| | Elliot,
As I just posted in reply to Steve, I recommend ranking by whether there is or isn't an outstanding criticism of an idea. And no other way. Okay, but that's social metaphysics -- where you go along to get along, and things are accepted on the basis of a Gallup poll of outstanding criticisms. And if you pardon the bromide, no true Objectivist accepts social metaphysics as a foundation for how or when to accept or reject ideas.
But with lots of work we can define exactly when, why and how much any given idea supports any other ideas. I don't think it's possible to do it and have your answer be any good. ...
Whether it's possible or not, I don't think anyone has done it. Or come at all close.
Okay, but you are saying that no one has validated foundationalism (the resting of knowledge on basics; and the noncontradictory integration of advanced knowledge with basic knowledge). Yet I can think of several cases where it looks like someone was able to do it, Rand's nonfiction works standing out in this regard. Here are a couple of good quotes on the subject:
All learning involves a process of automatizing, i.e., of first acquiring knowledge by fully conscious, focused attention and observation, then of establishing mental connections which make that knowledge automatic (instantly available as a context), thus freeing man’s mind to pursue further, more complex knowledge. This quote shows that you have to use foundationalism/integration in order to become smart (in order to free your mind up enough so that you can use it to become smart).
A mind’s cognitive development involves a continual process of automatization. For example, you cannot perceive a table as an infant perceives it—as a mysterious object with four legs. You perceive it as a table, i.e., a man-made piece of furniture, serving a certain purpose belonging to a human habitation, etc.; you cannot separate these attributes from your sight of the table, you experience it as a single, indivisible percept—yet all you see is a four-legged object; the rest is an automatized integration of a vast amount of conceptual knowledge which, at one time, you had to learn bit by bit. The same is true of everything you perceive or experience; as an adult, you cannot perceive or experience in a vacuum, you do it in a certain automatized context—and the efficiency of your mental operations depends on the kind of context your subconscious has automatized. This quote shows that thinking efficiency is related to the automatization, or the "frozenness", of some knowledge.
The status of automatized knowledge in his mind is experienced by man as if it had the direct, effortless, self-evident quality (and certainty) of perceptual awareness. But it is conceptual knowledge—and its validity depends on the precision of his concepts, which require as strict a precision of meaning (i.e., as strict a knowledge of what specific referents they subsume) as the definitions of mathematical terms. (It is obvious what disasters will follow if one automatizes errors, contradictions and undefined approximations.) This quote warns that even though you have to work with some frozen, automatized knowledge (that is, if you want to be smart as a human being) -- you will also have to be careful that you did not accidentally incorporate an error into your thinking along the way: because it could become a frozen error.
Source:
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/automatization.html
Ed
|
|
