That's about you. What about Kant? Georges
--- On Mon, 6/27/11, Lonnie Clay <claylon...@comcast.net> wrote: From: Lonnie Clay <claylon...@comcast.net> Subject: [epistemology 12197] Re: Kant's Epistemology To: epistemology@googlegroups.com Date: Monday, June 27, 2011, 9:52 AM https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/lonnie-courtney-clay/J3DZLyyBTkU I said that long ago, but am less optimistic nowadays. I see a world full of programmed button pushers, with most of the thinking being done by self selected persons. In my own case there was a smattering of training in philosophy, followed by occasional bouts of thinking. I am as guilty in some ways as the common herd of letting my attention wander to self gratification rather than trying to solve problems. Look around yourself and see if you can spot *anyone* dedicated to solving the root problems of the world rather than treating symptoms of those problems. Take this discussion as an example. You are passing back and forth crib sheets with names of persons reputed to be great thinkers, and talking about their influence upon your own thought processes. Perhaps that is the whole point of the discussion, an exchange of recognition codes. I am not going to even attempt to play that game. Instead I am going to stick in my own two cents worth as follows. Your senses tells you about the world surrounding yourself. Dominating your sensorium is the accumulated wisdom resulting from all of your experiences to date. That wisdom permits you to interpret your senses, bootstrapping your accumulated wisdom higher. A fundamental assumption here is that in your early life, you learned how to learn from experience rather than being just a black box stimulus organism response machine. You *refine* and *improve* your thought processes by noticing where your experience base led you to *conclude* something based upon available data which was *not* consistent with the observed consequences predicted based upon your assumptions. For most people hindsight is *not* 20/20 and they learn nothing from experience, sad but true. Furthermore they fail to attempt the most basic of predictive extrapolations from data, lacking rudimentary foresight. Let us suppose that those reading now have passed the test of being jolted into a heightened state of awareness and proceed onwards. On second thought, why should I care what happens to the world about me? Some obnoxious twits have cut me off from usenet updates as of Friday the 24th, and I don't see anyone knocking upon my door with an offer of employment. So why should I make the effort to grapple with my personal misgivings resulting from trying to impart to others what I use as thought processes. I reject the proposition that I must pay back interest on my debt to society from all of the things which I have learned from reading the works of others and experiencing entertaining performances. Why should I flash one of my hole cards when I can keep on holding out for a higher pot in the game of life? I anted up, now it's your turn. Lonnie Courtney Clay On Sunday, June 26, 2011 10:41:35 PM UTC-7, archytas wrote:You are suffering from not knowing enough Nom. My brain produces plenty of content I'm pleased to call subjective. This isn't at all the point on philosophic positions. Structural realism is probably the main position of scientists today. Scientific realism became dominant in philosophy of science after the demise of the forms of antirealism about science associated with the logical positivists, namely semantic instrumentalism, according to which theoretical terms are not to be interpreted as referring to anything, and theoretical reductionism, according to which theoretical terms are disguised ways of referring to observable phenomena. These forms of antirealism rely upon discredited doctrines about scientific language, such as that it can be divided into theoretical and observational parts, and that much of it should not be taken literally. Poincaré's structuralism had a Kantian flavour. In particular, he thought that the unobservable entities postulated by scientific theories were Kant's noumena or things in themselves. He revised Kant's view by arguing that the latter can be known indirectly rather than not at all because it is possible to know the relations into which they enter. Poincaré followed the upward path to structural realism, beginning with the neo- Kantian goal of recovering the objective or intersubjective world from the world from the subjective world of private sense impressions: “what we call objective reality is… what is common to many thinking beings and could be common to all; … the harmony of mathematical laws - so your ideas are incorporated in some forms of realism. What has been stuck up an old dripper for eternity, as Georges points out is naive realism, and even Locke talked of attention attraction and the like. If you find me footling about trying to slice up a bit of maize to get at some of its central growth cells with a microscope and a blade smaller than a pin-head, I take it you don't think I'm just pratting about with a bit of my own mind and am after some genetic material I can "cross" into rice (whatever). The answer to Chaz is that realism has changed its spots. I guess Awori that my actions with such maize can still be judged over someone just looking to eat the tiny shard I need and throw the rest of the plant away in some TV chef farce? On Jun 26, 8:53 pm, awori achoka <awori....@gmail.com> wrote: > Since we hardly know anything about the 'unreal'....and hardly dare claim to > know the so called 'real'...does anyone dare gloat about the virtues of one > body of knowledge over the other? A very unintellectual stand. > > On Jun 26, 2011 10:21 PM, "archytas" <nwt...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > One has to say now that the role of what we term the unconscious has > > more to do with science than we are allowing for even in our worst > > rationalist fantasies about it. I am yet to meet a non-realist or > > many of the other 'stuffs' I consider as real. Kant at least shows we > > need to hold more balls together in some arguments to have much clue > > on what matters. I suspect the problem with the term realism is > > 'common language' in the sense of the lack of it other than in the > > noise of clown society. 'Get real' being a general statement of the > > idiot. We could understand much more of this from what we know of > > animals than philosophers pretending not so to be. > > > On Jun 26, 7:51 pm, nominal9 <nomi...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> Hi Chaz.... > >> Frankly, I consider Kant to have been the first of the > >> Phenomenologists.... before Husserl, et al.... > >> As a Nominalist-leaning person, myself.... Phenomenologists are the > >> bane of my existence, I find that I have nothing that I agree with in > >> common with them, epistemologically... our "views" are diametrically > >> opposed.... > >> I think we've had this discussion.... or parts of it.....before.... > > >> Maybe you've seen that, when it comes to Kant's > >> terminology....phenomenon and noumenon, especially....and the > >> resulting Kant notions of the "essences" of knowledge..... > > >> Well... that's just "spaced-out" Mumbo-Jumbo.... like being on a > >> constant "drug-high".... when it comes to experiencing "things"..... > > >> That's my own opinion , of course... and I've put it in a very > >> "aggressively" critical, "common-language" form.... just to get you to > >> think about it > > >> On Jun 25, 3:41 am, chazwin <chaz...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > >> > In what way is Kant justifiably called a Subjectivist or Idealist? > > >> > We are perfectly justified in maintaining that only what is within > >> > ourselves can be immediately and directly perceived, and that only my > >> > own existence can be the object of a mere perception. Thus the > >> > existence of a real object outside me can never be given immediately > >> > and directly in perception, but can only be added in thought to the > >> > perception, which is a modification of the internal sense, and thus > >> > inferred as its external cause … . In the true sense of the word, > >> > therefore, I can never perceive external things, but I can only infer > >> > their existence from my own internal perception, regarding the > >> > perception as an effect of something external that must be the > >> > proximate cause … . It must not be supposed, therefore, that an > >> > idealist is someone who denies the existence of external objects of > >> > the senses; all he does is to deny that they are known by immediate > >> > and direct perception … . > >> > —Critique of Pure Reason, A367 f. > > >> > Given this statement, how is any position which asserts a Realist > >> > position ever justifiable? > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Epistemology" group.> To post to this group, send email to > episte...@googlegroups.com. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > epistemology...@googlegroups. com.> For more options, visit this group at > > http://groups.google.com/ group/epistemology?hl=en. > > > > > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/epistemology/-/xQ2geMMK8_4J. 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