Philosophia Polymathematica

The inspiration for this post came from something I heard a panelist mention at a convention on Japanese anime that I recently attended. Specifically, he attributed the enduring popularity of the genre classics to their effectiveness at making social commentary through interpretive media and metaphorical art. Beyond my immediate appreciation of what was strictly said—as a lay philosopher, particularly one who found his way into philosophy through studying filmic analyses—I could not help but think immediately of interpretive media and metaphorical art’s capacity to make philosophical commentary. In order to better grasp the implications of my assertion, it behooves me to offer a cerebral explanation of the meaning of “interpretive media” and “metaphorical art.” The key to epistemically understanding “interpretive media” is that it includes the word “interpret;” it allows one to interpret what is being shown or heard in one’s own terms. Interpretive media helps offer deeper insights int...

In the previous post, we discussed generally which sentences qualify as statements in logic. In doing so, we established that statements are declarative sentences that have a truth value (i.e., they have the capacity to be either true or false). In this post we will discuss how statements are categorized, based on their contents, as either simple statements or compound statements . Axiomatically enough, as its name suggests, a simple statement is a declarative sentence that pertains to a factual matter or claim thereby imbuing it with its truth value with respect to a single idea. And, by corollary, a compound statement is a declarative sentence that asserts a fact or claim with respect to multiple ideas. The common denominator between both types of statements is that they both carry truth values. The differentiator, however, between the two types of statements is that simple statements lack connectives whereas compound statements necessarily contain them. It bears mentioning that th...

Philosophers , concerned most acutely with gaining wisdom and knowledge, use logic to discern the truth or falsity of propositions in order to form justified, true beliefs. This often requires a diligent, studious approach to abstruse written or verbal statements. Since philosophical language tends to be highly compressed, just a few words in a given statement often contain a lot of information. Consequently, deciphering the exact meaning of statements within a philosophical edifice is not optional. It is instead a sine qua non to prevent misunderstanding the implications and applications of an entire body of work. To develop a robust grounding in how philosophers approach interpreting philosophical statements, it would be highly useful in the first place to, of course, begin with understanding how philosophers conceive of statements themselves. For this purpose, it is critical to know, right at the outset, that statement in logic is a technical term that carries a meaning which is, ...

In philosophical terms, in order for one to have knowledge, one must hold beliefs that are both justified and true. Consequently untrue beliefs necessarily fail to meet the standard to qualify as knowledge. Since divining the truth regarding a given matter can often require balancing one’s curiosity and doubt with openness and acceptance, it would appear that skeptics are uniquely well-positioned to acquire knowledge. Skeptics are inquisitive individuals who question the validity and veracity of claims, ideas, and beliefs. Resistant to the practice of accepting claims at face value, they tend to reserve judgment until presented with at least some form of compelling evidence, proof, testimony, or other suitable basis that speaks to the authenticity of the claim in question. They eventually come to accept the authenticity of claims once their inquisitiveness is sufficiently satisfied. [Note: For purposes of this post, the noun cynic should be construed, in line with one of its vernacula...

As human beings we inescapably use information to form beliefs (i.e., conclusions) on all manner of things. As such, information necessarily constitutes the premises to our beliefs, structuring their very path. Erroneous, irrelevant, or incomplete information would, therefore, misguide any beliefs. Given the sheer volume of information that modern life hurls at us, critically evaluating information in service of the formation of conclusions regarding important matters becomes indispensable. Critically evaluating guidance of any sort is undoubtedly an entire science in and of itself. No singular blog post could ever serve as a sufficient exposition. This post is merely an insufficient exposition on this matter. It should also be mentioned that the best practices discussed ahead are suitable for issues one can, for the most part, think about coldly and objectively (  e.g.,  when considering the recommendation of an alternative route to one’s destination from a taxi driver). On t...

Semantics, a branch of study within the larger disciplines of both philosophy and linguistics, is foundationally connected to the construction and conveyance of meaning. Philosophers routinely practice semantics by analytically studying textual language expressing abstract concepts in order to accurately construe it. However, the practice of semantics need not be reserved for only the philosophers and linguists among us. Given the universality with which practical semantics can boost the construction and meaning of almost any given topic, I believe that both practitioners and theoreticians in most all fields could benefit greatly by developing even a basic, informal system for practicing semantics. What follows is by no means a technical or academic method for practicing semantics; it is merely an imperfect system that I have, with the benefit of a modicum of knowledge on the subject, stumbled upon through experience to enhance my appreciation and understanding of subjects as varied as...

The age-old mantra of knowledge is power suggests, at least at face value, that the acquisition of all knowledge—regardless of its type, quality, or source—is empowering, and therefore worth the cost of time, energy, and opportunities forgone required for its pursuit. This is, in my opinion, for a whole host of reasons, a terribly reductionist notion which, if followed through, would lead one seeking wisdom to suboptimal outcomes vis-à-vis one’s ultimate philosophical goals. This post is dedicated to briefly exploring just one reason why the indiscriminate pursuit of knowledge could be a detriment, instead of a boon, in the sense that it could serve to inhibit one’s comparative, though not absolute, enlightenment. The collation of a select group of philosophical concepts yields my conclusion on this particular matter. First, it must be borne in mind that philosophy defines knowledge as one’s belief that is both justified and true. According to the foundational view of knowledge, our b...

In the immediately preceding post, we considered a select group of closely-related reasons that make practically-useful knowledge potentially worth pursuing. In this post, as promised in the last, we will consider the limitations of, and exceptions to, those reasons. We will do so not to refute the points made earlier but rather to attempt delineating the contours of the parameters within which the merits of the previously stated ideas are maximally valid. This will possibly allow us to temper our judgments regarding pursuing practically-useful knowledge without going unwisely overboard or astray because outside of their parameters those same valid ideas may, to a lesser or greater extent, lose their validity. Such a nuanced approach is indispensable because it allows for the realization of how and when it’s wise to act upon a suggestion in general and how and when to pursue a given body of knowledge in particular. The previous discussion did not allow for the consideration of the inte...

Pursuing knowledge, as with pursuing many things in life, requires a commitment of precious and limited resources such as time and energy. Nonetheless, the pursuit of knowledge that is sufficiently valuable is unarguably a highly worthwhile endeavor. What makes knowledge valuable is itself an intractable question but, at least for purposes of this post, suffice it to say that one criterion that makes knowledge valuable is its practical usefulness (it should be parenthetically mentioned that while knowledge and information mean different things in technical philosophy, this post will use both words in their ordinary, plain-English language meaning and, therefore, interchangeably when appropriate). As can be expected, judging the usefulness of any given unit or piece of knowledge is also quite the trial. Human beings, as mere mortals, have limited abilities and tools to accurately or reasonably predict what the future holds, what types of circumstances one could find themselves in, w...

Though “I don’t know” and “I’m not sure” are sometimes the only wise answers one can provide, there is a substantive difference between the two that people going through the motions of life do not meaningfully understand, much less appreciate. The importance of being able to mark one’s position in uncertainty versus one’s position in ignorance is such that it allows for the realization of when one answer is categorically correct, or at least more appropriate, over another. While the decision regarding whether one is unsure versus ignorant is not rigorously mathematical and is ultimately a personal judgment, I believe that it has a core objective basis. The delineation of ignorance from uncertainty is essentially an epistemological inquiry because the judgment is primarily contingent upon one’s limits of knowledge. Obviously enough, ignorance is the consequence of one having little to no knowledge regarding a given matter whereas uncertainty is a consequence of one having insufficient k...

Philosophers throughout the ages including many of the most preeminent ones such as Rene Descartes, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and John Locke were keenly interested in the epistemological inquiry of how best to gain knowledge. It’s very much in this vein that I have, despite having meritorious thoughts on the matter, often struggled with the question of the meaning of being self-taught. To better round out my understanding, I recently had the opportunity to propose this question to my philosophy club at our most recent meeting. As always, we enjoyed a spirited discussion which involved different and differing viewpoints. What ensued not only helped me better clarify my thinking on this question but also helped me reach a personally satisfying conclusion. The basis of my dilemma on this question is that, at least in general parlance, individuals who independently obtain knowledge in a given area outside of a formal setting are referred to as being self-taught. Such individuals may obtai...

It was through dabbling in stoicism that I gained a better understanding of how I, like so many others, have a hard time excusing other people's bad behavior. Another thing, that I will later in this post relate to this understanding of my tendency, that became apparent to me after joining a stoicism study group was the pattern of divergence in the conclusions formed by novice versus veteran practitioners of this branch of philosophy. I think that while both the approaches of the novice and the veteran help preserve one's tranquility, only the veteran’s approach leads to practical wisdom beyond mere inner peace. Now, for purposes of only this post, allow me to make, and use as a basis for further reasoning, the grossly oversimplified claim that stoicism teaches extending the benefit of the doubt to other people. For example, if someone has broken a previously-made promise or commitment, stoicism would advocate contemplating the possibility of unforeseen circumstances outside of...

It is obvious enough that the mastery of foundational knowledge is a sine qua non to understanding and obtaining advanced knowledge in any given field or discipline. This not only makes foundational knowledge a highly efficient form of knowledge but also makes it indispensably worthy of pursuit. Though this much is intuitive, the significance of foundational knowledge can be better appreciated by an epistemic understanding of its qualitative features. It should first be mentioned that foundational knowledge is highly efficient in the sense that its fundamental principles within any given field are broadly interrelatable to not just other principles within the same field but often also to the fundamental principles of other fields. Naturally, foundational knowledge within a given field will have a great degree of interrelatability within the same field; it will not only be interrelatable to adjacent fundamental principles but in many cases also to intermediate principles within the s...

The thorough understanding, tactical acquisition, and prudent application of legal knowledge to specific factual instances can be greatly enhanced through even a rudimentary epistemological understanding of the different classes or types of knowledge. Knowledge gained from interpreting legal rules—depending on their verbiage, scope, context, and implication—can be of different types. Much can be made of this topic but for purposes of this post we will limit ourselves to only considering how legal knowledge fits into one such type of knowledge: analytic a priori . Before we delve into any particular type of knowledge, it behooves us to first more precisely define the generic word knowledge within the context of legal interpretation. The classical philosophical definition of knowledge is “justified true belief” (JTB). Though the JTB framework can be used for the purposes of our discussion without any serious distortion in the classification of the type of knowledge we are concerned with...

I have a tendency to comprehend most philosophical topics in straightforward and practical ways. This is no different in the case of discerning subjective from objective matters, an issue that philosophers routinely concern themselves with. My basic stance on the subjective-objective divide is that if something is a matter of personal taste, opinion, or preference then it is subjective. As an example, consider the following subjective statement: “Pistachio ice cream tastes better than vanilla ice cream.” The above statement is representative of my personal opinion, based on my taste, and other people are free to, with equal legitimacy, adopt different positions regarding these two popular ice cream flavors. On the other hand, if something is a matter of fact (or dare I use an often-reviled term in informal philosophy circles, truth ) then it is objective (see the example of an objective statement, infra ). This is not to say that I necessarily have a simplistic way of comprehendi...