Objectivist Epistemology (minus a few words)

Elliot,

> Ayn Rand discovered the standards of human knowing

Infallibly? So you're refusing to have a debate about what the standards of knowing are ...

I rarely (if ever) refuse to have a debate on anything deemed important -- so let's have one. I made an outline commensurate with Objectivism, but you (so far) have refused to debate it with me. Here it is again:

You start with stuff you see. That's needed to get the ball rolling. You have to see some stuff. Without some kind of perception of the world, there is no such thing as human knowledge. Then, after seeing a bunch of stuff, you start to remember things. Having a memory allows you to form crude, animal-like (non-logical) associations between the various types or kinds of stuff you see. Then, after seeing and remembering some things, you take things a step further -- and you start to develop ideas. If you become good at thinking, you will form objective concepts about the entities of the world.

You can't undercut or short-circuit this process in any way, and that is because of the kind of creature that you are.

Recap:
--Knowledge begins with perception and ends with concepts that can be at least indirectly reduced to the integration of perceptions
--concepts are logical associations (i.e., non-contradictory integrations) of perceptions or of lower-level concepts
--concepts are objective (rather than being someone's subjective "preferences")
--perceptions correspond to reality -- but, due to illusions, this is not necessarily self-evident
--concepts, properly formed, correspond to reality

Do you have any criticisms of that?

Ed

Post 41

Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 8:53pm

Knowledge can't begin with perception because observation requires knowledge to be effective. What do you observe and what not? You have to think first to answer that question before you make useful, selective observations.

There are vast numbers of things to observe, patterns to find, perspectives to consider, and so on. How is one to choose? Whatever the answer, that we need to start there, not with perception.

Second criticism: where is the answer to Paley's problem (how knowledge is created)? I think an epistemology should address that.

Third, in general what you're saying here has been refuted by Popper�and Deutsch in books you have chosen either not to read or not to reply to. What do you want from me? To repeat stuff that is already available to you? Why? Or maybe to repeat stuff except write it better and more helpful stuff than those books? That'd be quite a lot to ask. But if I'm not writing more helpful stuff than those books, why engage with me and refuse to read the better-edited, better-organized material?

Post 42

Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 9:29pm

Observation is enhanced by further conceptual knowledge, but it's not dependent on it.
(Edited by Michael Philip on 7/28, 11:21pm)

Post 43

Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 9:33pm

explain

Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 11:26pm

you don't have a good idea of concept formation.

Post 45

Sunday, July 28, 2013 - 11:47pm

you edited your post and completely changed the content after i replied to it. that's not cool dude.

in any case, since you don't want to have a discussion�with me, leave me alone.

Post 46

Monday, July 29, 2013 - 12:47am

My bad, I was going to address you but accidentally edited the wrong post. Anyway my point was that the idea that perceptual judgement is "theory-laden" i.e. that perception is influenced by the very theories that are supposed to be tested by perception is faulty and leads to all the other problems that follow and also that you don't seem to have a good understanding of what concept formation is (as do a lot of Popperians and Popper himself.)

There is no such thing as inherent knowledge and perception is indeed the starting point. Denying the validity of the senses is a totally indefensible position. Observation is enhanced by further conceptual knowledge, but it's not dependent on it. You're trying to keep the fruits of integration while attacking the cognitive roots upon which theory depends. It is self-defeating

(Edited by Michael Philip on 7/29, 12:59am)
(Edited by Michael Philip on 7/29, 1:56am)

(Edited by Michael Philip on 7/29, 2:04am)

(Edited by Michael Philip on 7/29, 2:09am)

Post 47

Monday, July 29, 2013 - 9:39pm

Knowledge can't begin with perception because observation requires knowledge to be effective ...

Elliot, what you are inferring is the theory of innate ideas. Under this theory, you start out with knowledge inside of your head (presumably when you were born or just before you were born) and then that 'internal knowledge' guides you in your efforts to perceive the world around you. Plato was an advocate of that kind of a thing. It's a mere postulation -- a bold conjecture -- about some mystical transfer (or mystical genesis) of ideas from either from parent to child (evolution), or from God to man (divine). I don't think you could effectively argue for something like that, but that shouldn't dissuade you -- because you believe that people cannot effectively argue for things (only against things, such as against rival hypotheses).

What I cannot believe is that you adequately tested the other hypotheses before settling down on the idea of spooky, mystical, innate ideas. Go figure. Did you say that you studied Objectivism for 8 years, or just philosophy for 8 years? It's hard to believe that you could have studied Objectivism for 8 years but missed this crucial point about the Primacy-of-Consciousness/Primacy-of-Existence dichotomy regarding the genesis of human knowledge.

What do you observe and what not? You have to think first to answer that question before you make useful, selective observations

No, you don't. As a child I stubbed my toe against the table and looked at the table for a while in order to determine whether it was alive or not. I did not need to understand the ultimate identity of the table in order to begin perceiving things about it. The pain in my toe forced my attention and I began to take in more details about this 4-legged creature that just hurt me so. Pain made me selective in my observation -- not some kind of innate understanding about what it really and truly means to be table.

Second criticism: where is the answer to Paley's problem (how knowledge is created)? I think an epistemology should address that.

Do you mean William Paley? I'll answer as if you do. William Paley was stuck in the same Primacy-of-Consciousness conundrum, just like Plato. For him, there cannot be any order in the universe without it having been first designed to be ordered. Rand's answer to Paley's problem was poignant:

What would a dis-ordered universe look like (because the universe is the standard for what "order" is or means)?

Phil Donahue, who was interviewing her on TV at the time, was ecstatic about the "teaching moment" he got from her short quip of an answer. It's on YouTube and it is when Rand was wearing red instead of blue (she wore red for the first Donahue interview, and blue for the second).

But if I'm not writing more helpful stuff than those books, why engage with me and refuse to read the better-edited, better-organized material?

Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you about Rand.

:-)

Ed

Post 48

Monday, July 29, 2013 - 10:00pm

"Funny, I was going to say the same thing to you about Rand."

But I have extensively read Rand, while you are choosing not to read more broadly.

I came here (and other places) to supplement my understanding of Objectivism by seeing what some people actually do with it. My primary source of information on the subject is books, not your comments.

You aren't reading Popper and supplementing with questions to the Popperian community. Nor anything like it.

Yeah I started studying Objectivism about 8 years ago. Philosophy longer. (This is a matter of public record if you made any effort to research it btw. E.g. I have a philosophy blog which is more than 10 years old.)

Your difficulty believing that someone could both be educated and also disagree with you is revealing about you, not me. That's actually a good example of the sort of mistake Popper would been keen to criticize.

I did not advocate innate ideas how it's typically meant. But, yes, some knowledge is inborn. It has to be. A literally blank slate can't get started thinking and learning. In the longterm the inborn knowledge isn't very important.

You declare knowledge in genes mystical. You don't explain why. You further don't explain how perception without knowledge could be possible and could get learning started. (Nor does Rand answer that anywhere.)

Regarding Paley, the problem is how the "appearance of design" (knowledge) can come about. One way it can be created is: knowledge can create knowledge. But how does knowledge get created without knowledge? Which is needed to get things started. And the only known answer to that is evolution.

The thing about the universe having order is confused. It doesn't address the difference between a rock (orderly in some sense, but no knowledge) and a eye (which has the "appearance of design", and needs more explanation than the rock). This is the sort of thing you could learn about if you read the relevant books.

The pain example misses the point too. How can you learn by perception that the table had anything to do with the pain? Even the false theory that correlation implies causation would be a prior theory, not learning from perception first. And how would you know where to look? Or that you should look instead of hear? Like I was saying, observation is selective according to ideas that come before the observation. This is the sort of thing you could learn about if you read the relevant books.

Can you name any book that, if only I read it before commenting, I would have said something different? If you'd read The Beginning of Infinity you would have commented differently about Paley. If you'd read Objective Knowledge you would have commented differently about observation.

Post 49

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - 3:29pm

Like I was saying, observation is selective according to ideas that come before the observation

and where do those ideas come from?

Post 50

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - 3:41pm

Ed,

Elliot is a rationalist whose just juggling anti-conceptual ideas and floating abstractions trying to account for disintegrated thought processes, which leaves one with nothing but an attempt to survive the ensuing skepticism through pragmatism. All he's given us so far is a lot of fallacies in terms of non-essentials and arbitrary concoctions. On top of that he has poor scholarship on Rand and has misrepresented Peikoff

Post 51

Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - 7:15pm

If you'd read Objective Knowledge you would have commented differently about observation.

Really? Using the Look Inside feature, one can search for observation here to test that claim. :-)

For example, on page 72 Popper�muddles innate perceptual systems with theories. It follows quite naturally that he�muddles percepts with concepts and what is non-volitional with what is volitional.
(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 7/31, 4:43am)

Post 52

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - 3:48am

doesn't surprise me. he muddles awareness with forming propositions as well

Post 53

Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - 6:02pm

Sunday, August 11, 2013 - 10:37am

Elliot,

The thing about the universe having order is confused. It doesn't address the difference between a rock (orderly in some sense, but no knowledge) and a eye (which has the "appearance of design", and needs more explanation than the rock). This is the sort of thing you could learn about if you read the relevant books.

The pain example misses the point too. How can you learn by perception that the table had anything to do with the pain? Even the false theory that correlation implies causation would be a prior theory, not learning from perception first. And how would you know where to look? Or that you should look instead of hear? Like I was saying, observation is selective according to ideas that come before the observation. This is the sort of thing you could learn about if you read the relevant books.

Can you name any book that, if only I read it before commenting, I would have said something different?

I like that last question -- because it is intriguing -- but it is terribly presumptuous. My answer is The Logical Leap, by Harriman (foreword by Peikoff). But I don't want to presume, like you do (about me), that the book would have altered your response. Let's just say that the order that is inside of the universe -- and the developing awareness of that order (by human beings) -- and also the idea that solid objects impede the movement of human limbs, is all explained in the book (if only you had read it first before answering).

If you'd read The Beginning of Infinity you would have commented differently about Paley. If you'd read Objective Knowledge you would have commented differently about observation.

Maybe so. The experience of first reading those books may have altered my comments somewhat. But do not presume that it would have made my comments more appealing to someone like you. Experiencing those books first, might have had the opposite effect on my responses. It all depends on whether the authors are convincing in the right way, or not. If they are not convincing -- or are not convincing in the right way (and there is only one right way to be convincing) -- then you walk away from the experience with a deeper understanding of why they are either wrong, or of why they are possibly even intellectual idiots.

To paraphrase 2 infamous quotes, experience with fools does not make the heart grow fonder, but just the opposite. With fools, only absence can make the heart grow fonder.

Ed

Post 55

Thursday, August 15, 2013 - 4:06am

Following up on post 51 and Popper's muddling of perception and theory, he at least suggests that lions have a theory that meat is better for their diet than grass and the meat of a cape buffalo is better for their diet than the meat of small game such as a guineafowl.

Post 56

Thursday, August 15, 2013 - 12:28pm

From Elliot's post 48:

You further don't explain how perception without knowledge could be possible and could get learning started. (Nor does Rand answer that anywhere.)

Yes, she does -- in ITOE.

Post 57

Friday, August 16, 2013 - 6:04am

Just out of curiosity Merlin, I can't preview page 72 so which parts or quotes perhaps indicate the confusion on Popper's part.
(Edited by Michael Philip on 8/16, 6:41am)

Post 58

Friday, August 16, 2013 - 9:35am

Michael Philip, the following is brief because I can't copy and paste using the Look Inside feature.

The eye of a cat reacts in distinct ways to a number of typical situations for which there are mechanisms prepared and built into its structure: these correspond to the biologically most important situations between which it has to distinguish. Thus the disposition to distinguish between these situations is built into the sense organ, and with it the theory that these, and only these, are the relevant situations for whose distinction the eye is to be used.
The fact that all our senses are in this way theory-impregnated shows most clearly the radical failure of the bucket theory and with it all those other theories which attempt to trace our knowledge to our observations, or to the input of the organism (Objective Knowledge, 72).

Post 59

Saturday, August 17, 2013 - 7:33am