PHILOSOPHY PATHWAYS Issue 210

II. 'Popper's Verisimilitude: The Scientific Journey from Ignorance to Truth' by Nicholas Anakwue

III. 'J.S. Mill's Notion of Qualitative Superiority of Pleasure: A Reappraisal' by Madhumita Mitra

This issue comprises four articles and is an eclectic mix. I hope there is something of interest for all. Men in pubs (less often women) commonly debate who is the all-time greatest boxer, footballer or tennis player, say (the answers of course are Joe Louis, Pele and Bill Tilden). On confessing an interest in philosophy, I am sometimes asked who I think is the all-time greatest philosopher. In the first article, I argue for my choice of Aristotle. Nicholas Anakwue follows with his article on Popper's verisimilitude [...]

"Those who have spent time arguing instead of studying things as they are show all too clearly that they are incapable of seeing much at all" (Aristotle, "On Generation and Corruption")

Aristotle here urges his students to pick up their cuttlefish to study its form rather than pick up their Plato to study the Forms. Philosophy is a sustained, systematic attempt to understand the world, our place in it and how we should live. Reliable knowledge about the world is a good start, and science is the way to get it. Not that science can tell us all we need to know. That idea is a philosophical one, and science has little to say on some key aspects of human life such as love and spiritual development [...]

II. 'POPPER'S VERISIMILITUDE: THE SCIENTIFIC JOURNEY FROM IGNORANCE TO TRUTH' BY NICHOLAS ANAKWUE

The concepts of truth and science are philosophically interwoven. Science is essentially, a body of knowledge - proven knowledge. And as Russell expresses, truth is wider than knowledge, because truth defines knowledge. Science, as a result, makes its progress, as a body of knowledge, in an increase in or convergence towards truth.

In common parlance, truth is generally held to be the actual, the real. This rests on the basis of the distinction we often utilize in characterizing what is true from what is false. Heidegger tells us, by way of example, that when we speak of 'true gold', we distinguish it from 'false gold', which is 'not actually what it appears to be', a mere 'semblance'. Truth, therefore, is seen in a metaphysical sense to encapsulate the real. In such wise, one can opine that truth is what is. This characterization of truth, thus, raises the historical nuance of the concept's development within the province of philosophy, and its primary instantiation in metaphysics [...]

III. 'J.S. MILL'S NOTION OF QUALITATIVE SUPERIORITY OF PLEASURE: A REAPPRAISAL' BY MADHUMITA MITRA

In this paper, an attempt has been made to provide an account of Mill's notion of qualitative superiority of pleasure. Question might arise: Why venture into such an age-old issue? My humble intention is to clear up certain misunderstandings that I have noticed to occur from his notion of qualitative difference between pleasures.

In the essay Utilitarianism, Mill has distinguished between pleasures on the basis of quality saying that a given pleasure is considered to be qualitatively superior, if it appeals to man's higher faculties. Mill's appeal to higher faculties has led most of the readers to think that he has given emphasis upon intellectual pleasure over sensuous pleasure. This is true indeed! Mill has made a very important distinction between pleasures of reading poetry and that of eating food. But, the question is: in what sense? [...]

Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens (who passed away very recently) are dubbed by media as the four horsemen -- or the four musketeers -- of atheism. But are they really atheists? These guys whose lifetime obsession has been to discuss and write on the non-existence of deity we generally call god in the western context have been famous -- and notorious to irate god believers -- in their articulation of arguments and inferences on the impossibility of god's being. Their attacks are directed towards classic theological statements spelled out by theologians in publications, preached by priests and pastors on pulpits and aired by televangelists on TV, among others [...]

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