Jason White wrote:
Rohan McLeod<rhn@jeack.com.au> wrote:
The purpose of the heart is to circulate blood in the organism. That's what it evolved to do, Yes and that is its biological function. Yes This statement is perfectly falsifiable but happens to be true. Good there is no confusion regarding false and falsifiability It's one of many counter-examples to your above assertion. Evolution results in many adaptations which in retrospect we can see serve a purpose; but unless you subscribe to Intelligent Design; evolution itself is without purpose. I would like to claim that insight as my own, but alas it is not.
to the extent that this is important. In any case, modern semantic analysis goes far beyond questions about definitions. Well in conversations with linguistics academics and a quick read of linguistics primers; I found no theory of the purpose of personal or dictionary definitions. without which one has no basis for ranking such. But if you have come across any I am glad to hear about it. That's probably because "definitions" aren't a significant subject of study within semantics, but there are techniques for giving semantic analyses of substantial subsets of natural languages, including philosophically important terms. Well if you know of a linguistic theory of definition; in particular dictionary definitions; the simplest way to falsify my assertion is to state what it is . No. The problem is that many "observations" in science are deeply bound up with theoretical insights that are required in order to understand what the observation is. That's one of the principal arguments against Popper's account of falsification, for example. As stated earlier I don't believe Karl Popper, can receive much blame for my theories. Reading 'observations' as 'observed fact'; I am stating quite explicitly that the particular observed facts, which will falsify a hypothesis are those implicitly or explicitly asserted by the hypothesis you become a philosopher by doing philosophy. And the right way to do philosophy is to engage thoughtfully and critically with the best of what has been thought and developed by others, including your contemporaries. Well I would contend precisely the opposite; a failure to put aside:
"the best of what has been thought and developed by others, including your contemporaries." is " highly likely to be neither original nor interesting"
Likewise, trying to prove a major theorem in mathematics without understanding prior mathematical results is likely to be a futile undertaking.
But the contrary is also true; an encyclopaedic erudition in mathematics may also result in no original theorems !
extensive background in the field.
it's time for you to do some reading. Have fun! Well perhaps we will just have to agree to disagree about that ? Whether you do the reading is a matter for you, of course, but without it, you are very unlikely to understand the issues at stake or to have anything worthwhile to say on the subject. Again I would contend precisely the opposite, especially in philosophy; a failure to inquire independently prior to consulting the literature; will result in little understanding, and the mediocrity so typical of academia.
regards Rohan McLeod ;