From: Erin (macavity11@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Oct 27 2004 - 02:20:50 BST
Simon Magson <twix_570@hotmail.com> wrote:
ERIN: >You used the example of being thirsty and drinking (drinking is
>observable, your being thirsty isn't
SM: Everybody knows when they are thirsty, it is completely observable by
anyone.
ERIN: I would say everyone experiences thirst. It is not observable though. For example, a young kid at a party is he drinking because he is thirsty or from peer pressure, I don't know because I can not observe his thirst.
SM: Philosophy should start with these simple observations and not some
physiological theory resulting from a chain of deductions. Thirst, like
hunger, pain, heavy, light, hard, soft are all present and immediate in the
real world from which we develop our rhetoric and start philosophising.
ERIN: again the difference one really is observable and the other is reasoned about. It is a reasonable assumption that when somebody drinks he it is because he is experiencing thirst. (but i still think it is the drinking that is being observed not the thirst)
ERIN: >The actions that stem from values are observable but values are not so
>don't feel comfortable with "value is empirical" statement.
SM: The lack of comfort you are describing is itself an empirical value. It
seems you have been conditioned to perceive value in, and ascribe existence
to, only that which you can see.
ERIN: The lack of comfort is when a definition is stretched so far that it is being used in situations that is almost the opposite of the meaning and so the word loses all meaning. NO, I am not conditioned to perceive value to only what I can see, I am "conditioned" to using the dictionary meanings and applying the word empirical to which is observable (not only see, but hear, touch, taste, etc. JUST SO IT IS OBSERVABLE). I do experience values that are not observable but ***I*** don't label them as "empirical",
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