I see, so you aren’t really concerned with practical-use applications; you’re more interested in figuring out which areas of philosophy are meaningful. That makes sense, but, on the other hand, can an area of philosophy with a well-established practical use still be meaningless ?
It sure would be surprising if that happened. But meaningfulness is not the only criteria one could apply to a theory. No one thinks Newtonian physics is meaningless, even though everyone thinks Newtonian physics is wrong (i.e. less right than relativity and QM).
In other words, one result of a viable theory of truth would be a formal articulation of “wronger than wrong.”
No one thinks Newtonian physics is meaningless, even though everyone thinks Newtonian physics is wrong (i.e. less right than relativity and QM).
That’s not the same as “wrong”, though. It’s just “less right”, but it’s still good enough to predict the orbit of Venus (though not Mercury), launch a satellite (though not a GPS satellite), or simply lob cannonballs at an enemy fortress, if you are so inclined.
From what I’ve seen, philosophy is more concerned with logical proofs and boolean truth values. If this is true, then perhaps that is the reason why philosophy is so riddled with deep-sounding yet ultimately useless propositions ? We’d be in deep trouble if we couldn’t use Newtonian mechanics just because it’s not as accurate as QM, even though we’re dealing with macro-sized cannonballs moving slower than sound.
I see, so you aren’t really concerned with practical-use applications; you’re more interested in figuring out which areas of philosophy are meaningful. That makes sense, but, on the other hand, can an area of philosophy with a well-established practical use still be meaningless ?
It sure would be surprising if that happened. But meaningfulness is not the only criteria one could apply to a theory. No one thinks Newtonian physics is meaningless, even though everyone thinks Newtonian physics is wrong (i.e. less right than relativity and QM).
In other words, one result of a viable theory of truth would be a formal articulation of “wronger than wrong.”
That’s not the same as “wrong”, though. It’s just “less right”, but it’s still good enough to predict the orbit of Venus (though not Mercury), launch a satellite (though not a GPS satellite), or simply lob cannonballs at an enemy fortress, if you are so inclined.
From what I’ve seen, philosophy is more concerned with logical proofs and boolean truth values. If this is true, then perhaps that is the reason why philosophy is so riddled with deep-sounding yet ultimately useless propositions ? We’d be in deep trouble if we couldn’t use Newtonian mechanics just because it’s not as accurate as QM, even though we’re dealing with macro-sized cannonballs moving slower than sound.