Quote from stefan_777:
I'm a philosophy major.
Understanding logic and the various logical fallacies helps with trading, and approaching life in general, because it helps to know the distinction between calm rational thought and emotional foolishness (a very fine line in trading I might add).
But the empiricists screw up logic, science, mathematics, common sense, (philosophy in general) because of their skepticism. If they were alive today, they would probably screw up trading philosophy too. 
Although it's great to wear the Hume hat once in a while to destroy people's various assumptions, I try and take that hat off when I sit down and try to calmly interpret my data while trading.
Cutten's remarks were right on in introducing the importance of using philosophy to sharpen and differentiate the mind.
Empiricists don't really undermine logic and logical falacies but they did establish who the assigns what to whom in the interelationships that are important to understand.
The Philosophy Department at Columbia had a course that pin point's Cutten's viewpoint. Then it was tuaght by Prof Danto but I'm sure it exists today under someone's tutelage: The Philosophy of History. The term of history need not be long. Often the stellar examples provided dealt with how to handle the future in terms of the past. Balancing the importance of things on the fulcrum of the Present is best explained philosophically and applied scientifically and emotionally.
Skeptics do not deal with trust; they trade on it.
The partnership with the market is founded on trust without exception. If a trader creates illusions, then it is in the absence of trust.
There are many reasons why traders do not trust mostly because trust is not an intellectual determination.
Behavioral finance has become a graduate major and many papers are churned from academia nowadays. Just following Lo's career is a lesson in itself.
A trader's foundation is strongest when he gets past the provisional aspects of his relationship to the market.
Cutten shows how "acceptance" works in establishing that foundation properly.
The balance of taking the offer and having trust appear in the trade/market partnership is stunning.
Until you put the hat in the closet, you will not begin to have a foundation. Intimacy comes from listening and accepting. There is nothing provisional. Acceptance is not intellectual.
Most people figure out the markets, i. e., create their illusion of the market. A philosophical alternative is to listen and accept. what appears as a consequence is trust in the trader/market partnership. This is an explicit and intimate thing.
The logic is:
Listen>>>>accept>>>>trust>>>>>value.
If you have trust in the partnership, then you can listen and have the market's offer present. The principal value of the trader/market partnership is the great value of the offer.
The great value of the offer is that it is real and has supreme utility that came from the relationship logically and not intellectually.
A very subordinant consideration is why the market is trusted. I spoke about the trader's requirement...... Listen , etc.... What is the reciprocal market's requirement. NADA the market has no requirement in the partnership.
In logic, the market is always correct. This is a unilateral proposition that comes from (is based upon) the flow of information.
Why is the market trusted?
A. Because the trader listens>> accepts>>> has trust appear>>> and see's value
B. Because the market is always right.
C. Because BOTH are a requirement for the trader partnership to work.
So what did your learn to trade expereince become? It was a violation of the above. Reread the Shizso (sp) post. He didn't make it.
He is in the Fight or Flight Response (FFR) and 0 --2 deprived according to the Bohr Effect (BE). So are most of the other thread respondants.
What is getting an edge? It is maintaining FFR and BE and not having C because A was not done and probably cannot be done from this point on because of conditioning and mental differentiation. Too bad.
Cutten is correct and adding Philosophy of History may get you oriented to the market.
But what gets you oriented to "you" and the requirement you are facing to have Trust appear in you trader/market partnership? Those courses, so far, haven't appeared. Courses come from research and applied results of research.
LO, et al (MIT) did the "sweat tests" to determine FFR and BE are dominant in big money traders. He definitely proved what Shizso describes as his "real" trading/market partnership. You all accepted it and complimented him.
The emotions of trading in a FFR and BE state (up to 50% 0 --2 deprived) are fear, anxiety and anger. The sympathetic state medically and psychologically speaking.
What does it take to trade parasympathetically?
Trust>>>>value>>>parasympathetic>>>>trader/market optimum relationship.
Measure yourself and find out what coherence means. Incoherence is associated with the sympathetic state. Get an emvawe pc that measures, by fourier analysis the heart waveform spectrum. Don't just do stress measurments as behavioral finance is stuck with nowadays. Measure coherence (non stress) that results from A above.
I probably should throw in some screen displays.
