You could have an existential crisis if you keep reading about ontology and epistemology. I'm 50/50. Def sad there is no universals, but its also liberating.

You would be classified as a Platonic Realist or Scientific Realist. I am a Fallibilist and Instrumentationalist. Its not that we are denying the usefulness of these claims, we are denying the certainty of our knowledge being divine.

If you want an extremely short book, easy to read, natively English, and the Magnum Opus of a field: Pragmatism by William James.

Separately:

>2 x pi x r = c is a also tautological if that is what you defined c to be. That's obviously not useful.

Idk, I find it useful.

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1718627440 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've read Wikipedia about William James, which includes a quote from "Pragmatism". It indeed seams to state the same you are claiming. That's how I perceive the argument:

We assume there is no absolute truth. (This is ex-ante, an assumption you can't argue about that.)

Therefore we take the word "truth" to mean "social consensus about facts". (Ok, but that's not truth, that is social consensus about facts.)

Given that we proclaim: "The reasons why we call things true is the reason why they are true [...]" (Yeah, that's consistent, but only because you redefined truth to mean exactly that.)

As you see, all the truths are simply random linguistic agreements; there can't be real absolute truth.

Ok, I can see that. But that will lead you to a reductio ad absurdum, because that's just a random thought you have, there is no reason, why I should accept it's the truth. I mean you just told me yourself that it is not the truth.

Also that is really a circular argument.

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resource_waste 16 hours ago | parent [-]

It doesnt really matter if Pragmatism is 'Truth'. Its useful. If its useful, use it. If its not useful, don't use it. There is no knowledge claim here.

It does matter if Platonic Realists are claiming circles are special properties that exist outside our universe. There is a knowledge claim here.

>I don't think knowledge is divine.

You are going to have the existential crisis. Your ontological and epistemological beliefs are about to converge on anti-realism.

I recommend again that book Pragmatism. You will personally benefit from learning about the flaws of Platonic Realism, Monism, and Universals. You will be able to answer questions more accurately.

I know I get book recommendations and I generally ignore them, but I will challenge you to read for ~5-10 minutes. I think you will be hooked:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5116/5116-h/5116-h.htm

	▲	1718627440 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Wow. That left me baffled. You're filtering your philosophy according to what affects you, really? I mean there are some interesting ideas in there, but no elaborate argument matters when it is circular and refusing the very base it stand on. The claim is that circles are a property of the universe. That's not a knowledge claim, that's a claim about truth. > exist outside our universe I never said that. When you monomorph a C++-template, it exists in the final binary. It of course won't be a single thing, it's existing among multiple things. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. > Your ontological and epistemological beliefs are about to converge on anti-realism. Based on Wikipedia about Anti-Realism: no. Something must be logical AND exist to true, otherwise it's merely logical imagination. > It doesn't really matter if Pragmatism is 'Truth'. That sounds like you bend your perception of reality to match your belief. And when it's inconvenient you say it doesn't matter. I really think there is a fallacy here, can you please refute that?

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1718627440 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What do you thing about what I claimed is a fallacy? Like, I think if you don't agree that your perception tells you about the truth, than you can also claim that you are a test tube brain and you won't be wrong. When there is no causality between what you are thinking and reality, your thoughts are just random ideas and don't mean anything. Heck, you don't even know causality exists, because you just don't know anything.

I think this ideas are quite well expressed in: C.S.Lewis "On living in an Atomic Age". For example: https://www.andybannister.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/csl...

(I find it a bit easier to understand in my translation, but that may only be the fact, that english isn't my mother tongue.)

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1718627440 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> we are denying the certainty of our knowledge being divine

I don't think knowledge is divine. Knowledge is quite often wrong and incomplete. But that doesn't affect truth. Truth is independent of knowledge.