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People: D. C. Stove

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Rainer

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Sorry if he has been discussed before, I was having trouble with the search feature.

Has anyone else encountered D. C. Stove? From what I've read of his, he seems like a truly great philosopher. He didn't have a "philosophy" exactly, but he spent most of his time trying to destroy other philosophical doctrines. Anyways, I'm short on granting him my respect until I read into him a bit more. But I thought I'd say something about him on here.

[MISCELLANEOUS FORUM, MODERATOR: With poster's permission, edited to remove links that possibly violate Forum Rules against posting primarily to advertise other sites, especially those contrary to the purpose of this forum.]

Edited by BurgessLau
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... I was having trouble with the search feature...

I've found that the search does not like words that are 3 letters or less.

So, searching for D. C. Stove will not work, unless you search for the entire text, by putting it within quotations, thus: "D. C. Stove". Ofcourse, this has its downside, so you might simply search for the word "Stove".

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Sorry if he has been discussed before, I was having trouble with the search feature.

Has anyone else encountered D. C. Stove?  From what I've read of his, he seems like a truly great philosopher.  He didn't have a "philosophy" exactly, but he spent most of his time trying to destroy other philosophical doctrines.  Anyways, I'm short on granting him my respect until I read into him a bit more.  But I thought I'd say something about him on here.

Here are a couple of links.

Your post may be violating the Forum Rules against posting mainly to advertise other websites. You provide almost no information except a link to another alleged philosopher.

To avoid a violation, would you agree to have me delete the links temporarily until you have completed your reading and assessment and can come back to tell us your conclusions?

Also, could you explain how one could be a truly great philosopher and not have a philosophy?

MISCELLANEOUS FORUM MODERATOR

Edited by BurgessLau
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Very sorry, didn't realize I might have broken some rules.

Remove the links if you wish.

No problem. Now we can discuss the question I posed:

"Also, could you explain how one could be a truly great philosopher and not have a philosophy?"

In one sense, doesn't everyone have a philosophy of some sort -- at least by implication? For example, a critic who points out flaws in the formal logic of another's philosophy is assuming, is he not, that logic helps us connect our ideas to the world, right?

By using Ayn Rand's skills of philosophical detection, you might uncover the basic tenets of Stove's philosophy.

[Edited to add point about philosophical detection and clarify other text.]

Edited by BurgessLau
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Yes, you are right. I didn't think my post through when I wrote it.  I was meaning to ask and kept forgetting, and when I remembered and when I was online I had to go right away.  So I wrote in haste.

From what I've seen, Stove is Aristotelian.

I won't dismiss Stove out of hand, but the fact he is anti-evolution does make me question him. Do you know his position on religion?

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From what I've seen, he is "anti-Darwinist" but I don't think he is against the theory of evolution. Darwinism, if it is to be taken as a philosophical doctrine, contradicts simple common sense observations about our own species. We are an exception to some of the generalizations of that theory.

I don't think he has mentioned God in any of the articles he has written online.

This is weird, talking about another philosopher here...maybe inappropriate. But anyways, I just wanted to point you guys in that direction. It is nice to see a philosopher who is for reason but is against materialism, and not with Objectivism. A rare breed.

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Also, as an aside, I think one the greatest threats to reason is coming from scientific materialists. Kantians and Marxists are horrid, but I think that thousands of conceited 24 year olds have replaced God, not with society, but with the "scientific method."

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Also, as an aside, I think one the greatest threats to reason is coming from scientific materialists.  Kantians and Marxists are horrid, but I think that thousands of conceited 24 year olds have replaced God, not with society, but with the "scientific method."

Could you explain what you mean by that last sentence?

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Has anyone else encountered D. C. Stove?

Setting aside issues about forum rules and posting links to the works of philosophers who aren't Objectivists, I've encountered Stove in the context of his bashing of irrationalist epistemology, i.e. "Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists". If you're interested in philosophy of science, I recommend it (OTOH I'm guessing you've read it). My approval doesn't go beyond that work, but only because I haven't read anything else of his.

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Yeah, I really liked the first chapter of the book. I'd love to write about irrational, scientific epistemology from an Objectivism-influenced viewpoint. But I have a feeling some one will beat me to it.

Tom Rexton, have you ever heard of the bizzare statement: "Science is the new religion"? It is contradictory in a sense, but there really is a limited way of discussing the issue. I talked to a Darwinian in a debate once--ultimately we traced his ideas back to metaphysical materialism. That is dangerous. Materialists are just as mystical as the religious--the only difference is that the former claims to worship "science" that isn't really rational; the latter worships God.

"Scientific materialism" and "scientism" also pop into mind. Essentially, they deny both deny reason, while at the same time claim to worship it. At least religious people are straight forward and honest when they say they worship something irrational--those freaks who ascribe to scientism are the opposite "rationally speaking, we don't have consciousness."

I've had discussions on ethics, and one cannot say to such people that Objectivist ethics is a scientific explanation of ethics--because in their minds, "science" denies ethics. It can be frustrating because those people are everywhere.

"Ethics doesn't exist--and even if it did, we could never know it because philosophy has no 'method' like science does. Only the 'scientific method' can give us objective knowledge of reality. We can't observe and test ethical theories."

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Yeah, I really liked the first chapter of the book.  I'd love to write about irrational, scientific epistemology from an Objectivism-influenced viewpoint.  But I have a feeling some one will beat me to it. 

Tom Rexton, have you ever heard of the bizzare statement: "Science is the new religion"? 

"Scientific materialism" and "scientism" also pop into mind.  Essentially, they deny both deny reason, while at the same time claim to worship it.  At least religious people are straight forward and honest when they say they worship something irrational--those freaks who ascribe to scientism are the opposite "rationally speaking, we don't have consciousness."

I know what you are talking about. It's essentially the progression of "post-modernism" infiltrating all areas, like a virus of nothingness (ever seen the Never Ending Story ?).

When a friend was trying to get me interested in Physics, esp. Quantum Mechanics, I blew him off and made fun of him because it sounded like religion to me even then (the way he described the "New Physics"). Then, because he has been a friend for a very long time, I tried to give him (and the other *experts* who he's based all this on) the benefit of the doubt.

Mostly (as I understand it) the manifestation comes with to a head with the many-worlds theory, or many-minds, but you can see the influence all throughout, although admittedly I am a layman. I eventually stopped talking to this friend (we had nothing in common anymore) but I was still wondering what the hell was the deal with all this weird science. I guess it's just another leak in the sinking ship. :)

Luckily Stephen Speicher showed me a rational explanation for the same QM phenomenons, and for now I'm holed up with my Objectivism books and leaving the weird science for when I go back to school.

Anyway, my friend did mention that he wanted science to be his religion, which I thought was a joke until I tried to seriously follow his reasoning.

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I had a bit of a snit fit with QM to which Speicher saw...I regret that...I have a lot of respect for him. Harriman, is that the guy's name? The Objectivist physicist.

The many-worlds interpretation has been linked to Berkeley--who was a God Damn Bishop.

Anyways, the Copenhagen interpretation is the one that is the most messed up. It is only an interpretation. It is only a reflection of irrational epistemology and metaphysics. You can even trace the similarities between the interpretation and the epistemology from Popper and Kuhn and Lakatos and ultimately Kant. It is pretty interesting.

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Harriman, is that the guy's name?  The Objectivist physicist.

Oooh cool, Thanks for the tip. I looked him up and I found this

Should keep me busy for a while. Maybe I'll actually be good at math (and science) when I get back to school-now that I can understand the why of it. ;)

(Edited to add science to the equation)

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