This House Believes That Sense Experience Is The Ultimate Source of Knowledge!

Thank you to Con for a very intriguing debate. Stretched some muscles I never knew I had. I'll start with an overview. Con accuses me of quite a bit in this last round, but the strangest of his accusations comes in yet another modification to the burdens he's setting on me. My burdens in this debate are very simple: Show that empiricism is a way to garner substantial knowledge, and Show that rationalism is not It was never my burden to argue against any possible method of acquisition, as we established from the start that this was a debate between empiricism and rationalism as sources of knowledge. As I stated in the previous round, it would be absurd to force me to make a negative argument against all possible ways knowledge could theoretically be garnered. It's also unreasonable considering that my opponent's sole burden is to prove that rationalism can create substantive knowledge. Con goes further, stating that my perspective is logical positivism (note that those two words never appear in my arguments) and that it is my burden to defend it directly. However, I'm arguing for empiricism. I may have taken certain arguments from logical positivists, but that doesn't make it the philosophy I need to defend. Stranger still, he says that I cannot defend that view with just examples, and yet constantly demands examples throughout the debate to disprove his ideas. It seems that Con has a bad habit of shifting the goalposts when it's convenient for him. But the burdens were clearly laid out in R1. He never provides any direct rebuttal of that, just claims. 1. Empirical evidence leading to knowledge. This is basically conceded. Con, in fact, states in this final round that that he believes “that empirical knowledge exists,” which means he's granting me #1 of my burdens. This is huge, because it means that the sole burden left for me is to show that rationalism doesn't produce substantial knowledge, as I will show I have done. The sole way in which he contends this is not substantial is that it is subjective. But this is fundamentally absurd, and his responses to my examples just prove my point. The fact that a table may be stable for some and not for others doesn't make it any less solid – no one can pass their hand through a block of wood. The fact that some people can't feel heat doesn't mean they won't get burned by boiling water, proving that it is, in fact, hot. These are empirically true. Empirical knowledge is the truth of the world around us, and even if that truth is subjective in some instances, it establishes a substantial portion of that knowledge base. So long as that is true, I've fulfilled burden #1. The rest of the debate is just about burden #2. He contends that my theory is incorrect as well, restating an inconsistency that I've already responded to. Con never actually touches that rebuttal – he can't in the final round. Even if he's winning this response, I don't have to win the theory to win the debate. As I made clear in the burdens analysis, it is not my burden to prove the theory of logical positivism true. 2. Truth and Intuition Con continues to drop the majority of my analysis on these two points, which means that, by themselves, without ever looking down at the three issues Con has made so integral to his case, voters can be pulling the trigger here. Twice now, he's argued that my definitions aren't good because they don't fit with his case, but never once has he offered a competing definition. That means that these are the sole definitions in the debate. Even if they're flawed, they must by necessity outweigh the nonexistent definitions of Con. So voters should be buying my argument that, while rationalism may provide us with a concept for further research, it is insufficient to establish any real truth. Moreover, voters should buy my arguments that knowledge of the external world is necessary in order to establish truth. Most importantly, voters should buy my argument that knowledge of the truth is the sole substantial knowledge available – Con has presented absolutely no reason why other forms of knowledge can be considered substantial. We are debating whether empiricism and/or rationalism can establish the truth, not just generate ideas. Lastly, voters should buy my points on intuition, which is the sole mechanism that Con articulates for receiving knowledge a priori. If intuition itself is flawed – and I've shown that it is inherently assumptive by my definition – then a priori knowledge can never be truth, and therefore Con will have lost this debate. Buy any of these three points, and the debate is over. 3. Mathematics I argued that there is a distinction between applied and pure mathematics. I stated that the former is the sole way by which the truth is found about the external world. Even if Con is right that there are some portions of mathematics that are a priori, they don't hold any certain truths of the world around us until they are empirically proven. There is a difference – one is proven, the other not. The sole way in which he decides to prove there is no difference is to present two different equations with two very different purposes. The first equation is not applied, and produces two different results, only one of which can be true. It actually proves the lack of applicability. The latter is an equation using 'cos' (which stands for cosine) and produces a single, real number. If that number is generated using real data, then it is true. If it uses hypothetical values without evidence, then its results are similarly lacking that evidence. And no, the ratio is not theoretical. That's why this is applied. Con states that Frege's system was dismissed without ever tackling the point being made. If it can be so easily dismissed, then Con needs to show why. The lack of that information is glaring. His only proof that it is wrong was Russell's paradox, which I already showed Frege responded to convincingly. I've shown that Kant's argument that analytic statements are defined by the predicate containing the derivative is overly simplistic – Con dropped that as well. So long as he has not defended the syntheticity of any given mathematical statement, this entire contention falls away. Con makes no effort to counter any of the examples I presented of a posteriori. Without mathematics being synthetic, he has no solid link to its being a priori. At best for him, this leaves us uncertain, and there needs to be certainty that mathematics is a priori in order for Con to win on this point or any of the others. He also drops my point that both his space and time arguments depend on this being a priori. If it's not, they're not either. But generally, Con has put himself in a bad place. He's stated that mathematics is inherently unprovable, which, by my definitions, means it doesn't provide any substantial knowledge, since it doesn't prove truths of the external world. He drops my analysis about how we don't have to intuit the truth of an equation, and he provides no mechanism by which intuition can be used to determine whether equations with larger numbers are true. Hence his main example here falls away. 4. Space Con drops my overview, where I state that the use of intuition only sets a basis for understanding things, and does not produce actual truths, since scientific inquiry is necessary to test them. Since both of Con's space and time analyses don't allow for the possibility that they may conflict with our scientific findings, they are inapplicable as truths. Without the ability to verify these supposed truths, I've shown that we should opt for skepticism. Con never responded. Con similarly drops that sensations go beyond sensory organs, and therefore that we can sense both time and space as physical entities. In this, Con had to state where the line is drawn between the physical and psychological aspects of both space and time. He has made no effort to do so, instead just asserting that there is a line and it's been drawn by other people, though he doesn't state how or why. Most importantly, Con drops my analysis that the sole way in which space – the psychological relation between two objects – exists is if actual objects exist to provide that relation. Without those objects, space, even as a psychological concept doesn't exist. The a posteriori world, therefore, is required for space to exist, making space a posteriori as well. 5. Time Con drops my response that events are required for the psychological passage of time, and since those events are a posteriori, time similarly must be. Lastly, he drops my analysis from Dummett, who says that time is, in fact, entirely measurable, and provides a basis for understanding that. For the second time, his sole response is the very same appeal to authority he accuses me of, claiming that Einstein disagrees with me. If that's the case, Con should be able to show where that disagreement exists and why Einstein's views should be preferred. As he has not, and as I have both cited and explained Dummett's views and how they factor into this debate, my argument outweighs his. Conclusions There was a lot of complexity to this debate, but it all boils down to the basic burdens I outlined above. Voters should be asking themselves by the end of this debate if rationalism can become a way to determine the truth of things in the external world, not just if it's a source of ideas that may or may not be verifiable. Did Con uphold his basic burden? I would say not. He dropped too much to do so – and note that Con cannot use new arguments or rebuttals in the final round. The mere generation of knowledge is not enough – it has to be knowledge of the truth, and Con has in no way proven that. The only certainty we have in this debate is that empiricism does generate truthful knowledge, even if not every empirically derived truth is objective. With no certainty on rationalism, empiricism is the only reasonable vote.