Keith Russell

Immanuel:

It was I, not Primal, who stated that subjectivity is self-defeating.

Where is the flaw in my statement that 'if nothing can be known, you cannot even know that?'

A subjectivist cannot say that he or she knows that knowledge is not possible. The statement is a claim of 'knowledge'--the very concept subjectivism rejects.

All that can be said by a subjectivist (whos wishes to avoid contradictions) is 'I don't know', when asked any question.

Keith.

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]

[ September 20, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]</p>

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: The scientific methiod is a linguistic understanding of actioon. How else could it be widely understood and used.

Keith: Language describes actions, but language is not the action it describes. Yes, to discuss about scientific experiments with others requires a common language. To conduct scientific experiments, does not.

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.

Polemic: At best you senses are 50% correct.

Keith: Do you expect me to simply take your word for this? My own experience certainly does not support this claim, nor does the research I’ve read.

Polemic: Redness straightness are all undstandings with appications in the real world. You are right or wrong in your assement of such things.

Keith: ‘Right or wrong’ assessments are based on what? ‘Understandings’…of what? If there is application in the ‘real world’, then there is a real (objective) world, independent of consciousness, but of which consciousness can be aware, and of which consciousness can acquire knowledge—as I’ve said.

Polemic: 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: Greeks and Chineese knew the world was round. If time and place make a difference—

Keith: That’s a mighty big ‘if’. Time and place didn’t give the Chinese accurate knowledge, and time and place didn’t prevent the Europeans of that time from acquiring it.

Polemic: --then there is a different reality for each time and place. Different objectivities.

Keith: I wouldn’t say ‘there is a different reality for each time and place’; I find such statements sloppy. I would say that the understanding of reality differs from consciousness to consciousness, and thus can also differ from culture to culture, society to society, etc.

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 point is not its ultimate reality but what it takes to know trees. Knowledge is different the reality.

Keith: Absolutely knowledge is different from reality. It is you, not I, who seems to be trying to claim that there is no reality, only our knowledge of it—that what we know is ‘our’ subjective ‘truth’.

Polemic: Under your understanding reality is a constant. Knowledge changes the to are not equals.

Keith: Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Knowledge changes, reality is.

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: Well I'm glad you know all. We dont know what about a lot of animals that have existed and that do exist. We find new ones all the time. About a hundred years ago Large lizards were considered an absurd idea.

Keith: I should have been more precise, and I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply whether unicorns actually exist or not. I should have said that ‘all that we know of unicorns are claims. Since we know of nothing in external reality which 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.

Polemic: The origin of you disagreement is not in question but rather how you know that you have a
valid arguement.

Keith: If you reject objective reality, I would also love to know how you know that I have an invalid argument.

Polemic: Objectivity, personal knowledge and axioms only surve to order in kind.

Keith: I don’t understand the above sentence.
Polemic: They work towards knowledge but are not the standard.

Keith: Not the standard of what?

Polemic: If they were it would be clear cut..and its not.

Keith: I still need to know of what they are supposed to be the standards.

Keith.

Plump-DJ

I thought epistemology came back to metaphysics, ultimately. That the two are linked and you're choice of metaphysics will affect your epistemology.

BTW has anyone ever solved the problems of epistemology? I get the impression that people have sorta given up.

Kantian

Why? It isn't necessarily the case according to ordinary philosophy or positivism.

Care to elaborate and substantiate that summation? It's more than likely you have not been doing your homework.

~Transcendentalist~

Feather

Agreed. I'd take it a step further (dunno if you'd agree) and claim that the epistemology of science is that reality is only necessarily relatively objective. That is, the nature of reality is "the same" for every event in the universe, but not necessarily the whole, complete, total reality. It's just that whatever lies beyond our mundane "relatively objective" universe is moot, since we cannot interact with it anyway (by definition).

So I guess I would call scientists' epistemology an inherently empirical one (with rational analysis of the empirical data, of course).

That is most sensible to me, anyway. It seems to me that if reality could be discerned merely by rationalizing, then any two people with differring but sound logical arguments regarding the same topic would have little recourse but to resort to appeals to authority and assertion to validate their case "absolutely."

Keith Russell

Plump?

Choice of metaphysics? I think some people choose to have faith that certain of their metaphysical beliefs are accurate, but I've never heard anyone claim that we actually have a 'choice' of metaphysics. (Though I have heard several belief systems that come close to this claim.)

What do you see as 'the problems of episemology', and why do you think that people have 'given up' trying to address these problems?

Keith.

Primal

Polemic, you seem to be missing the point of my argument, almost completely. I am saying that utimately any direction that valid reasoning can take is that of, axiomic, infinite or circular. You are responding with a proximate system easily interpreted within my own system as a counter-example, or a fourth category that does not fit. This proposed epistemic system based on lniguistic analysis does not work as a counter-example because it easily fits into one of the three categories.

Two analogies can help illustrate this:

Person A says "life was either created or evolved" (a false analogy irl, but its only intended to illustrated a point supposing it was true hypothetically).

Person B tries to refute this with: That isn't so because I believe in Larmarckism.

Analogy two:

Person A: The universe either had a beggining or was eternal.

Person B: That's not true because I think the universe had a begiining but wasn't created.

The problem with person B's counter-examples is that they miss the mark, they do not provide a third category as much as they are themsleves a subcategory of the proposed two.

A true counter example for the evolution/creation dillema would be spontanious generation or for the universe dilemma; that the universe does not exist. Or that parts of the universe were created and parts were eternal, which would still establish a creation/eternal dichotomy, just one that was in bits.

Your own ideas are still fitted into one of the three categories I proposed because you have still failed to give an ultimate justification for your beliefs. To all your statements I can still say "why?" or "how do you know that?"

How do we know this? Why?


Why?


How do you know this? How do you know language even exists?

Again howdo you know this?

What is a refutation? What standards are used to refute something?


Again you say a lot but to each of your statements I can ask for more proof. Why? How so? Etc.

In the end you will either wind up going in cricles, reaching some end point or going on forever. Or maybe a mixture of all three.

As you do not have any ultimate causes then your standards and statements will always be proximate and irrelevant to my own theory.

Kinda like I'm saying "all creatures are reptiles or mammals."

You reply, "nope there are turtles."

Even if I was wrong, your statements would not prove it. They would not only be wrong, but totally vaccuous. Please tell me a statement I cannot say "why?" to, and/or admit that I can say "why?" forever. Merely rehashing your theory serves little purpose.

Primal

As for subjectivity being self-refuting, (I know that the original question was adressed to thr wrong party btw) it is only so if one has already accepted logic. If one abandons logic the very idea of "refutation" loses any meaning.

For example: If I was a hard core subjectivist, and you pointed to contradictions in my theory; I could say "well the contradictions establish it".

One has to in the end just state that subjectivity is fundamentally false, like pure skepticism. Even if one showed that subjectivism was inconsistent, or went against evidence; the subjectivist could merely redefine evidence,logic etc. The whole notion is from a logical viewpoint, so fundamentally senseless as to be beyond any sort of common ground. All one can do is first accept logic and then, apply logic to subjectivism to show how absurd the notion is. Note, that this only works if logic is already accepted. The subjectivist will deny logic itself or attempt to redefine it beyond recognition or come up with the wildest excuses imaginable, no matter how poorly grounded. Here all one has to do is realize that imagination does not make things so. And that beliefs stem from subjectivist axioms. Note: The subjectivist can likewise challenge this, saying that subjectivism doesn't rely on axioms, even if it does or by redefining axioms as "special for subjectivism" and "wrong for objectivism". All this shows is that once someone has totally abandoned logic, there is really no way out. The subjectivist can makeup any lie, no matter how wrong, once one has already accepted his premises.

But what is really going on? In reality the whole position is at odds with logic. A subjectivist will of course deny this, just as a subjectivist in theory can deny the existence of things they see. However, if one does believe in logic, one will realize that no matter how crud the subjectivist makes up he is still wrong. The subjectivist can stop believing in gravity, but if he/she jumps off a cliff they die.

Again the difference is fundamental, and thus, logic will never be able to refute subjectivism from the subjectivist viewpoint because logic is not established in the subjectivist viewpoint.

Hugo Holbling

Have you seen <a href="http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/feyerabe.htm" target="_blank">this link</a>? It was sent to me by a good friend of mine. Methinks it will suffice to set the cat among the pigeons.

Phaedrus wrote:

Hey phaedrus - i just read an amazing article in The Philosopher's Magazine entitled "Postmodernism RIP". Unfortunately it isn't available online just yet, but i recommend you take a look at it some time. It purports to show why your comments are mistaken, and boy does it make a mess of it. Here's a snip for your amusement:

Where do they find these people?

Starboy

Greetings Feather,

It seems to me that science has implicitly adopted a set of criteria that it is using as a working hypothesis as a test for “real”. If something passes the test then it is considered to be real. As in every other human endeavor, we understand reality by generalizing those things we say are real. As such science is discovering “what reality is” as we speak. I call science’s test for reality a working hypothesis because I suspect that it has changed over time and is being modified as more is discovered about the physical. As I have said before, the theories of science are used to interpret experiment and the results of experiment are used to verify theory. It is a circular process. There should be a meta-science that deals with the concept of “real” and what constitutes a test for “real”. But as far as I can tell scientists are too busy doing science to deal with meta-science.

If reality could be discerned merely by rationalizing then science would be superfluous and philosophers would be more respected in society. As such I don’t think philosophers have much to show for the last two thousand years of effort.

Starboy