.

  • @pawejankowski9364

    @pawejankowski9364

    4 ай бұрын

    @@athanasios328 Just look at evolution: it constantly adapts, i.e. invents, and becomes more complex as do our (humanities) ideas. It started off with simple life forms: they fed on inanimate objects, i.e. minerals, simply gathering in the darkness with very few senses. Those were herbivores. Then they got hunted by carnivores who had to develop more senses to find and detect them and weapons to overpower and kill them. Then more senses, new biomes, feelings and finally consciousness. We have to carry this legacy further, into uncharted territories, like those before us have.

  • @alessio7972
    @alessio797222 сағат бұрын

    “Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possiblities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what the may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familar things in an unfamilar aspect” -Bertrand Russell

  • @marcoscherrutti1451
    @marcoscherrutti14515 ай бұрын

    I've recently discovered your channel and it's becoming one of my favorites already. Keep up the great work!

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you! I’m glad you like it

  • @rainbowskyrunner
    @rainbowskyrunner5 ай бұрын

    I love that you mention cleansing ones pallet at the very end 😅🤌🏾 it is just perfect! I have to agree with some of what you pose in this vid relative to language, logic and truth because some are positions that are absolute facts. But I also must advise that one employ great discernment with much of what you stated. It is impossible to logic our way out of being an object that is self-aware with layered limitations and agency which is subject to the overarching objective truths of object reality (truths which are often invisible to us when we begin to discuss, investigate or discover them) at every scale. The idea that we could just go off of what we are able to prove empirically and achieve better results than through multivalent and variable modes of operation that are inclusive as opposed to exclusive; is one that due to our position being causally looped forwards and backwards far beyond our ability to perceive empirically, by definition an idea that is not logical at all. From my perspective, and in my opinion at least. No offense meant or taken on my end 😌🤙🏾 just putting out a few thoughts that seem relevant based on what you put forth in your vid. Thanks for the thought provocation Noble Sir 🤓🙏🏾

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    This is exactly the sort of thing I love that verificationism produces as a conversation starter! I think one of its great strengths is just that it gets people talking about methods of investigation, and encourages us to explore which forms of philosophy we want to pursue

  • @prosamis

    @prosamis

    5 ай бұрын

    This! You said what I was thinking quite elegantly! Verificationism is quite the arrogant way of thinking

  • @Hursimear
    @Hursimear5 ай бұрын

    I was just daydreaming about this today when someone accused scientists of being “materialistically fixated”..I thought to myself: I am actually fixated on the type of thinking that has communicative utility, not just for communicating the reasoning with others but also with myself; if our thoughts can be represented with clarity and structure then mistakes can be found definitively. We can’t check if we’re being dumb if our thinking is not made explicit, at least to ourselves! I respect this videos message deeply

  • @havenbastion
    @havenbastion5 ай бұрын

    Metaphysics is all of the deepest "What is the nature of..." questions; time, space, energy, matter, self, consciousness, infinity, paradox, etc. A philosophy is a coherent set of answers to a set of philosophical questions. The philosophy must be internally coherent to be rational and externally coherent to be useful.

  • @michaelsmart5941
    @michaelsmart59415 ай бұрын

    I do agree with much of this and believe it's very useful as AJ Ayers was saying. Though straight-up utility of a thing doesn't necessarily provide meaning and spiritual wonderings are not always pointless as much of scientific progress hasn't occurred through logic alone. I definitely think there is great value here as clarity and logic certainly helps with much of a person's life and humanity's as a whole. I just think without sparks of creativity, ambiguity and randomness the potential of human ingenuity, invention and zest to life is too limited.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    I know what you mean. I sometimes think that this does not track how great discoveries are made in practice. Apparently the question that inspired Einstein to eventually formulate General Relativity Theory was "what would it look like if I ran alongside a beam of light", which is an unverifiable statement as (according to my friend who is much better acquainted with physics than me) this is impossible even in principle

  • @JK-cd6zr
    @JK-cd6zr5 ай бұрын

    This is all still, by definition, "philosophy."

  • @Apdoxd
    @Apdoxd5 ай бұрын

    Im literally half way through crime and punishment jst to watch your analysis of it 🤝

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Ah thank you! That is very kind

  • @Rhen_Sigwaben
    @Rhen_Sigwaben5 ай бұрын

    I learned a lot of philosophy, a lot of them are in conflict especially with eastern and western and once you’re overloaded with that information now you don’t know what the truth is. Existential Crisis hits hard again, Especially with someone who made a lot of bad decisions in life. And addition to that fellows with OCD. It sucks sometimes because you’re haunted with these questions. ENDLESS QUESTIONS that has really no answers

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    It can definitely be paralyzing at points!

  • @exposingtruth600

    @exposingtruth600

    5 ай бұрын

    Yup especially a lot of thought experiments for me nihilism and gnosticism caused me a lot of anxiety and especially the butter fly dream thought experiment

  • @vermin5367

    @vermin5367

    5 ай бұрын

    @@exposingtruth600 dude got spooked by a butterfly :0

  • @exposingtruth600

    @exposingtruth600

    5 ай бұрын

    @@vermin5367 nah it was more or so the thought of the very fabric of my reality

  • @jacobharris5894

    @jacobharris5894

    5 ай бұрын

    This is why I resist going down the philosophical rabbit hole, even though my philosophy of science class has prompted me to think about it from time to time. When it comes to my philosophy on science I consider myself an instrumentalist but I still find the illusion that it leads to truth alluring. Philosophy breaks that illusion.

  • @strangebird5974
    @strangebird59745 ай бұрын

    I realize that I read some Ayer ages ago, a few years into studying philosophy, and it lodged in deep with me. I guess that's part of the reason I didn't finish my philosophy studies. I switched to psychology. While not on a very sure footing, it at least has the potential to yield empirical, and thus verifiable, knowledge about human beings. (Don't noone mention, Popper.) About the last bit, how verificationism might be criticized for being unverifiable (a bit like how Hume was criticized, as far as I recall, and told that he could put commit his own work "to the fire"), didn't Russell and Whitehead sort of show that you really can't get anywhere in logic without making some assumptions? Edit: I forgot to leave a kudos. I really liked this video and your explanation of Ayer's view was very clear and easy to follow. I'll check out your other videos, I think.

  • @marcokite
    @marcokite5 ай бұрын

    What a truly sad, sad man Ayer was.

  • @ManiH810

    @ManiH810

    2 ай бұрын

    Care to explain? Or do you just feel bitter about the fact that your superstitions have been thoroughly debunked and that your whole ‘religion’ and ‘metaphysical foundation’ of the world has been shown to be complete bullocks?

  • @yqafree
    @yqafree4 ай бұрын

    There is a part of me that truly appreciates the modality of thinking that is rather fixated on a worldview of sure knowledge founded in posteriori considerations. Still it's basing it's ontological views on many assumptions that it doesn't always see that it's making. I cannot go into dissertation length descriptions here of all the essential ways this has been done by these logical positivists and similar schools of philosophers. What I will say is so many things I've found to be true are not substantially tangible, they're not (at least yet) directly testable, they're not the things that sciences are as concerned with, but still founded in truth and reasonable given forms of evidence. The most important lengths of things that have to do with the cosmos and our apparent existence are quite slippery and yet present in many ways, there is a sort of spiraling pattern here that some poetic statements actually attain a grasp on and satisfy a yearning of knowledge, a sense it's beholden. Still to rigorously prove these things out for linear conceptions is not what anyone seems to be able to do and that's why we strive endlessly in the means of our meaning, that being to try to solve the impossible existential hermeneutic. Peace be onto you all, YQA

  • @joshp.2872
    @joshp.28725 ай бұрын

    Have you considered doing a video or even a series unpacking the philosophy of the Bible and Christianity? Beyond any doubt Christianity has been the driving philosophical force behind Europe for the past 2000 years and has given rise to the most advanced and successful civilisational group in history.

  • @calvink7382
    @calvink73825 ай бұрын

    Everything is a waste of time, including watching this video. Time was created to be wasted

  • @peterjaimez1619
    @peterjaimez16195 ай бұрын

    Thank you 😀 it gives me a better understanding of the position of Karl Popper, when contrasted with this. I have been thinking about logic, science etc. for some time. Might interest you: 1.- Logic started as rules for a game of words Athenians played, surprisingly it is very effective in the material world, and with computers, but works very badly with Human concerns; Epicurus, rightly I believe, condemned its use for general life (there is not enough of epicurean philosophy left to be sure of the extend of this); 2.- The blanket negation of all metaphysics ends in relativism, and not so good consequences; 3.- Most of the problems of mankind are solved (to a point) by "Legal Logic" which is NOT considered by most logicians and philosophers; 4.- Be very careful too long in the road of philosophy leads to doubt, depression, despair. Be of good 👍 cheer is possible to get a lot from philosophy. Cheers

  • @richard_d_bird
    @richard_d_bird5 ай бұрын

    very clear and engaging delivery thanks

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you! I am really glad you enjoyed it

  • @thomaslaubli1886
    @thomaslaubli18865 ай бұрын

    Ironically, logicism itself is meaningless insofar as it is incapable of doing justice to content because it abstracts from empiricism. Logicism is itself a metaphysical theory, since it conveys a certain worldview. Ayer does the same with his emotivism. (Funnily enough, the ideal of having to be logical can also be dissolved emotivistically). It doesn't work without metaphysics. For me, therefore, skepticism towards any theory is a waste of time, because it is an attitude that wants to refrain from making any judgment at all and therefore shirks responsibility and is, moreover, self-contradictory.

  • @ClimbingCod
    @ClimbingCod5 ай бұрын

    It's absolutely beautiful to see you explain such extensive topics in a charming and graspable manner. My interest in philosophy and literature has recently rekindled, and one of the reasons is you. I would love to see you discuss more themes and motifs in literature and various niche philosophical ideas. You will do great. Best of luck.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you! I’m so glad the videos are helpful and I hope you are enjoying your rediscovered love of philosophy!

  • @BulbaWarrior
    @BulbaWarrior5 ай бұрын

    The "all men are mortal" claim is as unverifiable as the statement about the invisible cat. No matter how many men we observe, I can always claim that there is a single immortal man, that we haven't checked just yet (or maybe he is not yet born). We are just forced to believe that **most** men are mortal and draw our conclusions from that.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Ah yes that’s a good point that Ayer does address. He says such statements are “weakly verifiable” so observations can evidence them but not conclusively confirm them in the same way a mathematical truth can (he ends up saying all empirical claims fall into this camp)

  • @picklerick777

    @picklerick777

    5 ай бұрын

    Bulba suck ma deek. No man has been immortal nor will he ever be. Don't be dumb and look at objective logic.

  • @picklerick777

    @picklerick777

    5 ай бұрын

    That includes 1000s of years later when we have advanced medicines. Infinite lifespan is impossible.

  • @Xerrash

    @Xerrash

    5 ай бұрын

    @@picklerick777 How can you ascertain that infinite lifespan is impossible? Science advances all the time and is seemingly exponential in it's progress. Because there are barrier's that exist currently, that does not mean that they will always continue to exist. We do not know how much we know do not know, therefore ascertaining the limits of possiblity is the height of ignorance.

  • @willieluncheonette5843
    @willieluncheonette58435 ай бұрын

    “I am not teaching philosophy here. What I am saying has nothing to do with philosophy. It is absolutely experimental and experiential. My effort is to create a scientific religion - the psychology of the buddhas. So I am giving you experiments and I am giving you possibilities to experience something that you have not experienced yet. This is a lab, a workshop. We are bent upon doing something - I mean business here! Philosophy is not the concern at all. "I am very anti-philosophic and I avoid philosophy because it is playing with shadows, thoughts, speculation. And you can go on playing infinitely, ad infinitum, ad nauseam; there is no end to it. One word creates another word, one theory creates another theory, and you can go on and on and on. In five thousand years much philosophy has existed in the world, and to no purpose at all. "But there are people who have the philosophic attitude. And if you are one of them, please drop it; otherwise you and your energy will be lost in a desert “I am not teaching philosophy here because I am teaching no-mind. And if you become a no-mind all philosophy disappears: Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan, Buddhist - all philosophies disappear; Hegelian, Kantian, Russellian - all philosophies disappear. If the mind disappears, where can the philosophy exist? Where can it grow? Mind is the breeding ground of philosophy. "Let the mind disappear. And the beauty is, when there is no mind and nobody to philosophize and nothing to philosophize about, one comes to know. Philosophy is the blind man’s effort. It is said: Philosophy is a blind man in a dark room on a dark night, searching for a black cat which is not there….” “I am not a philosopher. The philosopher thinks about things. It is a mind approach. My approach is a no-mind approach. It is just the very opposite of philosophizing. It is not thinking about things, ideas, but seeing with a clarity which comes when you put your mind aside, when you see through silence, not through logic. Seeing is not thinking. “The sun rises there; if you think about it you miss it, because while you are thinking about it, you are going away from it. In thinking you can move miles away; and thoughts go faster than anything possible. If you are seeing the sunrise then one thing has to be certain, that you are not thinking about it. Only then can you see it. “Thinking becomes a veil on the eyes. It gives its own color, its own idea to the reality. It does not allow reality to reach you, it imposes itself upon reality; it is a deviation from reality. Hence no philosopher has ever been able to know the truth. “All the philosophers have been thinking about the truth. But thinking about the truth is an impossibility. Either you know it, or you don't. If you know it, there is no need to think about it. If you don't, then how can you think about it? “A philosopher thinking about truth is just like a blind man thinking about light. If you have eyes, you don't think about light, you see it. Seeing is a totally different process; it is a byproduct of meditation. “Hence I would not like my way of life to be ever called a philosophy, because it has nothing to do with philosophy. You can call it philosia. The word ‘philo’ means love; ‘sophy’ means wisdom, knowledge - love for knowledge. In philosia, ‘philo’ means the same love, and ‘sia’ means seeing: love, not for knowledge but for being - not for wisdom, but for experiencing.” Philosophy Is the Worst Wastage of Human Intelligence that Is Possible “I am not a philosopher. The philosopher thinks about the truth. His approach is rational. Reason is his instrument, and here just the opposite is the case. I am an irrational man. And the people who have gathered around me - around the world - the appeal to them is my irrationality, because reason has failed so utterly. For three thousand years in the West, ten thousand years in the East, philosophers have been struggling to find the truth, and not a single philosopher has been able to find it. “The way of philosophy does not go with truth at all. It is just rational gymnastics. So one philosopher can argue against another philosopher, and they go on arguing for centuries, but they have not come to agreement on a single point. Philosophy is the worst wastage of human intelligence that is possible. When I say I am not a philosopher, I simply mean that my approach towards reality is not through the head, it is through the heart. “I also say that I do not preach a religion because religion is something like love - you cannot teach it. There is no way to teach love, and if you teach love and somebody becomes trained under your teachings, he may go to Hollywood and become an actor, but he will never become a lover. Your very teaching, your very discipline will be the barrier. So I say I don't teach religion. Religion is something that passes heart to heart, not head to head. The moment religion passes head to head, it becomes theology. It is no more religion.”

  • @diegoninosanchez1930
    @diegoninosanchez19305 ай бұрын

    This was both an excellent video and an excellent way of understanding philosophy However, I find that a problem with verificationism is that some metaphysical aspects of reality are unverifiable, though impossible to determine just as "nonsense". For example, it is absolutely impossible to verify the existence of other's peoples conscience, or even to know that there is a relation between the soul and the body or if it's just a lot of matter acting according to causal relations. Those are important questions which come from unverifiable experiences of reality but which can't be discarded.

  • @pixelgamex730
    @pixelgamex7305 ай бұрын

    I'm glad I discovered this channel

  • @goosewithagibus
    @goosewithagibus5 ай бұрын

    Glad to find a philosopher that hates metaphysics the way I do. Metaphysics is what turned me off to philosophy for a very long time because I thought that's all it was. I found boring, unintuitive, arrogant, and useless.

  • @badkidpk5210
    @badkidpk52105 ай бұрын

    This video is brilliant! Probably the best one I watched this month. I instantly subscribe. Keep the good work up! The information was presented in an easy to understand way to non-philosophers, however it retained the key ideas. As additional benefit, it made my non-naturalist moral realist friends a bit angry, so that is like a bonus!😹

  • @ZedP
    @ZedP4 ай бұрын

    I am not sure that any of the relevant philosophers ever claimed that outer world does not exist. Descartes and Kant discussed the question, but not in order to prove such radical skepticism (Kant actually said that it's a scandal that no one has so far proved the existence of the outer world - and then he ventured to this task). I think that Ayer mainly discussed the metaphysics of British Hegelians (F.H. Bradley, Bosanquet, etc) and sometimes I am not sure that he has ever read some serious work of classical metaphysics. This misunderstanding of continental philosophy was quite fashionable among logical positivists (just read Gilbert Ryle 's interpretation of Heidegger). That being said, I am very pleased with your presentation, it was interesting, clear and well structured.

  • @RedSky8
    @RedSky85 ай бұрын

    Oh we makin it outta the Renaissance with these thoughts 😂. Great video!

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Haha! Thank you!

  • @FlashdogFul28
    @FlashdogFul285 ай бұрын

    Love your videos, thank you .

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you for watching!

  • @michaelbarker6460
    @michaelbarker64605 ай бұрын

    The view that many grew to disdain in the late 1800s onwards was in large part idealism particularly the kind people like F.H. Bradley supported, which was known as British Idealism which ultimately stemmed from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Apparently Bradley upset Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore so much that it was this frustration that gave way to analytic philosophy. Of course that philosophy has been both incredibly productive and the branch that would dominate the 1900s until today. However, that Idealism is seen as unverifiable metaphysics says far more about the person making the claim than it does about it as a philosophy. The arguments are there and in my opinion very clear as to what it is claiming and it is neither mine nor anyone else's job to educate those that don't understand it. Most interestingly it is also the direction that science is increasingly turning toward as its limits, especially in physics, have seemingly come to a bit of a stand still in the past decade or so. Things like the double slit experiment, relativity and the speed of light, the observer problem, the ever illusive issue of consciousness and other similar issues keep those most involved in those things pushing out toward new perspectives and its no surprise that many of those new perspectives fall within the jurisdiction of Idealism.

  • @siriosstar4789
    @siriosstar47894 ай бұрын

    Philosophy ends when experience begins . when one has a realization based on direct experience , words become an expression instead of an inquiry , which is found in philosophy . However, it is NOt philosophy that creates the experience/realization because it does not contain the inherent ability to transcend its own activity which is essential in realizing that which philosophy appears inside of as consciousness awake to itself .

  • @a4paper755
    @a4paper7555 ай бұрын

    A mix of both, non philosophical, and philosophical, might be nice you somehow have to think or you'll stagnate, you somehow have to halt thinking or you'll get lost You can never ever understand something fully, it wouldn't allow you to, you can go deeper and deeper but you'll never get there. For me, it's just fun, nothing is actually important, any answer can be found in every way, in which way you wanted that applies also to understanding oneself, you'll never know who you really are, in my current understanding of the world, knowing anything including yourself truly is impossible. You could still try though, you'll find bizarre and fascinating stuffs.

  • @alicewright4322
    @alicewright43225 ай бұрын

    15:00 amazing point! something can be totally true and totally accurate and provide descriptive predictions, but at the same time be unverifiable! Eg. any true scientific hypothesis prior to the invention of the equipment needed to test that hypothesis. however, I see a flaw in my own example: perhaps the example is not truly unverifiable, we just wrongly believed that it was. So the exact definition of unverifiable is very important.

  • @joshp.2872

    @joshp.2872

    5 ай бұрын

    Truth is true before or whether it is ever observed to be true. In other words, truth exists quite apart from any evidence that may "verify" it. Ultimately, truth exists in axiomatic self-authentication.

  • @andreasdelsing6764
    @andreasdelsing67643 ай бұрын

    Great content!

  • @MyContext
    @MyContext5 ай бұрын

    I take the idea of verification to simply denote the need that a statement about reality be substantiated in some sense of the word. Thus, it is a tool by which one can examine an argument for vacuousness. It seems I need to read his material, since, I might be able to address the criticisms. This would also seem to demand that I review the best case of metaphysics. --- I would have no issue with the idea of "Objective Morality" IF the claimants of such provided a criteria by which moral claims could be independently adjudicated, given that the idea of something being objective with regard to reality entails that such can be known independently of the claimant. However, they never provide a means by which such can be done. I would have no issue with the idea of a "God" IF the claims of such had something by which such was shown to be an aspect of reality. Currently, claims of a God are as meaningful as claims of Last Thursdayism. It simply has me wondering about the person's reasoning capacities; while thinking about the power of indoctrination/inculcation. I would have no issue with astrology IF there was a there shown to be there. --- Any recommendations for book concerning metaphysics (special emphasis on books which define and defend the idea)? I think I may at some point take up AJ Ayers charge, but I need to know that what I suspect as being an enemy of rational grounding is in fact the enemy I currently think it to be.

  • @bobgreen3362
    @bobgreen33625 ай бұрын

    The real is what works. -Carl Jung

  • @markdpricemusic1574
    @markdpricemusic15745 ай бұрын

    Its a great antidote to the vapours of idealist metaphysics, but the claim by the Log. Pos that logic and meaning-making are somehow more intrinsically valuable activities seems unverifiable. If one kicks out the dubious metaphysics that goes with God, destiny, teleology, excatology etc, then logic takes its place as one more branch of primate psychology... no more intrinsically valuable than poetry and myth, or non-reproductive sexuality and music. Could we or would we want to live in a world without such wonderful madness? Many thanks for another straight-to-the punch presentation... always good to hear somebody getting to the core of the ideas without oversimplifying.

  • @Satoru_gojo_sixeyes
    @Satoru_gojo_sixeyes4 ай бұрын

    Loved it sir

  • @user-cl3eg2ct6x
    @user-cl3eg2ct6x5 ай бұрын

    Hello Joseph, I love your videos especially your video on Dostovesky's Notes from the Underground was thought-provoking. I genuinely think that this is one of the best philosophy content on YT. But I think that better editing will skyrocket the growth of this channel and make the content more presentable. This content is like a pile of gold bars kept in a dusty dilapidated wooden chest, all it needs is great repackaging, and trust me you will blow up in no time. As a Video Editor myself I suggest that for starters, you can change these things 1. Reduce the white gaps on the thumbnails 2. Change the thumbnail font to Roboto 'Black' 3. Try creating a faint glow effect on the thumbnail text rather than thick strokes These tricks will improve your CTR. The video itself can be presented in a much better manner Your content is too premium for this style of editing, and I would love to see your ideas reach more people. P.S.- A mellow classical bgm works wonders on videos in this niche.

  • @calliteasy5542

    @calliteasy5542

    5 ай бұрын

    This is wonderful, reach out to him so u can help him

  • @ottooldenhardt
    @ottooldenhardt5 ай бұрын

    Logical positivism is self-refuting

  • @athanasios328

    @athanasios328

    5 ай бұрын

    Yup. Its no different than a fideistic religious claim by its own standards. It is arbitrary to cling to it.

  • @jacobharris5894
    @jacobharris58945 ай бұрын

    I’m not a mathematician so I may be wrong here, but I think 2+2=4 being a tautology actually depends on the axioms you choose to use. If one uses the Peano axioms for example one can prove 2+2=4 which would make it closer to a theorem than a tautology. No mathematician in their right mind would actually call it a theorem because the proof is trivial for them and the statement isn’t that interesting. But under those set of axioms it’s a statement that can be proven using pure deductive reasoning.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Yes I get what you mean. It’s partly because Ayer thinks of theorems as types of tautologies, seeing as in his view proofs don’t add any new content, but rather reveal what was already there “in” the axioms for everyone to see and make use of

  • @jacobharris5894

    @jacobharris5894

    5 ай бұрын

    @@unsolicitedadvice9198 That’s an interesting way to look at tautologies and probably valid because I don’t think mathematicians are consistent in how they use the term. I guess if you want to think of it that way that would make all statements that follow from pure deductive reasoning, not just mathematical proofs, tautological in nature. Because pure math isn’t inductive or abductive like science and parts of philosophy. Maybe that was obvious already but I’m not too into philosophy and only learned about tautologies from a proof writing course I did for my math minor. I only took one Philosophy of Science course in college and to be honest I did not enjoy the course after a certain point because the arguments got too abstract or metaphysical for my liking and they felt like unfair critiques of science to me, even though I couldn’t articulate why. For a while afterward I thought I had a distaste in philosophy but I think I might just not like thinking about metaphysics for extended amounts of time because the questions they pose seem meaningless to me.

  • @andrejg3086
    @andrejg30865 ай бұрын

    Interesting video. I had never heard of Ayer before. I always associated the idea of falsifiability with Popper.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you! And they are certainly related

  • @havenbastion
    @havenbastion5 ай бұрын

    There are three different kinds of philosophy which aim at different ends; •Truth Wisdom is the most universal answers to the most universally meaningful questions. It encompasses ontology, mereology, meta-philosophy, metaphysics, proto-physics, meta-epistemology, where meta-ethics. •Practical Wisdom is custom answers to individual problems. •Academic Philosophy is about social acceptance proven by credentials earned primarily through compliance.

  • @tanmay23453
    @tanmay234533 ай бұрын

    To summarize, as a logical positivist, Ayer held to a principle of verification that stated a proposition is factually significant if and only if it is a tautology or if it is possible to be empirically observed under conditions that would allow it to be rendered true or false. This principle of verification is not only an impractical philosophy to follow due to its renouncement of ethics, aesthetics and science but it is also a self-refuting one due to the principle of verification being unable to be verified and not being a tautology. It is because of these reasons that Ayer’s principle of verification and logical positivism as a whole be rejected

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    3 ай бұрын

    Yeah essentially! If you want to do justice to that intuition, we need some other philosophical framework. Though I personally think that the intuition the logical positivist is getting at is something more like “philosophy should be useful” but interpreted through this diehard empiricist lens. If we drop the lens we might get somewhere with the intuition

  • @ManiH810

    @ManiH810

    2 ай бұрын

    @@unsolicitedadvice9198Why can’t we take the verification principle as axiomatic?

  • @ministerofjoy
    @ministerofjoy5 ай бұрын

    Thank you🎉

  • @zestyammar1973
    @zestyammar19735 ай бұрын

    ohh you ated...some people around me are so interesting in that they will just say a collection of words longer than 7 letters and hope that it strings a meaningful sentence...ayer put this into a book ❤

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    It is a fantastic antidote to stuff that sounds good but really doesn’t hold up

  • @user-ki5ix8kr6m
    @user-ki5ix8kr6m5 ай бұрын

    Philosophy, the science's, religion, spiritualism. All seeking the same thing. THE TRUTH. PEACE 🕊️........

  • @diegorosso9401

    @diegorosso9401

    5 ай бұрын

    Not at all. Continental philosophy has over the past 60 years at least sought but confusion, disruption, irrationality and the dyonisiacal.

  • @shadigaafar3091
    @shadigaafar3091Ай бұрын

    "Fundamental" means some kind of knowledge that is the base of all knowledge, in which you can not break it down. It is the foundation, meaning that it does not dependent on other knowledge. And even though modern philosophy seems to have over passed foundationalism, yet even in science, that is thought to contains "explainable facts", seams to be struggling to explain facts in deep level without ever reaching to some foundational fact that can not be explained ontologically.

  • @cholyom2629
    @cholyom2629Ай бұрын

    You can say that philosophy especially metaphysics almost died twice, during Kant's time and during Ayer's time

  • @MyContext
    @MyContext5 ай бұрын

    *Can you suggest a book(s) which does a good job of defining and defending metaphysics?* I currently think AJ Ayers is correct, but if I am to even think about taking up his cause, I need to know my adversary.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Ah thank you for the donation! I would say there are a number of different angles you can take to defend metaphysics (Theodore Sider does this well in some of his books, notably "The Tools of Metaphysics and Metaphysics of Science" (though I have only skimmed the book so I can't be whole-hearted in my recommendations)). In terms of direct criticisms of verificationism, there are many. If anything I am, in hindsight, too soft in my criticism of it here. One is that it is self-refuting (which is essentially the second criticism I cover here), as well as that there are some things in science that are unverifiable but helpful (string theory is supposedly one of these, but I don't know enough about it to comment). Lastly I like the criticism that we just, in practice, can't do without metaphysics because it is our means of navigating reality.

  • @MyContext

    @MyContext

    5 ай бұрын

    @@unsolicitedadvice9198 Thank for you the references and caveats. I would substitute the idea of verification with the idea of substantiation. The idea of matter/energy being eternal cannot be verified, however, the idea of such being eternal is reasonably substantiated in that we currently understand that such cannot be created or destroyed which gives rise to the idea that such is eternal. It seems that you would be a good partner for discussing the idea of metaphysics at a later date, since, it seems you support the idea and find that such is indispensable.

  • @DEBO5
    @DEBO55 ай бұрын

    Wittgenstein announced the death of philosophy with the Tractatus. He attempted to write a "logically perfect" subset of natural language (austrian, then translated to english). It is an odd syntax to wrap your mind around but provides immense insight into the nature of mental phenomena/states/configurations. Especially the "Picture Theory of Language". "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent - L.Witt He later did change his mind in Philosphical Investigations where he realized natural languages, by design, allow for contradictions making them by definition absolutely imprecise. The polymorphic and ambiguous natural of nature language can therefore only be used to describe events/states of affairs as sorts of language games, and the words are only used to approximate the complete understanding of the phenomenon or "truth".

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Ah Tractatus is a classic! It’s still one of my favourite books

  • @rmschindler144
    @rmschindler1445 ай бұрын

    the word 'logic' being used so often, I feel moved to suggest the book _Reality_ by Peter Kingsley . ...some one at least will feel strangely called to follow up on this suggestion . after all, there’s always something magical going on

  • @willyh.r.1216
    @willyh.r.12165 ай бұрын

    Owaooo. Your video reminds me my philosophy class in high school long long time ago, in 1981 (under french education system). I explained "why philosophy is a pure waste of time" to my philosophy teacher. I did that in a classroom of about 40 students. The teacher was very angry, and felt like insulted. Me, at that time, was very intellectually aggressive and huge proponent of "optimization of time" as a science lover. Since that moment, I collected poor grades, sevral 8/20 on his tests. Despite this "unfair" grading, I kept second rank in the classroom ranking on all subjects combined. Again, my philosophy teacher was mad at me realizing that.😂😂😂

  • @farzad1021

    @farzad1021

    2 ай бұрын

    So, why you think Philosophy is a pure waste of time?

  • @AshikurRahmanRifat
    @AshikurRahmanRifat5 ай бұрын

    Philosophy alongside physics ask questions that absolutely destroy your mind ...

  • @havenbastion
    @havenbastion5 ай бұрын

    Science is rigor. Logic is a subset of science which is those relationships that always replicate.

  • @thesurvivorssanctuary6561
    @thesurvivorssanctuary65615 ай бұрын

    I like these ideas, but ethics is ultimately empirically verifiable. One must simply study actors throughout history, the ethical standards of their containing society, and then the consequences of said ethical philosophy within said society. One can do this for society's ethical standards as well. Progressivism and Modern Ethical Standards lead to utopia. Amorality leads to Egoism, and Egoism leads to serfdom. THIS IS HISTORY. It's the consequences of all the minor interactions between people, and the economics of a society's emotions and shame/blame. Egoism allows power to accumulate and metastasize, and Modern Ethical Standards breed Heroes, Martyrs, and large bodies of selfless individuals ready to sacrifice of themselves for you and Mme. Ethics is tautological from the perspective of Sociology, History, Empirical Fact, and Consequentialism.

  • @phillipadams4691
    @phillipadams46915 ай бұрын

    I'm not surprised that a 25 year old believed that he knew what was meaningful and what was not. He may have gone too far. His way of looking at reality seems appropriate for reductionist and materialist thinkers. Those types of people always seem a little irritated and dissatisfied with life. Even if they pretend to feel otherwise. Fundamentalist reductionism if you ask me.

  • @alena-qu9vj
    @alena-qu9vj4 ай бұрын

    I think that not only philosophy, but in fact the whole human / men's existence is about how to better understand oneself and the world around one. When you concentrate on this path, the mysteries of existence begin to unravel by themselves. And, what do you think leads to knowing yourself and the world around? Does sitting in an ivory tower of some "logical thinking" leads to a result better than going our and live? Know yourself and life in abstract remote philosophizing or in the practical confrontation with reality? Most of the old philosophical buffers pretend that thinking is better only because they just cannot live fully, where they are not able to "think out" their own lives not to speak about some generally usefull ideas.

  • @shadigaafar3091
    @shadigaafar3091Ай бұрын

    Kant may disagree, Kant argue against the idea 2+2=4 is true by definition (analytical). To him it is "synthetic a priori"

  • @BardovBacchus
    @BardovBacchus4 ай бұрын

    And now for something completely different, I think many philosophers tie themselves in metaphorical knots seeking literal universal truths in a reality where there is nearly always an exception and most things are probabilistic. If we can't look outside of ourselves, it is very difficult to find validation. Whether some act is wrong depends on the agreed definition of wrong

  • @jayraldbasan5354
    @jayraldbasan53543 ай бұрын

    This has been a refreshing view on philosophy!

  • @ManiH810
    @ManiH8102 ай бұрын

    The greatest philosophical project to ever exist.

  • @norsksimp
    @norsksimp5 ай бұрын

    The best philosophical school of thought got to be existentialism, stoicism sure works but the former is a bullseye to what life is.

  • @savoirfaire6181
    @savoirfaire61815 ай бұрын

    At the end of the day doesn't it all just boil down to adopted cultural value systems we humans move in? Logic has utility for those who wish to submit to its rules and regulations, but expecting others to do so is often futile, and logic doesn't ground itself. It's grounded in either the common values of the users or else metaphysical assumptions that logic corresponds to reality and is of a specific well defined nature which can be agreed upon by "logical people." The pie in the sky philosopher is claiming to have access to special intuitions similar to the ones that the logical positivist has in regards to his logical thinking system. They are on equal footing and both projects are too ambitious, although in opposite directions. I submit to logic but to me it is mysterious and I cannot ground it so it lends itself to speculation about its grounding, about which I am uncertain. I see its utility in its capacity for dialog, which humans seem to instinctively try to play fair about much of the time. Multiple humans will point out when another human's arguments are logically fallacious. If logical fallacies are allowed into debate then where is the line to be drawn thereafter? Language is symbolic and how directly it corresponds to the reality it purports to symbolize is also debatable, even if the words used in a debate are ironed out between the parties, meticulously. Each person has a unique set of experiences which define the specific meaning of everything in life for themselves down to the smallest minutia. Two people do not share the same experiences and thus do not share common ground for defining meaning, but together they can relate and in this relationship new meaning and life continues as they move through the world together in dialog. Ayers experienced this dialog in the replies he received to his book, and that's where the conversation continued and we pick up the trail and continue to ponder. Philosophy is perhaps not about knowing but about questioning and continuing to relate to everything around us as deeply and honestly as we can. I have found that the danger in life is in those who think they know but do not. It's not in those who realize they don't know and who keep relating to each other and the larger world around them to continue to seek to change and grow. I know this danger from first hand experience with it, not because it's a law of the universe but it's the experience I have. Others seem to not have this experience or the need to even question. Some day whether I question or not, it appears I will be dead and will no longer know any of this any more than anyone did when they were alive.

  • @yaazarai
    @yaazarai5 ай бұрын

    This is silly. The statement philosophy is meaningless is illogical because it requires a "philosophy," to state it.

  • @Rudi361
    @Rudi3615 ай бұрын

    Besides that the dichotomy between the „tautology“ or analytic and synthetic statements is not tenable, I think it is just false that statements can‘t be true or false if they are verifiable. If that would be true, what would justify me in buying life insurance if I can‘t experience what happens after I die? I would go even further and argue that the statement „There are no intelligent extraterrestials.“ is true or false even thought it may be unverifiable, because our best physical theory tell us that information from light may take too long to reach earth or humanity. I also think that Hilary Putnam argues convincingly in his text „What theories are not“ that verification is only possible under the background of scientific theory. If it doesn‘t we would need to say that the same statement has a truth-value and doesn’t, between a theory under which it is not verifiable and under a theory which it doesn‘t. For example: It may well be that the scientific theory of a given time, say 1970, is such that if you conjoin to it either the statement that the temperature in a certain place inside the sun is A or the statement that the temperature in that place is B, where A and B are very different tempera tures, no new observational prediction results. If a few years later, when scientific theory had changed, those state ments had become testable, they would now become true or false.

  • @Koenshakuable
    @Koenshakuable4 ай бұрын

    Qualitatively, you have a love of learning. Quantitatively, you have propositional calculus. That Ayer produced this work at the age of 25 is no surprise. Ask anyone who took logic.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    4 ай бұрын

    Funnily enough I did my masters mostly in logic

  • @johngraham1274
    @johngraham12745 ай бұрын

    Induction isn't certitude, yet all philosophical reasoning begins with it. logical positivism is the moral equivalent of rank materialism and is useful only for those with self-centered minds. Metaphysics embraces all possibilities, not just those limited to the whins of a few.

  • @bilal535
    @bilal5355 ай бұрын

    What do you think about transcendental argument for God, are you familiar with Jay Dyer?

  • @farinshore8900
    @farinshore89005 ай бұрын

    So, in the end, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin ?

  • @_.omikami._
    @_.omikami._5 ай бұрын

    Amazing video altogether! I have found myself following a similar philosophy myself as ive learned more philosophically and realized those around me are more self-righteous and shallow than i first thought. (not to throw shade at them). As ive taken this “dive” into philosophy in my free time i have recently started reading Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and started taking notes on the book and defining words i cant clearly define myself using google. I was wondering if you had any advice on a type of format for analysis on philosophical ideas presented and how to identify such ideas better within the work?

  • @TheGingerjames123
    @TheGingerjames1235 ай бұрын

    I think you must account for time when thinking about verification, in theoretical math some things are assumed and only much later verified once the tech enables(like the higgs boson)

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Yes it’s a good point! I think Ayer manages to address it by talking about whether something can “in theory” be verified (though it’s worth noting this comes with its own problems)

  • @rmschindler144
    @rmschindler1445 ай бұрын

    philosophy is very dear to me . I’m right in that . there is a person who doesn’t love philosophy as I do . that person is right, too . what a waste of time to argue about it . time spent arguing is time spent not loving . I view myself as a lover preeminently: to love is my only function . when I am not loving, I am malfunctioning . philosophy to me is the very practical discipline of being receptive to profound shifts in understanding that have me see through the eyes of love . what greater miracle can occur than to see through the eyes of love for an instant?

  • @alicewright4322
    @alicewright43225 ай бұрын

    Unclear ideas can waste a lot of time. and the people presenting them want to be taken seriously and respected as if they had a clear idea. if they do not listen to valid critique and refuse to clarify, how would you avoid resenting them for stealing your time, focus, and energy?

  • @nikolastoyanov9696

    @nikolastoyanov9696

    5 ай бұрын

    Many ideas are unclear until they are. in fact your idea of ideas being unclear therefore meaningless is in fact.... very unclear.

  • @zerotwo7319
    @zerotwo73195 ай бұрын

    The guy simply repeated that one can be logical? This was before bertrand russel or Wittgenstein, right? LoL

  • @Senzo_lucius
    @Senzo_lucius5 ай бұрын

    My attention is so bad I can only watch this video for one minute

  • @tanmay23453
    @tanmay234533 ай бұрын

    testing a meaning were holistic and by holistic what is meant that you cannot test ideas alone by themselves. When one tests one idea you test every idea that is connected to that idea also. For example, if one tested a certain hypothesis and the data that returned was not that was to be expected that would not conclude that the hypothesis is false because something may have went wrong in testing the hypothesis. The method by which one is testing may itself be flawed and not the hypothesis. However we assume that the methods by which we are testing by are correct. These assumptions could very well be incorrect and not the hypothesis. One might argue that we can then test these assumed ideas that we have but there is no practical way that we could test all of our assumed ideas that we have while testing a hypothesis without running into an infinite regress. Quine argues that there is no scientific way to make sense of the analytic-synthetic distinction and this is the first of the two dogmas. If Quine is correct in this holism then we also test our analytic belief. However analytic beliefs are supposed to be immune from empirical testing according to Ayer! Quine argues that we have a web of beliefs in which all of our beliefs make contact with the world through experience which is to say our analytic beliefs are indeed subject to falsification. For example when testing a hypothesis such as “Grass is green”, we are not just testing that, we are testing everything that this idea is connected to. If it turns out that grass is not green we might revise one of our other hypotheses such as are our eyes working properly or are we looking at grass. Even analytic beliefs may be revised as such has happened in modern physics with quantum physics and non-Euclidean geometry. It is not impossible to revise our analytic beliefs and if we are testing these and they are not true by definition and are by experience then the analytic-synthetic distinction collapses which is fatal for logical positivists such as Ayer

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    3 ай бұрын

    Yeah, I want to do a video on “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” at some point because it’s a fantastic paper. I actually think Quine has a great overall philosophy which I tend to interpret as quite pragmatist (though this is definitely controversial, and might just be me and Huw Price’s biases showing). I wanted to talk about this in the video but it was an extra 2,000 words and I ended up cutting it. But I’m so glad someone mentioned it!

  • @tanmay23453

    @tanmay23453

    3 ай бұрын

    are you a absolute logical positivist? like ayer according to you metaphysics is futile?@@unsolicitedadvice9198

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    3 ай бұрын

    Absolutely not! I would gently describe myself as a neo-pragmatist (in the vein of Price and Peirce). In these videos I tend to want to present a strong and charitable interpretation of a given philosophical position though, as otherwise I don’t see the point in making them. I think there is a fair intuition that motivated logical positivism, which I would argue is pragmatist in spirit, and asks “what is the point in doing this?”. It is this underlying intuition that I respect in logical positivism. I just think that metaphysics is perhaps more useful than they do (after all, metaphysical interpretations of scientific theories can be immensely helpful for further theorizing). And clearly their formulation of this intuition in terms of meaningfulness and verification is not tenable.

  • @thespiritofhegel3487
    @thespiritofhegel34875 ай бұрын

    Emotivism = the hurrah/boo theory of morality. Crude or what?. How do you feel about an interlocutor refusing to engage in philosophical debate with you because he or she thinks you have made a grammatical error? 'The study of philosophy is as much hindered by the conceit that will not argue, as it is by the argumentative approach. This conceit relies on truths which are taken for granted and which it sees no need to re-examine; it just lays them down, and believes it is entitled to assert them, as well as to judge and pass sentence by appealing to them. In view of this, it is especially necessary that philosophizing should again be made a serious business. In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize, and how to evaluate philosophy, since he possesses the criterion for doing so in his natural reason-as if he did not likewise possess the measure for a shoe in his own foot. It seems that philosophical competence consists precisely in an absence of information and study, as though philosophy left off where they began. Philosophy is frequently taken to be a purely formal kind of knowledge, void of content, and the insight is sadly lacking that, whatever truly there may be in the content of any discipline or science, it can only deserve the name if such truth has been engendered by philosophy. Let the other sciences try to argue as much as they like without philosophy-without it they can have in them neither life, Spirit, nor truth'. - Hegel, 'Phenomenology of Spirit', 1807.

  • @1hundred1
    @1hundred15 ай бұрын

    top 1 channel ever

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you! That’s very kind

  • @rainbowskyrunner
    @rainbowskyrunner5 ай бұрын

    7:30 - Following this "logic" you also render many aspects of scientific thinking as well as just progressive thinking or novelty in thought as meaningless... Which in turn implicates a natural hindrance to evolution and expansion of thought, ideas, scientific knowledge and knowledge in general. If this type of thinking had been employed across the totality of human consciousness at earlier stages of our development we may have stayed blind to all of the many things that we now are able to see, and effect in the world around us. Why would we look for molecular structures or even just air born pathogens as a cause relative to our experience of reality if we do not have the abstract layer of thinking that we refer to as imagination? The type of thought which allows us to see the unseen, hear the unheard, touch the unfelt, to catch wind of that which has no smell and develop a taste for that which has no flavor... These forms of thinking are also rendered meaningless and untrue or non-sense... To see cosmic bodies far outside of our sensory limits on the macro scale of reality or to "see" (really more like perceive effect and define) the atomic scale of reality down into the micro scale beneath or sensory limits in the other direction... Or to move information along radio wave frequency from one end of the globe to the other on sounds that we cannot hear with our ears making audible frequency ranges which we are able to hear thousands of miles away from the original source... Or for us to be able to grab hold of a single particle and throw it through a loop causing it to interact with matter in ways that allows us not only to "see" the unseen but to touch that which we cannot touch in a sense... Or to detect things in the air that have no scent to our sensory apparatus, but are quite noticeably tangible in their ability to kill us at any number of varying rates... Or the ability to have a sense of conceptual or perceptual taste for art or music or even styles and forms of logical deduction or forms of thinking and modes of thought... To develop and refine our pallets through the exploration of the spectrum of flavors of information that we are able to perceive especially when we do so at the edge of what we are capable of perceiving, is how we gain our most profound insights... It is in that which we are currently unable to know that we will find that which we do not yet know... Just a little food for thought that seemed to be in good taste to be commented here I think it just makes sense to posit in light of your statement about rendering things meaningless. Might be a bit much to digest, my apologies for the lengthy comment, I hope it is of value instead of just being a tldr sort of deal 😅🤙🏾

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Oh to be fair, this is why Ayer says “in theory” verifiable for these reasons, but it is still a good point

  • @kabukiknight4902
    @kabukiknight49025 ай бұрын

    In my spiritual perspective, I assert that the universe is not inherently real. Drawing inspiration from the Vedas, they convey that for humans, identity transcends the confines of name and body; the ego, or the "me," ceases to exist upon realizing one's true nature. This self-awareness emerges when one detaches from the worldly illusions, acknowledging that everything is interconnected, and that the essence of oneself and the divine are indistinguishably united. The perceived reality of this world is a veil worn by those yet to uncover the truth, obscured by the glasses of individuality-commonly known as "me," "myself," or "I." Liberation from this illusion requires seeking one's dormant true self within, achieved through detachment from worldly attachments. It is through this journey that the realization dawns: the divine essence resides within oneself.

  • @AMARK1NG
    @AMARK1NG5 ай бұрын

    Bon Visionage 😁🇨🇵

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you!

  • @7erudite.
    @7erudite.5 ай бұрын

    Are practices in arts, culture, literature metaphysical?i think they are useful with some tinge of metaphysics

  • @havenbastion
    @havenbastion5 ай бұрын

    Morality is a personal understanding of best practices. Ethics is best understood as formalized, usually shared, morality.

  • @ericb9804
    @ericb98045 ай бұрын

    Sort of...Yes, philosophy as "pursuit of fundamental truth" or "necessary conditions of knowledge" or some such gibberish is dumb, as in speechless. The "meaning is verification" of the positivists became the "truth is justification" of the pragmatists, following the linguistic turn to its iconoclastic end. They are still with us, and for them philosophy, even logic, is best thought of as a type of therapy, which many of us can attest to.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    I so want to make a video on the pragmatists. I studied with Hasok Chang and meeting Huw Price was one of the highlights of my time at university

  • @ericb9804

    @ericb9804

    5 ай бұрын

    ​@@unsolicitedadvice9198 nice. I definitely got that vibe. I advocate for pragmatism every chance I get. Now I'm subbed and notified so...Do it. But you have to mention Rorty.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    I may have to treat them one-by-one. I would love to follow the old roots of pragmatism in James and Peirce through Rorty and Brandom to Mizak and Price, but I fear if I do it in one video it will be 4 hours long P.S. thanks for subscribing :)

  • @monadoboiii
    @monadoboiii5 ай бұрын

    For me, philosophy is a sense of meaning, I love to mix philosophy with psychology to see the world through different lenses, to understand why people act like they do, to help my dear ones become what they want to become, to understand myself why I act like I do. Metaphysics can be meaningful in my eyes though, when philosophy, psychology or science can't explain something, before becoming a madman because you can't understand what the truth is, you can rely on metaphysics, does that mean metaphysical answers are true? No, their purpose is to at least have an answer for something

  • @izzymosley1970
    @izzymosley19705 ай бұрын

    This is a very well-made and interesting video but I disagree with the philosophy being discussed because I believe there are things that are extremely important but cannot be verified by observing the physical world for example the the question of how you should live your life or if God exists are some of the most important questions you can possibly ask because they influence every other choice you make in your life so they demand an answer even if you can't find an answer in the physical world.

  • @athanasios328
    @athanasios3285 ай бұрын

    It still remains that the verification principle is unjustified. It’s no different than a religious metaphysical claim by its own standards. It just keeps begging the question.

  • @alicewright4322
    @alicewright43225 ай бұрын

    10:00 can't we change the moral arguments into tautological arguments by shifting from "wrong" to "illegal" -eg. murder is illegal because either we put that into the definition or because a book of laws defines it as illegal? also, animals murder all the time and it is seldom called wrong, because they have not made laws calling it 'illegal". Humans are just animals. I can't help but agree with the somewhat flawed Hobbesian logic that things became wrong when we made a contract calling them wrong.

  • @hydr3537
    @hydr35375 ай бұрын

    "We can test the statement 'all men are mortal'." Oh no. "By observing some of them." Oh thank god.

  • @unsolicitedadvice9198

    @unsolicitedadvice9198

    5 ай бұрын

    It’s difficult to get that experiment past an ethics board

  • @Marigold11
    @Marigold115 ай бұрын

    Consiousness. The deeping of our involvement of life make philosphies redundant

  • @AngloSaks666
    @AngloSaks6665 ай бұрын

    I'm wearing a logical posti vest right now.

  • @gergelyozsvar9890
    @gergelyozsvar98904 ай бұрын

    Would you read about the CTMU?