John Page

Hmmmm. A lot of things may be such a proof. IMO one needs to find out how and why logic "works" and if it can be "generated" without resort to axioms/a prioris. Perhaps in another thread.
But floatman is admitting he may be wrong and therefore not contradicting himself.
Ah, but that's not what I proposed. What I proposed was cancleing out the priviledge, not the viewpoint - here "....the result is more 'view neutral' by cancelling out priviledge inherent in any particular view."
Again, Flaotman is inherently prefacing all his statements by saying something like "In my opinion, from my point of view which may be flawed so I can't be absolutely certain......."
By actual experiences I mean direct, first hand.
I agree we currently cannot. How about randomising a mind?
DIsagree. If "what one is" is constantly changing as we mature and experience things that indicates a material base and therefore the theoretical possibility of altering the mind in a pre-planned manner. I don't think the absence of free will is an issue, we just need to eliminate the biases. Embrace who we are? What happens if we don't like who we are, have psychopathic tendencies that we wish to obliterate? What would the conflict be - ethical?

Cheers, John

Devilnaut

Can you explain these objections a little more? I don't see how this is circular, it seems to follow from relativism (this is what inter-subjectivity is afterall) and I'm not sure what you mean by objections 2) and 3).

It is not circular, it is simply induction. We see 100 crows, 99 of them are black and 1 of them are white. We assume that crows are black, and that the one white crow was either some sort of trick of our senses or some kind of exception. It seems fairly evident to me that this is how all knowledge works. And once we have enough internal "knowledge" to be able to trust our senses reports to us that there are other people in the world experiencing similar things, we are able to make a fairly reliable appeal to inter-subjectivity.

Where do your objections fall?

AnthonyAdams45

I ask only that the definition not beg the question on your behalf. I can imagine any number of definitions that do not obviously embrace either of our views. Can you?

I am trying to subvert your definition because it does not represent majority scholarship. I am, by profession, a librarian, and am sitting at my desk with 5 dictionaries of philosophy [eds. Angeles, Audi, Blackburn, Flew, and Lacey] and two encyclopedias of philosophy [eds. Edwards and Craig] None of these provide a definition anything like "all systems are equal" and the Audi volume The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy defines relativism as simply "the denial that there are certain kinds of universal truths." A careful definition that, as it avoids making the relativist a positer of the universal truth that "all things are relative." But even "all things are relative" cannot be reduced to "all systems are equal."

We should change 1) because your definition, unlike mine, is idiosyncratic, 2) begs the question of relativism's usefulness, and 3) was expressly labelled unacceptable at the outset of the thread,

indicating your off-topic rants arise from either ignorance or arrogance on your part. (I prefer to believe arrogance. I can sympathize with that.)

Again, show that a responsible, scholarly source provides a definition reducible to "all systems are equal" or else forego the continued straw man argument.


I have not said that some relativist/absolutist hybrid is impossible. I just want to see it done. I am prepared to hear argument that I am wrong. I have asked repeatedly how you can draw the line between relative claims and absolute claims regarding truth, beauty, knowledge, morality, and whether that line is absolute or relative. That's not denying the possibility that you can, merely wishing to see it done. However, I don't think it can be done without violating Occam's razor.

First of all, I am not engaged in "winning" anything. I am working on understanding the world. One can "win" any number of competitions, from debate to a footrace to a spelling bee, and understand nothing. If my definition is unclear, please explain where and how. I summarize here:
Please inquire.

Primal

Well my first on circular reasoning in coherentism goes like this: to establish a claim you are appealing to what you consider background data. But background is merely what you accept as proven via sensations. Thus you have to prove that the elements of your background data are themselves unproven: trying to prove specific elements of knowledge by other specific elements of knowle dge is thus circular. Likewise is proven current sensation via past sensation, as past sensation was itself proven and unqualified.

My second argument concerned is how you can assume that apealing to memory itself justifies anything. What makes memory a qualifying factor? This must either be proven through memory(circularity) or assumed(which is contradictory).

My third raises the question of how you know knowledge is derived from and limited to memory. Again apealing to memory on this issue is circular and assuming it from the onset is contradictory.

On two and three though we face an additional problem if you take the former solutions i.e. justifying memory with an appeal to memory. That is, how is that justification itself justified? At this point we must bring in extrnsic justification and go on forever, or simply assume this circular justification works: which is contradictory.

I will agree this argues for prbability, but the idea of such an inference itself must be justifed. How do we go about this? That's an important question.

Likewise I do not see it as evident that ALL knowledge works that way. For example Einstein was able to prove many of his points at the purely theoretical level, without direct observation. Likewise when I do mathematical caluclation, I am not describing mere probability. Thus while it may be true that probability determined by background knowledge determines much of our knowledge, it is not proven that this explains all knowledge.

For example when I have a six sided die, I assume every side has a 1/6 chance of being landed on. However I do not need to roll the die 1000 or 3000 times and make a chart, recording how often each side is landed on to calculate this. I can merely deduce before hand that given a certain shape, and no real reason to suspect one side of being selected more then another, that each side has a 1 out of 6 chance of being landed on. This is not a purely inductive process but a deduction based on background knowledge and a priori beliefs about probability.




Yet we simply cannot gain this level of confidence through a purely inductive method. It doesn't matter how often I see other people for example....such people may be products of my mind. Appealing to memory does not change this conclusion one way or another, because any given instance of a person in my memory may have merely been a physical construct as well. Likewise with the dice, not matter how many times you toss it, you could never prove to me via pure induction that each side has a one out of six chance of being landed on, perhaps you just got lucky.

To me the very concept of intersubjectivity sounds like an oxymoron. In reality they simply seem to borrow objectivist standards, without aknowledgement. The whole argument is based on the idea that we cannot transcend our subjective experiences or prove our sensations/beliefs have any correlation to the outside world. But they then presume some can be made more accurate then others via comparison of subjectivity,but without presuming there is an objective world the word accuracy has become meaningless. We have also assumed there are other people as well, and that we can transcend our subjectivity enough to compare our ideas to another's. Hence intersubjectivism must presume some common ground between experiences which are supposed to be wholly personal, and which we are supposed to be hopelessly limited to, which simply is no different then presuming objectivism from the outset.

Primal

But this from the outset demands thet axioms and a priori reasoning be omitted. In which case you need a specific observation as grounds for such assertion.

So then some things *can* be absolute. Thus floatman can at best say "it seems likely that everything is relative." In which case I must ask on what basis did floatman determine probability?

Also how can floatman say "there is no certainty" with no certainty? That doesn't seem to make sense. To make such a statement one seems to have to be certain that all claims to date are uncertain. If floatman then says "well its highly probable/possible there is no certainty" then he admits it certain that its probable or possible, or else floatman declares it impossible and is thus certain. Floatman doesn't have to declare which side he is on explicitly, merely aknowledging he can be wrong admits it is possible he may be wrong, and thus to be certain of possibility.

To declare yourself then of uncertain of possibility,i.e. say "it's possible that it's impossible" is a contradiction. Either way floatman is in a terrible contardiction.





But how do we do this? By a priveledged mechanism? And why should we? To suppose that we should cancel priveledge is itself to priveledge relativism, to say you can is to priveledge your viewpoint over one saying we cannot. I thus simply cannot see how you can put a standard that depriveledges over a standard that privledges except by priveledging the deprivledging standard over the privledging.


Yes but there are different ways of experiencing what is direct and first hand. Fixedman can easily say his first hand experiences prove absolutism for example because none have been disproven...only changed. Thus floatman has no right to call upon experience then fixedman.



How could we control a determined/causal mind in such a way as to make its processes random? Can you get the random from the determined? Again doesn't that presume some degree of libertarian control?



Changing does not mean radical or acuasal changing.

Here again you have a problem, either the effect is determined and we cannot control its direction. Or the effect is undetermined i.e. random in which case we cannot control it.


[quote] I don't think the absence of free will is an issue, we just need to eliminate the biases. [quote]

Yes but can we and should we? How do you know our biases are unwarranted? You can only make this claim on the basis of your own biases and thus rely on them. To discredit your biases is thus to discredit any argument you can give for change.


Then you're in deep trouble.

The only times this can happen I see is when you are conflicted, in which case you either can/are willing to resolve the problem and should do so...most likely by physical alterations of the brain/other parts of the body or you are unwilling/cannot in which case you must just deal with it.


Yes, ethical/emotional/physical.

Devilnaut

Primal, I'm afraid we may have had a bit of a disconnect. I'm not from a certain school of relativism and I've never heard of coherentism, as most of this stuff is just musing.

The reason I say this is because you say:

And I would say that I'm not sure about other relativists, but I'm pretty damn positive that there's an objective reality out there. My position is simply that our knowledge is limited to our mind's sensual representations of this world, and that these may or may not reflect it completely accurately.


Here I disagree and I'm not sure if we can always fully appreciate the power of induction. Imagine having lived for decades observing and storing towers of information and knowledge throughout our entire lives since we were born and perhaps we can see that it is actually an extremely powerful tool and offers plenty of confidence. To me, our knowledge base is like a card castle, and the very foundation is built upon induction. I don't think there is such a thing as a deductive method or argument that doesn't ultimately reduce to simple parsimony.

I think that your example of the dice is misleading, because while you may think you're able to 'deduce' that it will have an equal chance of landing on one of six sides on any given throw before you actually observe it, this deduction is based on a plethora of past observations. I really don't think that a newborn baby would be able to 'deduce' that particular fact about dice.

John Page

I agree with the "observation" axiom . email to come.
He is uncertain. Fixedman is the one making the claim.
Absence of proof does not make something true or false! Floatman is unsure what is possible and what is not.
I don't see "possibility" as inconsistent with relativism. Possibily is another term to describe the uncertainty due to lack of absolute proof. I think you're confusing Floatman's position to be an admission that "A possibility certainly exists" whereas Floatman's actual position reduces to "Possibilities are possible" - which would seem to require an intersubjective understanding of the term possibility to be meaningful.
I agree this is a knotty issue which cannot be resolved by adopting a priviledged position (which is the same as the issue with Fixedman's position of assuing priviledge, rather than the lack of it).
I'm suggesting it might be explained using "understanding". Floatman's position is extreme, but if we can understand how that position comes to be (in Floatman's mind) we can compensate for it. We would likely need to create Floatman II for control purposes as part of depriviledgization.
Again, if we can understand how Fixedman's position comes to be, his claim can be demonstrated to be relative to his position. I'm poking at "Why and how does he think that" (a relativistic question) instead of "Is he right" (an objectivist approach).
Well, I'm not suggesting we 'control' in the sense of determining - recreate/simulate if you will. I could equally ask what the first cause was. Did Floatman and Fixedman emerge from a state of randomness? In which case..... why not relativism?

Cheers, John

Primal

Well this is interesting. You need to keep in mind when I am arguing against relativism on this thread, I am arguing against a specific type: namely cognitive relativism. One must also keep in mind there is no officially recognized definition of relativism. Thus the issue can get kind of messy unless you focus on a certain type, else you cannot really examine the issue at all. Thus I am sorry if I attack a position you do not hold, however you must keep in mind that in criticizing relativism I have to work with one definition. No criticism will ever work in such a way as to encompass every possible definition that one can invent, thus when I do criticize it is to be somewhat expected that I will presume you to adhere to/or defend/or entertain, the specific type of relativism that I have been criticizing this entire thread when the subject is brought up.

As for my statement concerning coherentism, it was your statement concerning an apeal to memory that made me presume thus. Before I recap your position though I will briefly explain what coherentism is: Coherentism is a system in short, in which truth values are assigned by means of how well any specific claim fits into the overall picture of what you believe to be true. It aims thus not for verification in a sequential manner from first principles but for a sort of harmony between all claims. In short: coherentism aims for makes sense given your overall viewpoint i.e. what is coherent within the system.

Now this relates to your claim that we invoke memory(or background knowledge) to justify or disprove present claims. This is because memory is merely the overall sensations we've had in the past, and when we use it thus to check up on the status of present claims we are seeing whether or not our present claim fits in nicely with a past one i.e. paints a coherent picture. It is from that position that I am criticizing your position by asking questions like "then how do we justofy memory?". etc.





And you know what? I agree. However there are relativists that do not i.e. postmodernists. Postmodernists and subjectivists for example really do question or deny that there is an objective reality, they are hence the specific types of relativists that I am arguing against.

As for your position, I would consider you more of a provisional objectivist/empricist then a relativist myself (since relativist seems to equate to the radical position of postmodernists now at days.)





Okay let me say first off what I am not arguing for. I am not saying for example, when I state that a person has innate knowledge/ideas, that a person is born with full blown philosophical positions in their head or with mathematical calculations skills. That I agree would be absurd.

I am arguing however that a person is born with the mind structured in such a way as to interpret sensory data or dispose itself a certain way. Sort of like a rock with some pieces more easily scraped off then others, will tend to, with time take a certain form over another. As for your question about the baby doing math, I have one for you, can you teach a dog math? This question I will further eleborate on, but it raises a point: theoretically, since dogs have for the most part the same sensory data as humans, why does one become capable of doing math and the other remain incapable?

Now a strict empricist belives that a person is born tabula rasa. Their mind is a blank state, just waiting to have knowledge poured into it by the senses. This belief seems fine at first, far more parsimonious then rationalist alternatives; however it faces serious problems.

For one, is the mind born completely free and empty? It seems not.

A computer cannot for example filter data without certain underlying programs and ways of organizing as well as attaining this data. Just as we could not record information provided by our senses if we lacked the mental hardwiring necessary to properly interpret the data given, as well as to make sense of this data.

Now is it reasonable to conclude that our means of interpreting data is some sort of pure, unbiased process or does our mind operate a certain way as to make one conclusion, given the same set of data prefered over another? Lets take pain for example, its merely a sensation. But the organism quickly evaluates it as something to be avoided and pleasure to be attained. Now how did the organism learn, via pure experience that pain=bad/avoid and pleasure=good/attain? How did they,using memory, first come to that conclusion? When a doctor slaps a baby for example, the baby cries. Why doesn't the baby laugh? The baby has not had any sensation before this, why does it automatically evaluate the slap as painful and hence bad?

Basically the baby didn't, their brain was hardwired from the onset to interpret the data a certain way, to interpret damage to the body for example as "painful" and fulfilling bodily needs as "pleasurable". So at least in regards to pain and pleasure it appears as if there is more at work then pure sensation and memory.

But lets also explore lets say how we see in general. Why is it for example that when we see something we interpret it as three dimensional instead of two? In reality there is no difference in mere perception, and I do not see how increased perception can bridge this gulf. To make the point clearer: lets say a computer is fed data from a movie(lets say a home video) and then from real life i.e. a camera, without knowing the difference. If it cannot tell that the objects are 3-d in one and 2-d in another, will merely showing it more home movies or more info via the installed camera change this any? Not likely. Everything the computer sees will be interpreted as 2-d, unless that is, you program it before hand to accept the data fed as coming from a 3-d world. Likewise it is known that a person requires two eyes to retain their depth perception. Now then why is it, if we come to learn that objects are 3-d that we can lose our ability to make such inductions just by losing an eye? It really doesn't. It only makes sense to conclude that our brain is structured in such a way as to demand two eyes in order to percieve things as having depth.

Likewise I can for example take a ten year old child aside and a dog.(This involves the question I asked you earlier.) I can likely teach the child math and reading...but not the dog. How can this be if they are fed the same amount of data? If for example, I raise a dog up as a human, will it know language,math etc? No. But how can this be if knowledge is merely a matter of pure induction from pure data without any mental mechanisms or conceptual dispositions at play?

Likewise lets say I go to Oxford, and ask "where is the university?" Lets say they show me their residents, labs,fields,lecture halls, etc. I can then say "well that's all interesting, but I'm looking for the building called "the university".
I have just made a category mistake, but how can you using specific sensations only, show me this? Could you point towards a specific sensation called "the university" like you could a bicycle or desk? Likely not, more likely you are calling upon mental rescources other then mere sensation and memory to categorize all facilities of Oxford as belonging to the university. I can likewise ask "where is the world?" and you could show me said aspects of the world, but unless you have a NASA photo(lets pretend you do not)....not the world itself. Or I can go even further, I can say when you show me a desk that I do not "see a desk". I see a flat thing, some legs that are somewhat round, etc: but which one of these paticulars is the desk? You can tell me they are all connected, but I can ask you to show me this "thing" you call a "connection". Or can ask: why do you connect those things together and not others? I can for example interpret the floor as part of the desk. All I can say then is I am having sensations of "flat brown stuff, with legs,white backdrop,blue underneath" with all these sensations perhaps being one big object or a multitude of smaller ones, with no solid way of differntiating between them.

Mathematics and chance are another example. How do I using sensation establish that one thing is more probable then another? Hume brought this point down hard on empircists at his time. For example you believe it likely the sun will rise tomorrow: but how do you know? If you say "because sensations in the past indicated as much" I could just say " so how does that make it more likely now?" If you say "well because of sensations in the past" you are engaged in circular reasoning. Hence given empiricist standards, the very idea of induction itself seems to fall apart. On what basis do I conclude, via induction that the sun will rise? If by means of memory this is merely circular. Also what's then to make one induction more reasonable then another? I can interpret the sun's rising in the past via my meory as evidence the sun will not rise tomorrow. And how am I to be corrected? By memory? Well memory is exactly what I am invoking as well to come to the conclusion that the sun will not rise. Clearly there is a problem with saying "the sun will not rise tomorrow" and I admit it is partly empirical, however it seems to be partly a conceptual problem as well.




Or lets take into account objective reality. Empiricism seems incapable of establishing this by itself. Again I can say that all I see is part of my mind and no sensation alone can disprove this. What sensation foe example could you show me that I could not interpret as "part of my mind"? None.
This becomes subjectivism and it is at this point that empricism loses its claim to parsimony, as parsimony is established because it is believed that allowing enough assumptions, a person can make nearly anything up he or she wishes to. However if my beliefs and sensations are reality, then there is no "making up." The whole idea of "making up" assumes that there is something by which we are judging something to be "made up", some sort of objective reality.


Lastly, empricism cannot even seem to justify itself. Remember all knowledge is ultimately rooted in sense data. Well then, what sensation exactly shows this? What sensation tells me that sensation is my means to knowledge? That seems to be assumed: however an assumption is not a sensation, thus we are going by a priori knowledge and violating the emprcist's standards.

The above reasons are a few of many,many more reasons why empricism seems to be untrue at both the philosophical and scientific level. Scientists/psychologists for example are learning more and more that the brain has innate mechanisms that for example interpret or organize data a certain way over others. For example when a duck is born, they "interpret" the first large, animated thing they see as "mom". Now these ducks were just born.....they could not learn to interpret the first thing they saw as "mom" from prior experience thus there is more at work here then mere observation and memory.

Keep in mind I am not arguing that a priori ideas pop complete into our head. Its likely the situation is far more complex then that. Remember the ducks above need to "see" something large and animate to have that certain "instinct" is disposition triggered. Thus I would also argue that sensory data in fact mingles in and can activate many of our dispositions-that may be why for example human are naturally inclined to pick up a language, but why it is humans raised by themselves prove incapable of picking up language after they reach a certain age without being given a chance to communicate with others: they lacked the necessary sense data needed to trigger their innate dispositions. Thus in many cases what counts as conceptual knowledge and emprical knowledge may be very blurred and mixed together. Concepts may remain inactive without percepts, and percepts unattained without certain concepts. The two thus are not always apart but blend together.


Remember also that a certain amount of brain structure is needed for certain dispositions to develope, which is likely why you can't teach a baby math, nor a dog, at that age the baby lacks a brain developed enough to allow such a thing, and the dog will always lack it. However the mechanism does develope in the human at a certain age, and never in a dog.

Thus I believe that we have certain mental dispositions, inherent in our brain structure to percieve the universe a certain way: as causal,objective, logical.

Which would make sense if we evolved in such a universe, which we very much seem to. Thus not only our epistemologies may be products of Darwinian selection as much as they are products of reasoning and examination.

Primal

Sure the one I've given, based on observing certain big thinkers considered to be cognitive relativists i.e. postmodernists and subjectivists. People who deny the soundess of logic, science,objectivism and math.





Well I cannot see those books you have so I cannot comment on that.

I will note a serious problem with the definition you have offered though:

Well everyone I know of denies that there are "certain" kinds of universal truths. I for example would deny the claim "chocolate is better then vanilla" if it was offered as a universal truth. This makes relativism far too vague, as it then includes virtually everyone.

Also saying "all things are relative" is problematic because it is incoherent, relative is a relational state: so what are "all things" is relation to exactly? The only two answers I can think of are "nothing" which really is not a thing and does not count. And "to eachother", which seems to make the definition very incoherent, as "all things" uncludes everything from the onset and its hard to see how something is related to itself.


My definition of cognitive relativism though is coherent, not so vague as to include all parties and gets to the main point of such relativists as postmodernists: that there is no true or false, no better or worse epistemic systems.







The definition was actually proposed by a relativist at the onset, not me. All definitions are idiosyncratic. And my definition came from an expert source and observation: not circular reasoning.







And again you have yet to show what is wrong with my definition other then that it "does not seem to include 1 person, who wishes to be called a relativist but is not according to my definition."

The IEP is likewise a responsible scholarly source that you seem to simply dismiss off hand as incinveniant, is that not begging the question?





Neither do I, but a relativist/absolutist hybrid would not adhere to "relativism" or "absolutism".


What are you talking about? When did I say you can draw this line? Here you are attacking a straw man.

Also you are saying that had I said the above, I'd have to prove something. But you do not. Why not? No answer. Your position is just "more parsimonious"(question begging.)




I did not mean victory in the literal sense, what I meant was that you are trying to prove yourself correct via defining terms in such a way as yours is the only reasonable position de facto. By that logic I can define absolutism as "a belief system that aknowledges existence." and say "absolutism is true because everyone aknowledges existence."



Complete and utter non seq.

Basically you are saying relative claims are "relations" btw the claims are not, the comparisons within the claims are. Then somehow just say since some properties are relative....all are. What of existence then? Or math? These are questionable cases. Or the universe itself?

Your argument is no more better then me saying "since the statement 2 plus 2 equals 4 seems to be absolute, all claims are absolute."

Now you can try to say "well math is relative" but that's question begging. Prove it. And saying "well other things are relative" is not good enough. Mainly because those other things are not necessarily comparable. Saying "because it relies on a mind" misses the point. I am not saying absolute as in "exists without a mind" I am saying "true without extrinsic verification or being able to be disproven" i.e. epistemically absolute, not physically. Also if this reflects quantities of the universe then you must show how two objects, coming together and creating a lump,total sum of four is relative to something else happening.




Yes, now you have to prove it.

Yes but then what about objects without values? When water freezes, does it only do so because of someone evaluating it? What about existence itself, what does that exist in relation to?

Primal

But then the observation axiom must itself be based on some observation to retain consistency; I have yet to see an axiom though.




Avoiding the question. I have already covered this John. I said it does not matter if floatman is certain or not, as uncertainty means he thinks it possible and is thus certain of that possibility.



So it is possible that it is impossible......




I never said that there was an inconsistency between possibility and relativism John. I said it is a contradiction though to say "it is possible that X is impossible." Or "X may be possible, but X may also be impossible". Something cannot be both possible and impossible John.




But why should we even pursue this endeavor instead of just abandoning the relativist enterprise? And what makes you think "floatman 2" will even be able to come up with anything better? It seems to me floatman two would still have to priveledge his own standards and aims.


Well John, this is more psychology then epistemology now and is best left to scientists. Also keep in mind that explanation may not relate in any way to justification. And this issue is primarily about justification.



I don't think there was one. My view of causality is not wholly sequential.


Well I think they emerged as a result of physical laws. And evolution. Why do you think they poped out of randomness i.e. spontanious generation or something?