John Galt, Jr.

I asked,
Phaedrus responded, If all you are saying here is that I have learned a lot of what I know from the society in which I have grown up, you are right.

Please explain what you mean when you say that there could be 'umpteen number of interpretations'. Do you mean that some other city could have been made the Capital of France? This is true, but it doesn't change the fact that Paris is really the Capital of France, now.

When you say that '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', do you mean that it wasn't discovered that the atmosphere of Earth consists of, among other things, oxygen? IF this is not what you mean, will you please rephrase your remarks.


Beyond these questions, I am curious about what you might say about your own belief that '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'. Is this belief true because truth is a practical concept that is not sitting out there waiting for us to discover' or is it true because of something else.

John Galt, Jr.

John Galt, Jr.

I know it is a bit late in the discussion for the questiona I am about to ask, but here like always, if primal doesn't want to retrace ground, primal can just ignore this.

Primal said, Now then, let me recount something that happened earlier this evening.

My son had wasn't sure about whether or not he had soccer practice Sunday morning. He set about to call the team coach, but found we had lost the paper with the team roster, and telephone numbers of the players and coaches. Via the web, we found the telephone number of one of the coaches , my son called him, and we now know that he has no practice Sunday morning.

So, having provided an explanation of how we (my son and I) know that my son has no soccer practice on Sunday morning, my question is 'Where/how does this knowledge fit into your scheme of things?'

John Galt. Jr.

Kantian

IT pains me to see that you have chosen not to address everything I've written in response.
Not at all, unless you want me to pretend at being an advocate of positivism or ordinary language. Would you care to try and address what I actually wrote, above, instead of shoehorning in your presuppositions? Positivists (or naturalists) and Wittgensteinans do it all the time. Phenomenologists will choose to focus on the structures of consciousness instead, and hermeneutics, the text, etc- but the assumption that all philosophical enterprises share a similar pattern in presupposing a ground of metaphysical nature is false. Descartes' foundationalist program is no longer top dog. Get on with the program!
Let's not be too hasty here. The link between the knower and the known is a question of knowledge, a particularly epistemological problem, not a metaphysical one. My sentiments lie with the belief in the structures of our grammar, in the subject-object dichotomy that drives those cancerous questions. You're only repeating certain steps taken in a particular philosophical enterprise performed many years past. It sounds as if you have never heard of positivism or ordinary language philosophy, that there has never been an enterprise that did not adopt a metaphysical position. Would you care to address what proponents of these movements have said, instead of focusing on what a transcendentalist thinks?
From metaphysicians, no doubt.
Uh-huh. He who defines the terms wins the argument. Run along, little clubber, run along and dance to the tune of 19th century metaphysics!
Why? According to whom? At the turn of the 20th century, in the philosophy departments allover academia, the term 'metaphysician' was uttered with contempt. Nowadays it is "analytic philosopher." Your questions, while fine historical ones, no doubt, are outdated by a century.
With a whiff of Homeric proportions, you miss the point. Whether he concluded on what is irrelevant. That the writer is a foundationalist, presupposes such hierarchical (say, vertical in the platonic sense) thinking is most certainly so.
You had better hope that there are options to choose among those 'specialists,' in order to avoid charges of 'follow the leader' or other authoritarian dogma. Rephrased this way- why Manion as opposed to others of similar stature, but of different cloth? Here lies the true crux of the problem, your aesthetics!
I'll withhold judgment until further notice, given that this is a limited sample of Manion's thoughts. Give me a day in front of the idiot box cheering on pathetic football teams while mulling over Manion's article and I'll get back to you on that.

~Transcendentalist~

Starboy

Apparently one of the important principles of philosophy is to ignore questions you do not care to answer. The only one who did was a mathematician. As posted it is a philosophical question.

Any philosophers care to answer?

Starboy

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Hugo Holbling

Starboy declared:

Thanks for the revelation.

I'm a mathematician too. So what?

If you're going to ask philosophers, you'll have to define your terms. Even so, the answer is neither.

Plump-DJ

"Oh the pain, the pain of it all." I'm sorry if it pains you but i'm really trying my best to get to what I consider to be the heart of the matter. Now you resort to some ad hom esque points in your post, not that that particularly bother's me but it seems to be said with a certain arrogance. (That's how it reads to me) Perhaps to one who hadn't thought thru their position. ("Oh my an analytic philosopher? Do tell what they're all about?") But i think i have thought thru my point in a reasonably "depthful" manner and so i wonder if we're not in the same "thought arena" and thus confusion arises. So here then is what i consider to be the crux of the matter. If i do not respond to everything in the way you like then I apologise in advance.

The Crux Of The Matter

I stated that I considered metaphysics to come before epistemology and I gave a reason why. You seemed to be hinting that somehow Metaphysics is a dirty word and an idea of the past. I stated that surely the nature of reality (or our ideas about her) as she is in herself will affect the way we know reality or wether we can know anything at all about reality. I don't see how one can deny this. And the nature of reality as she is in herself is an "absolute" or "ultimate" mode of philosophising and certainly in my view falls into the definition of metaphysics. This is what i at least mean by metaphysics. Hence in this case metaphysics would certainly come before epistemology or at least the two would share a very close relationship. Now the question is do you accept that the nature of reality as she is in herself will affect the way we know the world and wether we can know anything at all?

Now you claim it's possible for a philosophical position to not ground itself in this "ye olden day" idea of metaphysics or a 'hierarchy'. Well that's all fine and dandy, anything's possible. But do these people who endorse these particular positions think they know anything about an objective reality around us? Do they think they have knowledge about the world or do they even believe in a world around us? An objective reality? As soon as those who endorse said positions say they know something about the world around us they will be hit with those metaphysical questions mentioned above.

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: Plump-DJ ]</p>

Starboy

LOL! As if that is not what philosophy has been trying to resolve for the last two thousand years!


Starboy

Hugo Holbling

Starboy quipped:

Evidently you have no sense of humour...

Starboy

Hmmmmm, evidently.

oneofshibumi

I believe that knowing and communication (epistemology and rhetoric) cannot be separated, because they are interrelated. Even in science it is virtually impossible to separate communication from the process by which scientists come to discover “facts.” The very act of calling something “knowledge” is the product of discussion and debate among scientists. This is to say that any scientific community is an audience to be persuaded and dissuaded; members interact communicatively in the pursuit of knowledge, and decisions as to what constitutes knowledge result as much from processes of communication as from direct observations of “facts.” (1)

Knowledge requires three requisites: Truth, Belief, and Justification. Gettier (2)

Sources:
1. Ayer, J. A. (1956). “The Problem of Knowledge.” pp. 31-35. Baltimore: Penguin Books
Chisholm, R. (1957). “Perceiving: A Philosophical Study.” pp. 5, 17. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Lehrer, K. (1978). “Knowledge.” pp. 1-23. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lehrer seeks to establish what the criteria of knowledge are without regard for whether we do, in fact, know anything. In an earlier essay, “Why Not Skepticism?” Lehrer argued that, in fact, we do not know anything, a claim that is, of course, entirely independent of the question of whether or not justified true belief constitutes knowledge or would constitute knowledge “if we had any knowledge.” Lehrer’s skeptical position is presented as Chapter 21 in George S. Pappas and Marshall Swain, eds., “Essays on Knowledge and Justification (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), pp. 321-63. Lehrer’s arguments in favor of skepticism are treated by Dan Turner in the same volume, pp. 364-69.

2. Gettier, E. Jr. (1963). “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Analysis, 23, pp. 121-23. Gettier’s argument was anticipated by Bertrend Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), pp. 131-32.