Sources have no place in a Philosophical Debate other than to define terms and give counterexamples.

Sure, I'll continue the debate. There are some interesting issues in here. :DYou only responded to my counter case, though. I made a positive case regarding empirical evidence having a bearing on how our brains function, and thus upon how we derive conclusions based on what you called 'philosophical', or logical or mental evidence. Consider your quote:"Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.". How are we to know if rational argument is a reliable way of getting at the truth, or when rational argument is a reliable way of getting at the truth, without consulting evidence about how our brains work?"n a science debate, such empirical evidence supporting one's claim is indeed valid (and probably necessary). However, when discussing philosophy, I believe there is a much higher standard. I believe that for statements and claims to be taken is true, that there must be a logical (or rational) reason."But I don't accept your clean distinction between philosophy and science - all the sciences were once branches of philosophy. Are philosophers forbidden from using empirical evidence? Well if they are, they shouldn't be, because even if they aren't doing philosophy when they consult evidence (and that's just an arbitrary definitional matter - we determine definitions, not the world), evidence has an extremely important bearing on philosophical issues. Are 'rational' reasons superior to empirical reasons? Only if the human mind is not systematically flawed in ways which have a bearing on the philosophical subject matter. And to know if that is the case, you're going to have to read some psychology/neuroscience textbooks. There's an emerging branch of philosophy called experimental philosophy: "Experimental philosophyis an emerging field of philosophical inquirythat makes use ofempiricaldata—often gathered through surveys which probe the intuitions of ordinary people—in order to inform research onphilosophical questions.This use of empirical data is widely seen as opposed to aphilosophical methodologythat relies mainly ona priorijustification, sometimes called "armchair" philosophy by experimental philosophers.Experimental philosophy initially began by focusing on philosophical questions related tointentional action, the putative conflict between free will and determinism, and causal vs. descriptive theories oflinguisticreference" http://en.wikipedia.org..."I think the problem with Con's line of arguments for the use of empirical evidence comes from the fact that it is true that you can always frame an argument from two different angles. You can either prove the claim or prove that the negation of the claim is false."I think I know what you're getting at. If the sun rises every day up until now, that doesn't prove definitively that the sun will rise tomorrow. However, if we observe the sun failing to rise tomorrow that DOES provide a conclusive counterexample to the claim that the sun will rise every day. So for you, who requires exacting standards for philosophical debates, only counterexamples which prove a general statement wrong should be allowed. My question is, why do we not require this standard in other fields of inquiry, but all of a sudden we do when it comes to philosophy? I rely on empirical evidence when deciding whether or not all food is poison, whether jumping out the window of a ten story building will help or harm me, whether I will wake up tomorrow the same person I am today. And scientists obviously don't really follow this doctrine (no matter how much they might claim to be fans of Popper). So, why when it come to philosophical issues are we suddenly hamstrung by a requirement of absolute certainty?