Glen,
I thought I knew the difference, but maybe I don't . I thought of rationalism as a form of idealism in which the a priori categories have to do with reason. Perhaps see ... http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/ This conversation is starting to distress me a bit because it seems I have started what I hoped to head off. I was hoping to get Patrick to make as direct a connection as possible between his arguments with particular Libertarians and/or Marists and the arguments between the physicists, without the mediation of all the -ist and -ism. I seem to have done a piss-poor job of that. I am happy (of course) to continue to work with you, or anybody else, to build a local consensus about what we mean by these words, so we don't constantly misunderstand one another. However, that's a different conversation, I think, isn't it? Shall we start our own thread? "Friam, 'ists', and 'isms'"?. Devotedly, Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -----Original Message----- From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of glen Sent: Monday, December 28, 2015 12:25 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Physicists and Philosophers Debate the Boundaries of Science | Quanta Magazine It's a bit of slippage to swap out rationalism in favor of idealism. I do it on purpose. I'm hoping others don't do it by accident. On 12/28/2015 10:29 AM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Idealism is the position that the categories by which we understand reality > exist prior to experience. Empiricism is the position that all knowledge of > reality comes from experience. [philosophical] pragmatism is the position > that all knowledge is knowledge */of /*experience period. (To talk of a > reality beyond experience is just silly.) To a pragmatist, what we call > “reality” is just that upon which we will all agree in the very long run. > Something is “truthy” (to use your term) just in case it seems like the sort > of experience that will endure the test of time. Properties of experience > that make them seem “truthy” include coherence with other understandings of > prior experiences the capacity to pull together the understandings of working > experimentalists. (Think about the manner in which various understandings of > the periodic table converged over the 19^th Century.) The fact that > physicists are arguing about these matters suggests that physicists’ ideas > right now > are not as “truthy” as those of Newton. > > Now none of this clarifies for me why you are mad at Marxists and > Libertarians. Oddly enough, I would suggest the best way to get at this > problem is to precede idiographically, avoiding any –ist or –ism words, to > tell a few stories in which you were abused by a particular Marxist and/or > libertarian, so we, ourselves, can decide if and how you were treated > unfairly. -- ⇔ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe <http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com> http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
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