Polemic

I am not taking language to be axiomic. But the fact that argumentation only happens within language could be looked uppon as being axiomic. But this view does no work towards the question of knowledge. The reason can be found in the example we are running with. We all know the weaknesses of arguements based on pure observation. So our senses have to be backed by understanding or concepts. Since our understandings/axioms/truths/concepts change in time we are left to the fact that we are in the same place as those before us asking if the world is flat or round and how do we KNOW it to be so. We are left without footing unless we find more common ground. The common ground lies in the fact that language is right or wrong base upon rules, public agrement and relivance to the outside world. These grounds frame our understandings and are not limited to propositions or objectivity. So you know a tree is a tree independent of observation though language. The place we are left is that a tree is a tree because we say its a tree and are correct in doing so. The tree itself becomes pointless as to knowledge of a tree just as knowledge of unicorns is not dependent on observation. So the refutation comes by way of an incomplete understanding of what it take for knowledge. Personal understanding, criteria of any kind and observation all fall short without public agreement and the possibility of being able to be wrong. We are the Dialectic and langauge offers the best possibility of knowledge because it is knowledge.

Keith Russell

Starboy:
Keith, is there a difference between knowledge and truth?

Keith: Absolutely. I view 'truth' as 'reality'. Knowledge is valid information about reality external to the mind. (Even knowledge about the mind is not 'the mind' itself; the mind 'as a whole'.)

'Knowledge' (including knowledge of the mind) exists only within a consciousness. Reality (including the brain and the mind produced by the brain) exists independent of the brain and the mind. Reality is not created or sustained by consciousness.

Starboy: if there were then would any of these possibilities conflict with one another?

What if you took truth out of the equation and all you had was knowledge, what then?

Keith: The situation you describe isn't really possible. 'Knowledge' has to be stored in some physical form; written in books (ink on paper), or in computers (magnetic data on disks), or in a consciousness (DNA and neural structures).

Those forms exist in reality, and are thus part of truth. If you take away truth, there is nothing left to store or comprise the knowledge.

Starboy:
Would this just be a classification of knowledge? I would think that it is possible to hold all three points of view simultaneously. I would also think that in a place where there was no truth--

Keith: I don't think such a place is possible.

Starboy: the objective point of view would be the most useful. If we were practical creatures wouldn’t that be the knowledge we would seek?

Isn’t that what science is, the pursuit of practical knowledge using a method that should result with something that works if you didn’t know the truth?

Keith: You said 'if there was no truth', not if there was no knowledge of truth. Of course the purpose of science is to gain knowledge of reality. (And I have said that I believe that 'truth' is 'reality'.)

So, when we have no knowledge of truth, we employ reason/logic/science to try to discover that knowledge.

But, whether we know it or not, truth (reality) exists.

Keith.

Polemic

You would be correct if a percept could be interchanged with knowledge. But since it is one criteria of knowledge and is not knowledge itself you agrument falls short. Personal understanding is not objective and not cut it as knowledge. You cant be wrong in that you feel, but you can feel incorrectly. ie. You thought you saw a friend of yours but it was really someone else. As to the arguement being an ad hominem arguement I would say read my last post. Truth is a public affair and personl preference or understanding doesnt cut mustard.

Keith Russell

Polemic: I am not taking language to be axiomic. But the fact that argumentation only happens within language could be looked uppon as being axiomic.

Keith: But, debate is not the only means for establishing the accuracy of theories or claims. Scientific experiment is a far better method for determining if a hypothesis is valid, and it does not involve either language or debate.

Polemic: But this view does no work towards the question of knowledge. The reason can be found in the example we are running with. We all know the weaknesses of arguements based on pure observation.

Keith: So, with the above you completely discount all sensory observation? I don't think the question of the accuracy of observation is nearly this simple, nor this monolithic. There are many differnt ways to enhance observation, and many ways in which accurate observation can be hindered.

So our senses have to be backed by understanding or concepts. Since our understandings/axioms/truths/concepts change in time we are left to the fact that we are in the same place as those before us asking if the world is flat or round and how do we KNOW it to be so.

Keith: We're not in the same place at all. They didn't know the earth was spheroid, in fact they thought they knew that it was flat. We are in a completely different place: we know the shape of the earth, primarily because we have made far better observations of the earth than they.

Polemic: We are left without footing unless we find more common ground.

Keith: Again, I disagree. Truth isn't determined by agreement, nor by common ground. When one sees the round shadow of the earth on the moon during an eclipse, one does not need to check with anyone else--one does not need to find 'common ground'--to know the correct (true) shape of this planet.

Polemic: The common ground lies in the fact that language is right or wrong base upon rules, public agrement and relivance to the outside world. These grounds frame our understandings and are not limited to propositions or objectivity. So you know a tree is a tree independent of observation though language. The place we are left is that a tree is a tree because we say its a tree and are correct in doing so.

Keith: Nonsense. We can call a tree anything we wish (whether a word, a sound, a shape, or a symbol) but a tree is what it is--whatever we call it. And it remains what it is, even if we are utterly unaware of its existence.

Polemic: The tree itself becomes pointless as to knowledge of a tree just as knowledge of unicorns is not dependent on observation.

Keith: No one has any knowledge of unicorns. All that exists vis a vis unicorns are claims. Since nothing in external reality corresponds to those claims, the claims should in no way be confused with 'knowledge'.

Polemic: So the refutation comes by way of an incomplete understanding of what it take for knowledge. Personal understanding, criteria of any kind and observation all fall short without public agreement and the possibility of being able to be wrong. We are the Dialectic and langauge offers the best possibility of knowledge because it is knowledge.

Keith: I disagree, and I am using language to communicate my disagreement. But the disagreement did not originate as language, nor is it verified in my mind as language.

Keith.

[ September 19, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]</p>

Starboy

Keith

Is ( (sqr(-1) + 1)(sqr(-1) – 1) = -2 ) reality or truth?

Starboy

Feather

It is neither.

It isn't reality, because it is entirely a conceptual construct--it has no substance. There is no physical entity that is "sqrt(-1)", "-1", "1", or "-2".

And it is true only for algebras defined with the number fields requisite to make the applied operations valid (in particular, the Complex Number field as typically defined in most algebras).

So it isn't (absolute) truth, either.

Starboy

Thank you Feather. That is the point I was trying to make to Keith. There is knowledge that can exist but has no relation to truth or reality. Additionally, it is not necessary to seek "truth" in any substantial way to gain knowledge of reality. That is exactly what science does every day.

Starboy

[ September 19, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Polemic

phaedrus

Galt

Does this mean that my belief that Paris is the Capital of France is a true belief not because Paris really is the Capital of France, but because of something else?

Your knowledge base is a result of your learning, experience and interaction with the knowledge base of the society which is accepted to be "true". How did you first know that Paris is the capital of France? Did you discover the "objective truth" or you just learnt it from a text book or class room or other sources? there could be umpteen number of interpretations but in order for us to function as a society, we form a knowledge base which is subscribed to by the majority. This knowledge is formed due to a process of communication and is a result of common agreement and mutual understanding. As the hermeneutics would put it, truth is a "practical" concept, it is not sitting out there waiting for us to discover, it is made through the process of communicative rationality

Primal

Again, how is this known? How was it proven or reasoned out? Was it just accepted as axiomic?

Err...that is called a point of view or perspective. If you can find faults with it or debate on it...do so...

Keith

This is news to me, and the fact that you say it is so, certainly in no way makes it so. Do you believe that by saying it, we will somehow realize that it is true, or that it will somehow come to be?

Refer to my response to primal and elaborate on your question.

Subjectivity is self-defeating, anyway. If nothing can be known, you can't even know that.

Why make assertions without substantiating them?

JP

Kantian

Primal, subjectivity is not self-defeating, not in the least.

Your statement "subjectivity is self-defeating, anyway...If nothing can be known, you can't even know that" is patently false- unless you'd like to defend your assertions?

~Radical subjectivity~