Kent Stevens

It would appear that there are some basic ideas that do not need much further justification. Or if such a justification is given for a basic idea it uses another basic idea. Or if a justification is given it tends to use the same basic idea in the justification which is circular reasoning which is not valid.

Some of the basic ideas suggested are the desire for truth, the desire for happiness, the desire to do what you want, and the desire for morality.

In an example of this you may desire to have truth or an accurate representation of reality in order to be happy. You may then try justifying happiness with saying that it is morally good that you try to be happy.

Later on in response to the question why ought I be moral? someone might say that they feel better if they act morally. But this is equivalent to justifying morality because it makes them feel happier if they act morally.

So in one instance morality was used to justify happiness, but in another instance happiness was used to justify morality.

Another group of basic ideas are related to reason. This might include the principle of induction which is generalisation from examples. Or there could be the idea of Empiricism which is that our senses correspond to the external world. Another basic idea could be consistency or not getting someone to use contradictions as true statements. More generally there is reason itself.

If you start giving justifications for these things related to reason you tend to get into circular reasoning which is not valid. So you tend to just assume these ideas work. To justify the use of generalisation from examples we tend to use generalisations to justify this. In order to prove Empiricism we tend to use facts that for their truth value are based on our senses corresponding to reality. In order to prove consistency we tend to use premises that are not inconsistent with each other or with the resulting conclusion. In order to justify using reasoning we tend to use reasoning.

Reasoning also tends to rely on some other basic ideas, some of which are just given here. The idea that at least some statements are true. The idea that some statements at least are false. The idea that the person reasoning exists or that I exist. In order to do reasoning you may be desiring after the truth of things.

You could also argue fo the existence of basic ideas based on continually justifying a statement chosen at random. What this would mean is taking a statement and then ask why you agree or disagree with the statement. The answer to this question is then taken and the same question is asked. This questioning of resulting statements keeps on going until you feel honestly like giving up on justifying statements. When this occurs you have hit an idea that is basic and does not need further justification.

An example is the justification for having a cup of coffee. Why? Because I like coffee. Why? In my experience I like coffee. Why? Experience is a good way to the truth. Why? truth is desirable. Why? truth leads to happiness. Why? It is morally good if you pursue happiness. Why? It just is.

The reasoning that basic ideas exist is similar to reasoning that things exist that cannot be further divided. Say you take an apple and cut it in half. You then divide one of those parts by half. You keep on dividing resulting selected parts but this process does not keep on going forever, therefore there are some things that are not further dividable. You could call these things not further capable of division as atoms or elementary particles.

You could use the term basic idea to refer to ideas that are without needing further justification or to an idea that is close to not needing further justification. A basic idea might be the right to pursue happiness. This is close to the basic idea of desiring happiness which is hard to further justify.

You could use the term basic ideas to certain rare ideas simply because you find it a convenient and appropriate term to use, similar say to the term self-evident truths or obvious ideas.

We could say that some rare basic ideas are like atoms or elementary parts without a further justification being needed for them. If basic ideas exist does that mean that philosophers or social scientists could come up with a periodic table of sorts for basic ideas?

Synaesthesia

I suspect that our basic ideas themselves are composed of other elements which are themselves influenced by the conclusions we reach with the help of our "basic" ideas. There is nothing paradoxical about such bootstrapping, in fact I doubt the degree of intelligence we possess would not be possible without such feedback loops.

Everything is up for grabs, it's just that we find it useful to change some things more than others. The appearance of unchangingness should not be mistaken for immutability.

Ahem! Forgive the rambling, my thoughts on this issue are still not very well formed. Ironically, this area is very basic to my personal epistemic philosophy. I reject presuppositionalist ideas not merely because of the obvious absurdity of cases such as Christian Presuppositionalism <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> , but because there are many times when we must answer questions about answers that our questions presuppose.

IslamExposed.Com

There is no such thing as "moral" or morals!

Those are altruistic and certainly religious concepts which have no place in reality.

When all is investigated fully, what we find is only justice and injustice. Morals and ethics are smoke screens used to hide behind in order to avoid dealing with the true meaning of justice.

In dealing with justice honestly, religion is done away with automatically and whim worshipers are exposed for what they are-emotional and illogical cowards who lack any intellectual integrity with regards to objective reality.

[ March 09, 2002: Message edited by: IslamExposed.Com ]</p>

Kent Stevens

I suppose that one of the objections to there being basic ideas is that we could have circularity in our justifications instead. We could have A being justified by B which in turn is justified by C which is justified by A. In this case the experience of digging down to more basic ideas would be illusionary when were just jumping up and down between simpler and more complex ideas instead.

But in terms of continuous justification you tend to get the experience of going from specific to general ideas and from individually accepted ideas to broadly accepted ideas.

For example continuous justification for liking fast cars could be the following. I like going fast. Why? Going fast is exhilarating. Why? Exhilarating is enjoyable. Why? It just is. In this case we have gone from the specific of fast cars to the general emotion of exhilaration.

If presuppositionism is wrong how do you reason this to be so? Where does the tendency to reason come from or is reason something just accepted without further question? Is reason something presupposed?

The term morals are good to referring to some of the following statements. It is wrong to steal, people should not murder, and people should not commit perjury. Justice is a general term that does not refer to indivual statements like the ones given.

More generally there are synonyms and similar words for some of the basic ideas suggested. For the desire for morality we could use justice, ethics, and integrity instead of the term morality. In the desire for happiness we could use enjoyment, likes, or pleasure instead of the term happiness. In the desire to do what you want you could use choice, will, or goal instead or the term want.

jpbrooks

Kent,

please define the terms "basic" and "justification" in the context of your opening post.
The "justification" of morality, for example, can involve psychology, sociology, or politics.

Jonsey3333

This is interesting. Exciting. How many basic ideas do you suppose there are? Reason, morality, Empiricism....

-Mike

UniversalParadox

wouldnt the "elements" be somewhat if not entirely subjective though? "going fast is exhilirating" why? "it just is" but for some people its boring. and morality is in the eye of the beholder as well.

excreationist

I think our brain is continuously compelled to seek/repeat pleasure signals and avoid pain signals.

It decides what to do in a deterministic way by seeing how intense the various signals are and works out the course of action that is expected to maximise the pleasure signals and/or minimize the pain signals. And then the brain does what it determines was the best course of action

I believe that it is impossible to over-ride this deterministic motivational system. And without it we wouldn't be motivated to do anything.

Here are what I think the main fundamental pleasures and pains are:
Note that different people have different sensitivities to these pleasures and pains, and it is possible to associate pleasure with pain (in the case of thrill-seeking masochism) or pain with pleasure (in the case of guilty puritans).

Pleasures:

connectedness (belonging/security/completeness)
- motivates environmentalism, social bonding, perfectionism, routine/habits, aligning reality to your desires [power] (or your desires to reality [contentment]).

newness (danger/thrills/surprises)
- motivates exploration, discovery, risk-taking.

relief (end of tension, relaxation)
- motivates relaxation of muscles for health

sexual attraction/stimulation
- motivates the seeking of sex

orgasms
- rewards sex

sucking (kissing, chewing)
- motivates babies to suckle

sweet, salty, fatty tastes
- were important to the primitive human diet

Pains:

physical pain
- instinctually humans cry out, in order to attract rescuers

frustration
- when a goal seems too hard or impossible

hunger, thirst

bitter foods (and maybe sour foods)
- were normally not full of vital nutrients [like protein] or were harmful

bad smells
- dead bodies, etc - I think we are instinctively repulsed by it.

unfamiliarity
- not sure if this is learnt or instinctual though.

There are also things like adrenaline - but that is covered in newness really... I haven't read much about what scientists have written about the motivations we have. I don't think they've said much about my "connectedness" pleasure.

Kent Stevens

Basic = simplest or lowest in level.

We could also use the term fundamental instead of basic but partly because this is used in a religious context I am reluctant to use it. Basic in this context means an idea that does not really need further justification.

Justification here is only in the sense of someone vindicating why they support or do not support a statement. This is not explanation in terms of some social science theory of why someone supports a given statement. If you go to Los Angeles you do not give some social theory as to why you do this but you might say that you want to see Hollywood and have fun.

There are at least three main basic ideas which consist of reason, morality, and happiness. Part of reason is that you want truth or an accurate representation of reality. For otherwise why bother reasoning if you are content with falsehood. Part of happiness could be that you do what you want to do.

People get happiness in different ways. Some people might enjoy fast cars while others hate them. What is common to both sets of people could be the desire for happiness. The right to pursue happiness if you believe in it has to be quite broad and allow freedom of choice. Morality is partly subjective but few people tell others that they should do wrong things to the one talking.

Synaesthesia

Kent,
I don’t think that the idea of trying to isolate semantic units is totally misguided, I just think that in the search for such elements, many philosophers have “too enthusiastically projected the categories of language back at our minds”. And, as I discussed before, such units are unlikely to be “fundamental” in a static and unambiguous sense.

Of course we assume that valid reasoning ought to be accepted. However, it is not insignificant that it is difficult to be more clear about what we mean by “reason” than “that which is reasonable”. Throughout history and throughout our lives, the conception of reason is in a state of flux. WHY a thing is reasonable and why our particular draft of “reason” is reasonable is always an open question.

If epistemology is one thing, I’d say that it is not one thing. Presuppositionalists dogmatically reject inevitable contradictions that arise between existing ideas and new ones. It is a commitment to our errors and an assurance that our successes will not multiply.

Regards,
Synaesthesia

“If every meaning in a mind depends on other meanings in that mind, does that make things too ill-defined to make a scientific project work? No, even when thing go in circles, there still are scientific things to do! Just make new kinds of theories - about those circles themselves! The older theories only tried to hide the circularities. But that lost all the richness of our wondrous human meaning-webs; the networks in our human minds are probably more complex than any other structure Science ever contemplated in the past. Accordingly, the detailed theories of Artificial Intelligence will probably need, eventually, some very complicated theories. But that's life, too.” -Marvin Minsky