>>>One explanation may lie in the workings of the human sensory system.
>>>Human brains and senses are organised in such a manner so as to
>>>facilitate rapid evaluation of social situations and others' states of
>>>mind. Studies have shown that this behaviour is evident in the
>>>choosing of friends and partners and houses, even though it is largely
>>>subconscious. Although it can be a very fast process, the initial
>>>impression has a lasting effect as a byproduct of the brain's tendency
>>>to fill in the gaps of what it perceives and the unwillingness of the
>>>believer to admit a mistake."
>>
>> That is an interesting citation. I was just discussing this with
>> someone else who claimed that I could not be convinced by any facts.
>> But as it turns out, he is the one who cannot be convinced, and my own
>> views turn around not so muchon empirical ("hard") evidence as they do
>> on pointing to those presuppositions which make some facts more
>> apparent or more relevant than others. For instance, when my
>> interlocutor writes
without showing evidence for
>> what is or is not relevant, this is obviously due to a closed-minded
>> and dogmatically-held bias on his part.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
>>
>> In his case, the closed-minded dogmatism is the effect, not of any
>> fact, but of a theory known as scientism. And I have tried to argue
>> that he would only consider those facts relevant to scientism's
>> presuppositions, even when I offer citation after citation
>> demonstrating to him that he has been partially blinded by these
>> dogmatic presuppositions. And in fact his apparently great respect
>> for the facts is not based upon any facts at all, but on a kind of
>> science-worshipping religion.
>>
>> But the Scientism article cited above points out a possible fallacy in
>> employing it merely as a pejorative label. It would of course be
>> necessary to prove scientism, and fortunately this is very easy to do.
>> One can easily see the scientism in efforts to merely dismiss
>> contrary, or perhaps just novel, ideas as irrelevant with the mere
>> "wave of a hand": philosophy -- "irrelevant"; religion --
>> "irrelevant"; any opinions besides my own -- "irrelevant."
>>
>> The danger with simply using the term "scientism" pejoratively is the
>> fact that science has many brilliant and astoundingly good things to
>> say -- except when it engages in scientism, where it then brings
>> itself down to the intellectual level of the simple-minded and
>> religious, and what passes for philosophy, the highest of all the
>> sciences and the apex of reason itself, becomes nothing more than a
>> few tidbits of childish rationalizations passed down from father to
>> son or from professor to student.>
>Seems like a reasonable point of view.
>
>"Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such
>as existence, knowledge, truth, justice, beauty, validity, mind, and
>language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing
>these questions (such as mysticism or mythology) by its critical,
>generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned argument.
>The word philosophy is of Ancient Greek origin: meaning "love of
>knowledge," "love of wisdom."
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
That's one article on philosophy. Here's another one:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~phil/whatis/wsa.html
"Philosophy's goal is nothing less than a systematic world view. Other
fields study particular kinds of things. Philosophy asks how it all
fits together. For example, if you want to learn about bodies, take a
course in physics or biology. If you want to learn about minds, take a
course in psychology. But if you want to learn about how minds are
related to bodies, or how physics is related to psychology, then
philosophy (of mind) is for you. Similarly, economics, political
science, and art and music courses study different values (welfare,
justice, and beauty). Then moral philosophers ask how these values are
similar or different, when one may be traded off against another, and
where any of these values fit into the physical world. Again,
historians try to discover knowledge of the past and astronomers try
to discover knowledge of stars and planets, but only philosophers ask
what makes any of these beliefs knowledge, and how (or whether) we
can have any knowledge at all. Such philosophical questions are very
abstract, but that is what enables them to cover so many different
fields at once.
"This goal also means that you can study anything under the name of
philosophy. Philosophy encompasses subfields called philosophy of
religion, of law, of economics, of biology, of physics, of
mathematics, of computers, of psychology, of art, of music, of
literature, and so on. Any and all of these topics can be studied in a
philosophical way when one asks how they are related to each other in
an overall world view."
--
" If I had remembered that the name 'Galt' appears
in one of her books, I would have chosen a different
name for my character."
Stephen R. Donaldson, "Gradual Interview"
