Demanding Evidence

[Betterave]

If you think that “2+2=4” is a statement about the world, I again will point out confusion between maps and territories.

So you’re just going to go right back to pointing out “confusion between maps and territories” and pretend like the whole discussion (where you refused to explain the meaningfulness of such an injunction) didn’t happen?

Maps and territories are metaphors for concepts and reality, correct? So you could just as well ‘point out’ (i.e., assert) that your interlocutors are confusing concepts and reality?

Anyway, I suggested your view seemed to be:
“concepts are STEM-based; but not all concepts refer to that which is STEM-based, some refer to other concepts… but concepts are STEM-based…”

You didn’t disagree, but preferred as being “more correct”:

“The only basis known for extant concepts is STEM, and we are not aware of any coherent basis for concepts outside of STEM.”

So I’ll ask again: what makes your statement “more correct” as a representation of your views?? Does it just feel more right to you?

Analysis based on what’s observed. Empiricism is not simply observation. Reasoning gets applied to form the analystic basis for models that perform (or don’t perform).

…ergo, the doctrine of empiricism and statements that claim to be grounded in empirical methods are not based simply on “the reality of reality” (obviously not - that’s not a meaningful thesis) nor are they based simply on the immediacy of our sensory reactions, the ones that reality dictates to us in hand-in-fire type situations. No! In fact they are based on subsequent fallible rational analysis - imagine that! Therefore, when an empiricist (such as TS) makes a claim about the conclusions of his analysis of reality, it is not just reality speaking, and it is ridiculous for him to say “that’s not me speaking, that’s just reality.” Or would you like to backpedal again, TS?

So now TS owes an explanation for his meta-criterion: performance. Now presumably the same arguments will apply: the criterion of ‘performance’ is not self-interpreting, does not get applied infallibly, any more than that of ‘observation.’ (In itself it’s a hopelessly vague term that could be taken to mean any number of things.) So how are we to conceive of this alleged criterion as an empirically-grounded criterion that can be used as a selection device between models? And please don’t tell us that ‘the reality of reality’ is supposed to guide us here! I’ve burned my hand enough this week (I’m a little slow (just kidding)).

 

[Tybourne]

Empiricism…is very much a tradition, a kind of ongoing research program, and so it does have the kinds of strictures an interpretive dispositions you are talking about… the ‘sensation of God’ or some such, fails precisely because of the methodology of empiricism – the tradition I think you supposed was lacking or was being denied. … Gagarin sipping from that same wine glass does NOT have the same numinous experience. which he is incapable of due to his a priori materialism]

Empiricism…is both an interpretive framework and an intellectual tradition… it not only declares and owns its interpretive paradigm [rather, this tradition of knowing conceals the fact that it is rooted in the histories of its investigators, which are at once personal and cultural], but can point to the successful **[by what standard?]**models that ground the method and principles of analysis.

Both Aldrin and Gagarin are making inferences in the very act of perception. There is no act of perception untainted by tradition and belief. Gargarin sees no god, inferring that there is no God. Aldrin perceives the wine curling up the side of the glass, inferring Divine Otherness and connectivity. I appreciate that the dominant arguments in this thread are in the analytic tradition and in no way do I want to derail them. However, Merleau-Ponty points out to us that the act of perception is always intentional, always shaped by the particular way in which we are oriented to the world. We perceive a Gestalt, not merely an atomized collection of sense data. And why should this be? Because we are always in the Universe, looking from a particular, historically conditioned standpoint. You claim that empiricism admits this and yet, see, in your example here, Gagarin is **incapable **of inferring the Gestalt of Creation if he were to sip from Aldrin’s communion chalice due to the a priori limits he has placed (or had placed) on his perception (‘this sense perception is nothing-but what it is’). Empiricism of the STEM kind you have been advocating, acknowledges its method, but claims that this allows its proponents to stand, as it were, outside the Universe, looking in. In reality, there is no such place to stand, for humans. Do you agree?

 

[Betterave]

In some logically possible world, no intelligibility, or even any context for logic, would exist.

Oh? Please explain.

See Quine’s dismissal of the analytic/sythetic distinction based on the “unempirical article of faith” that is this commitment to a priori necessities.

Uh…like where? “Two Dogmas”? See Richard Creath’s “Quine on the Intelligibility and Relevance of Analyticity” in The Cambridge Companion to Quine.

 

[Betterave]

Both Aldrin and Gagarin are making inferences in the very act of perception. Gargarin sees no god and infers that there is no God. Aldrin perceives the wine curling up the side of the glass and infers Divine Otherness and connectivity. I appreciate that the dominant arguments in this thread are in the analytic tradition and in no way do I want to derail them. However, Merleau-Ponty points out to us that the act of perception is always intentional, always shaped by the particular way in which we are oriented to the world. We perceive a Gestalt, not merely an atomized collection of sense data. And why should this be? Because we are always in the Universe, looking from a particular, historically conditioned standpoint. You claim that empiricism admits this and yet, see, in your example here, Gagarin is **incapable **of inferring the Gestalt of Creation if he were to sip from Aldrin’s communion chalice due to the a priori limits he has placed (or had placed) on his perception (this sense perception is nothing-but what it is). Empiricism of the STEM kind you have been advocating, acknowledges its method, but claims that this allows its proponents to stand, as it were, outside the Universe, looking in. In reality, there is no such place to stand. Do you agree?

Yup!

 

[Leela]

There you go again, defining terms to suit your own purposes. We were all explicitly talking about sense-experience, not the colloquial “inner personal experience” you are referring to. Our argument still holds.

Further, you missed the point of the argument. The demonstration wasn’t merely that the claim “Knowledge only comes from sense-experience” had no justification (though that’s the result), but even more, that it is self-undermining. It is not merely claiming that knowledge comes from sense-experience, but also that no knowledge comes from non-sensory experience–that’s the purpose of the “only” restriction it mentions. But here’s where it is self-underming: the *claim **itself ***is an explicitly non-sensory claim, namely about non-sensory knowledge. So it can’t be said to be true since the very content of its claim is that no non-sensory knowledge is possible! So it can’t even hold as a basic belief upon which to rest other beliefs since the belief itself is absurd. So not only does one lack justification for believing it, even further, the claim itself is self-undermining.

I understand that my take on empiricism is a more though-going empiricism that mere sense-experience, but still no one who claims to subscribe to empiricism claims that empiricism rules out thinking about sense experience as a source of knowledge. You are arguing against a straw man.

You can insist all you want, Leela, that when I say “Jeff is a bachelor” I am actually saying “Jeff is a bacehlor like other men, so bachelor is a relation.”

But in virtue of the obvious differences in meaning of the two statements, I’ll just disagree: When I say “Jeff is a bachelor” I mean precisely what I say that I mean, namely, Jeff is a bachelor. You can contradict what I am claiming I mean when I utter the predication all you want, but I really don’t believe you have a priviledged access to my own intentions that I don’t. So your view is *prima facie *absurd, especially without an argument to support it. .

I hope you won’t think I’m putting words in your mouth, but when you say that Jeff is a bachelor I always assume you mean that Jeff is unmarried.

What is the point of all this? My understanding was that you were suggesting that saying that Jeff is a bachelor is to point out an intrinsic property of Jeff. Am I to think that the essence of Jeff-ness changes if Jeff gets engaged? Is the assertion that Jeff is unmarried something other than to put Jeff in relation to the institution of marriage? Is there anything you can tell me about Jeff that is not another such example of putting Jeff in relation to something else?

 

[Touchstone]

So you’re just going to go right back to pointing out “confusion between maps and territories” and pretend like the whole discussion (where you refused to explain the meaningfulness of such an injunction) didn’t happen?

I didn’t refuse any request like that.

Maps and territories are metaphors for concepts and reality, correct? So you could just as well ‘point out’ (i.e., assert) that your interlocutors are confusing concepts and reality?

I was trying to refer back to the previous discussion with “map and territory”.

Anyway, I suggested your view seemed to be:
“concepts are STEM-based; but not all concepts refer to that which is STEM-based, some refer to other concepts… but concepts are STEM-based…”

You didn’t disagree, but preferred as being “more correct”:

“The only basis known for extant concepts is STEM, and we are not aware of any coherent basis for concepts outside of STEM.”

So I’ll ask again: what makes your statement “more correct” as a representation of your views?? Does it just feel more right to you?

It’s more precise. It is explicit in declaring the provisional/evidential basis for the claim (“the only basis known…”, “we are not aware…”), and I find “refer to that which is STEM-based” to problematically ambiguous. I think that could be read to say that the referents of some concepts are both a) extant and b) non-STEM-based, implying that I am supporting the notion of extant things outside (whatever that might mean) of STEM.

You asked, I answered. Just noting the pattern developing, here.

…ergo, the doctrine of empiricism and statements that claim to be grounded in empirical methods are not based simply on “the reality of reality” (obviously not - that’s not a meaningful thesis) nor are they based simply on the immediacy of our sensory reactions, the ones that reality dictates to us in hand-in-fire type situations.

They are “based” on just that. A house is “based” on its foundation. The second floor is NOT the foundation, but it is based on it. All of the higher-order descriptions and analyses are based on our sensory experiences (see my regular reminder about humans as products of evolution, though, and as such arriving at birth with innate, hardwired responses and commitments – a newborn baby knows before birth how to suck in order to eat… it’s innate, instinctual, biological), of the very same kind as putting one’s hand in a flame, albeit less painful, most of the time (hopefully).

It’s a thesis rich in mean, as meaningful as any understanding we have, for it is the base, the foundation of our understanding, the predicate for all the higher level understandings and semantics we might develop.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Betterave:

No! In fact they are based on subsequent fallible rational analysis - imagine that! Therefore, when an empiricist (such as TS) makes a claim about the conclusions of his analysis of reality, it is not just reality speaking, and it is ridiculous for him to say “that’s not me speaking, that’s just reality.” Or would you like to backpedal again, TS?

I remarked a couple posts back (to someone else) that empiricism is not just simple observation, it requires rational analysis to build models out of the sense-data.

That isn’t anything new - ask any empiricist, or see here, for example, a link I have pointed people to before when this objection is raised:

The rationalist/empiricist classification also encourages us to expect the philosophers on each side of the divide to have common research programs in areas beyond epistemology. Thus, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz are mistakenly seen as applying a reason-centered epistemology to a common metaphysical agenda, with each trying to improve on the efforts of the one before, while Locke, Berkeley and Hume are mistakenly seen as gradually rejecting those metaphysical claims, with each consciously trying to improve on the efforts of his predecessors**. In short, the labels ‘rationalist’ and ‘empiricist,’ as well as the slogan that is the title of this essay, ‘Rationalism vs. Empiricism,’ used carelessly can retard rather than advance our understanding.**

(my emphasis)

That whole section is good, I recommend it.

As for fallibility, if you suppose I’ve made claims to infallibility, you’re mistaken. I affirm without reservation the falllibility of human reasoning – all the more reason to rely on objective and rigorous methods that work to mitigate the effects of our limitations!

So now TS owes an explanation for his meta-criterion: performance. Now presumably the same arguments will apply: the criterion of ‘performance’ is not self-interpreting, does not get applied infallibly, any more than that of ‘observation.’ (In itself it’s a hopelessly vague term that could be taken to mean any number of things.)

Infallible is a red-herring, here. Not my claim, and a non-starter for human epistemology. Saying that this criterion or that is fallible doesn’t tell us anything, because we have no idea, no reference for what “infallible” even means. That’s the whole reason for epistemology – it’s our response to opaque nature of “infallible”.

Nevertheless, performance means that a) observation of phenomena addressed by a model matches its predictions, b) the explanatory mechanisms of the model account for the background evidence, and c)the model is liable to falsification, at least in principle.

We can observe, then, and see how empirical models perform on these measures. We can judge their performance. Here’s a question for you, just for yuks: how do you measure the performance of whatever epistemology you endorse. That’s me asking, what’s your answer?

So how are we to conceive of this alleged criterion as an empirically-grounded criterion that can be used as a selection device between models? And please don’t tell us that ‘the reality of reality’ is supposed to guide us here! I’ve burned my hand enough this week (I’m a little slow (just kidding)).

Well, ‘the reality of reality’ refers to our affirmation of the primacy of experience, and that is, indeed, the basis for judging one empirical model vs. another, or judging an empirical claim on its own grounds. If you accept the flame burning your hand as real (under either realist or idealist metaphysics – doesn’t matter), you have already granted the basis for this distinction, this measure of the models.

-TS

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Sure. Statements are contingent on minds. Truths – especially analytic truths – are dependent on minds. No definitions without minds, right?

If you think that “2+2=4” is a statement about the world, I again will point out confusion between maps and territories.

how would the map differ from the territory in the case of the law of non-contradiction? isnt that a property of being?

Analysis based on what’s observed. Empiricism is not simply observation. Reasoning gets applied to form the analystic basis for models that perform (or don’t perform).

empiricism is simply an epistemological claim, how does one “perform” it? it has to be linked to some activity, it doesnt occur in a vacuum.

I shouldn’t even pretend to speak for Leela, so I will say just for myself that “non-sensory experience” is a “square circle” term. It’s internally conflicted. Sense is that “that which yields experience”, and “experience is that which we gain through our senses”. That’s what I meant about Leela’s possible (A) claim, based on the tautology of sense and experience.

sense in that definition and the normal empirical claim are very different. that seems like more of a word game than a strong argumennt.

The point of that would be utility in classification. We use “senses” as a semantic bucket in which to point to those streams of signals, symbols or stimuli that affect our cognition. If we discovered some new human faculty to detect a newly discovered form of radiation, that would be a “sixth sense”. We wouldn’t exclude it because it wasn’t part of the “classic senses”. It’s a sense because it provides novel (name removed by moderator)ut to the brain, (name removed by moderator)ut the brain can process in some way, and possible act on

That’s right in line with my understanding of Leela’s (and my) tautology. There is a point in such usage – it carries valuable semantic freight.

if you open up the domain of empirical senses beyond the natural world by definition, then empiricism becomes meaningless.

No logical truths are necessary a priori, so far as I’m aware. That does not mean logical principles are not actual, taking stock of our senses and experiences. Manifestly, some logical principles obtain – that which enables effective communication in a post like this, for example. But that a transcendental dependency, but that should not be mistaken for a necessary truth, metaphysically.

“there must be something rather than nothing” a necessary truth in all possible worlds

The universe might have been otherwise, for all we know, or might not have been at all. We do not have, and cannot have, any means of qualifying such a necessity *a priori. *Being actual does not entail necessity across all (logically) possible worlds.

sure we do. there is no such thing as ‘no-thing’, such a state of ‘no-thing’ can exist. for ‘no-thing’ to exist is a logical contradiction.

I light of that, I think that distinction isn’t needed, the special pleading for the necessity of logical truths. It’s necessary in a transcendental sense that sufficient logical properties obtain such that we can communicate, etc., but it might have been otherwise for all we know. That’s important, as the criterion for a logically necessary truth – must obtain in all possible worlds – reduces the set of such necessities to tautologies, trivially true statements which are incoherent or contradictory if negated. In some logically possible world, no intelligibility, or even any context for logic, would exist.

See Quine’s dismissal of the analytic/sythetic distinction based on the “unempirical article of faith” that is this commitment to a priori necessities.

-TS

see above. existence is a necessary truth for all logically possible worlds.

 

[Areopagite]

I remarked a couple posts back (to someone else) that empiricism is not just simple observation, it requires rational analysis to build models out of the sense-data.

Interesting. I’m not quite sure how empiricism in this case would be distinguished from Aristotelian realism. Aristotle said all knowledge comes through the senses … in that we gain all our concepts ultimately from abstracting from sense data. The word “empirical” of course (correct me if I’m wrong) simply implies observation without analysis … which is why “empiricism” is sort of misleading if you define it like you (and perhaps most empiricists) have.

 

[Syntax]

See Quine’s dismissal of the analytic/sythetic distinction based on the “unempirical article of faith” that is this commitment to a priori necessities.

Ok, you’re a Quinean. I have a lot of disagreements. But I will keep this brief.

I am very familiar with Quine’s articles “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” and “On What there is.” His criticism was mainly directed at Frege and Carnap’s construal of analytic statements–“true in virtue of linguistic meaning”–purely in terms of extensionalist notions. So his criticism was straw-man with respect intensionalist semantics. He just rejected the latter with poor reason, mainly because it didn’t fit in with his thesis about indeterminacy of translation and his own behaviorist account of meaning, both of which I find speculative at best.

Check out Robert Hanna’s “Kant and Foundations of Analytic Philosophy” (2002) for a thorough argument against Quine’s denial of the analytic and synthetic distinction in terms of intensionalist semantics.

No logical truths are necessary a priori, so far as I’m aware. That does not mean logical principles are not actual, taking stock of our senses and experiences.

“P or not-P” is a logical truth. So this is falsifiable a posteriori? I doubt it.

Further, tying necessity to the a posteriori, doesn’t actually get the result you want. For instance, Kripke thought there exists necessary a posteriori truths such as Water=H2O, which came directly out of his theories of reference in externalist semantics. But he had no qualms about maintaining necessity as a purely metaphysical notion.

But that a transcendental dependency, but that should not be mistaken for a necessary truth, metaphysically.

I can’t make sense of the semantic notion of “necessary truth” that is not metaphysical. You are trying to tie metaphysical “necessity” to human epistemic condtions. But this is a Berkelian move. Berkeley’s premise was was no different than your own epistemic premise, from which he drew the opposite metaphysical conclusion. I wish you would appreciate that. I think they are both very weak inferences about what actually exists.

The universe might have been otherwise, for all we know, or might not have been at all.

I agree.

We do not have, and cannot have, any means of qualifying such a necessity a priori.

Why not? I don’t have to be actually present in every possible world to maintain a definition that “Necessarily true” means true across all possible worlds.

Being actual does not entail necessity across all (logically) possible worlds.In light of that, I think that distinction isn’t needed, the special pleading for the necessity of logical truths.

No one said actual entails necessity across all possible worlds. A proposition is more likely contingent if it reflects actual world conditions. And no one thinks, unless you’re David Lewis, that possible worlds are really existent worlds for which the term actual as used by us is merely an indexical term. There is one and only one existent world, ours, while “possible worlds” talk is merely a theoretical device to help us cash out the differences between *physical necessities *and logical necessities. So I think the distinction is *very much *needed.

It’s necessary in a transcendental sense that sufficient logical properties obtain such that we can communicate, etc., but it might have been otherwise for all we know.

“For all we know 2+2=4 could be false” is not a claim I share. Maybe it just sounds “cool” to you to be a die-hard skeptic as if this claim were really profound? What’s your motivation? Are you making inductive inferences that since all empirical claims are contingent, mathematical and logical claims are too? That’s a very weak and disanalgous inductive generalization. Sounds just like Quine. Cool.

That’s important, as the criterion for a logically necessary truth – must obtain in all possible worlds – reduces the set of such necessities to tautologies, trivially true statements which are incoherent or contradictory if negated.

Not all logical truths are truth-table tautologies. For instance, ~(A is larger than B) and (B is larger than A)] is necessarily true, but it can’t be shown to be a truth-table tautology.
It is incoherent if it is negated, but it is not an explicit contradiction.

In some logically possible world, no intelligibility, or even any context for logic, would exist.

That’s a very dubious claim. If we’re consistent with your radical empiricism, my question is, “how do you know this”? Aren’t being inconsistent here? You say we can’t makes sense of possible worlds talk because we are restricted to our actuality, but then go on to say that in other possible worlds in which we don’t exist, logic is unintelligible. How do you know logic is unintelligible in these worlds, Mr. Quine?

 

[Syntax]

Sure. Statements are contingent on minds. Truths – especially analytic truths – are dependent on minds. No definitions without minds, right?

If you think that “2+2=4” is a statement about the world, I again will point out confusion between maps and territories.

I’m not naive about your silly distinction. I think maps are really existent parts of the territory, but you don’t. The suppostion about types is incredibly explanatorily powerful for phenomena such as shared meanings and communication which I’ve demonstrated a week ago for which you failed to respond.

Here is some terminological confusion on your part. “Contingent” is a modal notion about truth-value of propositions. It means that a proposition is not necessarily true, that is, the proposition is possibly be false. It doesn’t mean “dependent on the mind.” The latter is an expression of ontological dependency. But you put them together as if they are one thing.

For instance, the existence of John’s uttered token sentence “Susie the cat is on the mat” is dependent on John because John is the one who uttered this token sentence. So we can establish the following existential dependency relation you are asserting to hold between language and people:

(1) the existence of token sentential utterances are dependent on the human beings who utter them.

But John’s act of uttering the sentence is not what makes the proposition expressed by that sentence true or false–instead, the condition of the actual world is what makes this sentence (or the proposition expressed by that sentence) true or false. Similarly, the proposition expressed by his token utterance “unicorns exist” is not made true or false by John’s act of uttering this sentence. So the truth of the proposition is not dependent on John uttering it. So we can establish this,

(2) the truth-value of a propostion (or “sentence-type”) is not dependent on the *act *of utterance.

Moreover, we can also establish that the truth-value of proposition expressed by a sentence-token is not dependent on the existence of the sentence-token. For instance, if John utters the token “unicorns exist” and Bill utters the token “unicorns exist,” even if John dies along with his token utterance becoming meaningless for John, then the sentence type *unicorns exist *is still false because there are no unicorns in the world. The proposition expressed by that sentence doesn’t suddenly become meaningless for everyone else. For what’s so priviledged about John? Nothing that I can see. So we can say that,

(3) the truth-value of a proposition (or a sentence type) is not dependent on the existence of sentence tokens.

So when we say that 2+2=4 is necessarily true a priori, we mean that there are no conditions under which it can possibly be falsified, even if there are no human being around to utter token instances of it. Just as there is no reason to suppose that when John dies the sentence-type or the proposition expressed by that sentence-type becomes meaningless, for the same reason, there is no reason to suppose that when we all die the proposition suddenly becomes meaningless. Truly, why is that when one person dies the sentence type maintains its meaning, but when all people die, the sentence-type suddenly becomes meaningless? If there is a good reason to think this distinction should hold, then I put the burden on you to explain why because I can’t find any good reason.

So what about worlds in which no human beings exist? “2+2=4” is meaningless, right? So worlds in which there are four oranges without human-beings to conceive this, that there are four oranges becomes meaningless in that world? But this sounds just like Berkelian idealism that if a tree false in the forest and no one is there to perceive it fall, then it is meaningless to think that it does fall. Surely, it still falls. I can easily imagine worlds in which humans don’t exist but things still happen, just as I can imagine worlds in which mathematical truths are still true independent of human conception. Surely, when you cease to exist, “2+2=4” is still both meaningful and true. So it is absurd to suppose its meaning and truth is any more dependent on your own conception than its meaning and truth is dependent on mine.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

:nunchuk:

 

[Touchstone]

Interesting. I’m not quite sure how empiricism in this case would be distinguished from Aristotelian realism. Aristotle said all knowledge comes through the senses … in that we gain all our concepts ultimately from abstracting from sense data. The word “empirical” of course (correct me if I’m wrong) simply implies observation without analysis … which is why “empiricism” is sort of misleading if you define it like you (and perhaps most empiricists) have.

Well, my understanding is that the salient distinction for empiricism is not that it is “observation without analysis” – see the link I posted to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on that for Betterave. And you’re right, there is a “colloquial overload” here – casual usages often tend to discount or omit the analysis, an essential element of empiricist epistemology.

The salient distinction is the grounding of analysis in observation and experience. That is important, as it separates from a priori knowledge in the rationalist sense; to say that one is empiricist is NOT to say one omits analysis (!), but rather to say that analysis is predicated on sensory experience and observation. That’s a stark contrast against other epistemological notions, like the idea of “right reason”, which I got a page full of recently over at UncommonDescent – the idea that comes “for free” in some cases, “unpaid for” in the currency of experience and sense data (and yes, the analysis that proceeds from that).

As far as deltas with Aristotelian realism, if you’d asked me who the “first empiricist” was, I’d have said “Aristotle” in response. He was an empiricist, just one who slathered on a lot of frivolous metaphsyics on top of that epistemic core. He took counsel of experience and sense-data, then crafted a baroque edifice of speculative metaphysics on top of that as the “deeper explanation”. In a similar way that my empiricism would largely overlap with Berkeley’s, only to diverge (sharply) in terms of what kind of metaphysically narrative gets laid over that, so would Aristotle’s empiricism largely resonate with my own (as I understand him). It’s only when Aristotle, like Berkeley, starts getting his mojo going in terms of metaphysical whimsy that we part company.

Ok, it’s not quite that simple, thinking about that as I re-read the paragraph, but the gist is correct. There’s a kind of “two step” here: 1) what mode(s) do you accept as veridical in practice for your epistemology, and 2) how do you explain the “reality” that mode putatively reveals? There’s lots of common ground on 1) that also allows for wide divergence on 2).

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Both Aldrin and Gagarin are making inferences in the very act of perception. There is no act of perception untainted by tradition and belief.

Agree. Even for a newborn, innate physiology shapes perceptions according to the cognitive dispositions of the natural brain.

Gargarin sees no god, inferring that there is no God.

I’m not sure anyone would commit to such an inference on that single event, a single “non-sighting” of God. But yes, that would be consilient with all the other “non-sightings” Gagarin might recall, and gather from other sources.

Aldrin perceives the wine curling up the side of the glass, inferring Divine Otherness and connectivity. I appreciate that the dominant arguments in this thread are in the analytic tradition and in no way do I want to derail them. However, Merleau-Ponty points out to us that the act of perception is always intentional, always shaped by the particular way in which we are oriented to the world.

Agree. I think the key distinction here is the objective/subjective divide. A major vector in our orientation is our embrace or eschewing of objectivity as authoritative vis. subjectivity. Aldrin here is embracing a subjective interpretation, which Gagarin cannot/does not share, and Gagarin has an objective interpretation, with which Aldrin (even though he believes in God, he doesn’t “see him in orbit”) and anyone else hanging around at that point would concur with:no god visible out that window.

We perceive a Gestalt, not merely an atomized collection of sense data. And why should this be? Because we are always in the Universe, looking from a particular, historically conditioned standpoint. You claim that empiricism admits this and yet, see, in your example here, Gagarin is **incapable **of inferring the Gestalt of Creation if he were to sip from Aldrin’s communion chalice due to the a priori limits he has placed (or had placed) on his perception (‘this sense perception is nothing-but what it is’).

I don’t think any *a priori *exclusions are needed here. If Gagarin is agnostic on that question up front, not inclined for or against the idea, then it seems he’s perfectly capable of drinking the sacramental wine, and failing to find anything numinous or spiritual about it it all, as a matter of reflection after the fact. He needn’t rule it out ahead of time, but can remain receptive to the prospect, and simply fail to duplicate Aldrin’s experience and spiritual interpretation.

Empiricism of the STEM kind you have been advocating, acknowledges its method, but claims that this allows its proponents to stand, as it were, outside the Universe, looking in. In reality, there is no such place to stand, for humans. Do you agree?

I don’t, and would say that empiricism of “my kind” is emphatic in its rejection of such a supposed vantage point (“standing outside the universe”). We are hopelessly trapped in our own parochial vantage points – inside the universe – each of us.

I think what may explain the view you supposed I endorsed is the effects of collective knowledge building. Science and other modes of objective analysis can’t ever place us (or I) “outside the universe” – there again is an incoherent term! But while we remain within the universe, objective methodologies provide something of a “mirror” that let’s us think and know in more vicarious fashion, not stepping outside the universe, but stepping outside our own parochial selves a bit, “seeing” via objective methodologies and instrumentation.

For example, getting apprised of biology and evolution, and understanding the implications that arise from that enterprise provides a bit of “epistemic” distance where we can look back at our human selves without the full coloration of our passions and caprice. The models that work work because they do not depend on any individual’s subjectivity, and perform objectively. From this, we can “reflect on ourselves” in a way that is novel with the introduction of this method, and for example, see the conspicuous absence (empirically, objectively) of present “Designer/Creators” or any super-powered agents at all, beyond human capabilities. And we can further see patterns and dynamics that indicate why and how religion obtains even and especially because it is imaginative, fanciful and anodyne.

I think this “collective gestalt” is the missing piece in thinking about my views, from what you’ve said. In that way, we can step outside ourselves a bit, and look around “collectively”, where no particular will or subjective bias gets to rule all the others.

-TS

 

[Syntax]

I understand that my take on empiricism is a more though-going empiricism that mere sense-experience, but still no one who claims to subscribe to empiricism claims that empiricism rules out thinking about sense experience as a source of knowledge. You are arguing against a straw man.

Most people only mean *sense-experience *when they use the term “experience,” and both you and TS accuse me of committing a straw man for attacking this strict empiricist view, but if both of your definitions are so trivial as you claim they are, then why did you guys even bring it up? What’s the point of saying “we cannot have experience of something without having an experience of something”? Well, duh! This is trivially true.

I thought we were talking about the strict empiricist principle that says “knowledge is only derived from sense-experience.” It is self-underming because it is an informatively *a priori *claim that says all *a priori *claims are uninformative.

I hope you won’t think I’m putting words in your mouth, but when you say that Jeff is a bachelor I always assume you mean that Jeff is unmarried. What is the point of all this? My understanding was that you were suggesting that saying that Jeff is a bachelor is to point out an intrinsic property of Jeff. Am I to think that the essence of Jeff-ness changes if Jeff gets engaged? Is the assertion that Jeff is unmarried something other than to put Jeff in relation to the institution of marriage? Is there anything you can tell me about Jeff that is not another such example of putting Jeff in relation to something else?

You’re just being sloppy in all this garbled language and not thinking through what you are saying. My objection to you concerns the distinction between **intrinsic properties **and extrinsic relations, not between essential and *accidental *properties and relations.

To use the term “intrinsic property” is a bit redundant because *all *properties, both essential and accidental, are intrinsic. And this feature is just cited to distinguish them from relations.

So all properties are intrinsic, both essential and accidental, because when they hold of a given object they hold independently of facts about other objects, which is precisely why they are not relations. Relations hold of two or more objects, and thus the existence of object B is a necessary condition for that relation to hold for any given object A since without that other object B, A would not stand in that relation. .

“Intrinsic property” simply means “a property that pertains to the object in question independent of facts about other objects.” “Essential property” means “the object cannot lose the property without changing what it is.” “Accidental property” means “the object can lose or gain the property without changing what it is.” I am a big realist about properties, but I am not overly excited at all about the essential/accidental distinction.

This is why Jeff can lose the property of being a bachelor when he gets married and still be essentially human. But if he ceased to be human, he would no longer be Jeff (or so the fan of essential/accidental properties would reason).

But “bachelor” is still an intrinsic property to Jeff because *Jeff’s-being-a-bachelor *doesn’t depend on the other facts such as *Bill’s-being-a-bachelor. *This is precisely why “bachelor” is not a relation between Bill and Jeff.

Understand?

 

[Areopagite]

Well, my understanding is that the salient distinction for empiricism is not that it is “observation without analysis” – see the link I posted to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on that for Betterave. And you’re right, there is a “colloquial overload” here – casual usages often tend to discount or omit the analysis, an essential element of empiricist epistemology.

Right, okay that clears it up. And it is true that many words don’t fit their etymologies very well. It happens all the time. That’s why I was confused. But I’m better now thanks to you.

The salient distinction is the grounding of analysis in observation and experience. That is important, as it separates from a priori knowledge in the rationalist sense; to say that one is empiricist is NOT to say one omits analysis (!), but rather to say that analysis is predicated on sensory experience and observation.

Now, I might be shamefully wrong, but a priori knowledge can be subdivided into two specific types. 1) Knowledge of something gained by no sense data whatsoever, and 2) Knowledge of something gained by sense data not of the thing but of something else. There are probably more technical and concise terms for these (I got to read up on this more … but I read it somewhere). #1 would be innate ideas, which Aristotle rejected. #2 would be something like reading about Asia and gaining knowledge about it, despite never having experienced or observed Asia yourself.

Would empiricism also deny this second kind of a priori knowledge?

As far as deltas with Aristotelian realism, if you’d asked me who the “first empiricist” was, I’d have said “Aristotle” in response.

I’m somewhat glad to hear you say that.

He was an empiricist, just one who slathered on a lot of frivolous metaphsyics on top of that epistemic core. He took counsel of experience and sense-data, then crafted a baroque edifice of speculative metaphysics on top of that as the “deeper explanation”.

…

It’s only when Aristotle, like Berkeley, starts getting his mojo going in terms of metaphysical whimsy that we part company.

Is it possible to explain where exactly you part company with Aristotle on his epistemology and/or metaphysics? I am amused by your analogy … but I’m afraid it’s not exactly helpful in p(name removed by moderator)ointing your divergence with the philosopher. I know that might be a surgically detailed thing to ask of you … on the other hand, maybe not. Nah, I think it’s fair.

 

[Syntax]

Originally Posted by Touchstone
Empiricism…is very much a tradition, a kind of ongoing research program, and so it does have the kinds of strictures an interpretive dispositions you are talking about… the ‘sensation of God’ or some such, fails precisely because of the methodology of empiricism – the tradition I think you supposed was lacking or was being denied. … Gagarin sipping from that same wine glass does NOT have the same numinous experience. [which he is incapable of due to his a priori materialism]

Empiricism…is both an interpretive framework and an intellectual tradition… it not only declares and owns its interpretive paradigm [rather, this tradition of knowing conceals the fact that it is rooted in the histories of its investigators, which are at once personal and cultural], but can point to the successful [by what standard?]models that ground the method and principles of analysis.

Both Aldrin and Gagarin are making inferences in the very act of perception. There is no act of perception untainted by tradition and belief. Gargarin sees no god, inferring that there is no God. Aldrin perceives the wine curling up the side of the glass, inferring Divine Otherness and connectivity. I appreciate that the dominant arguments in this thread are in the analytic tradition and in no way do I want to derail them. However, Merleau-Ponty points out to us that the act of perception is always intentional, always shaped by the particular way in which we are oriented to the world. We perceive a Gestalt, not merely an atomized collection of sense data. And why should this be? Because we are always in the Universe, looking from a particular, historically conditioned standpoint. You claim that empiricism admits this and yet, see, in your example here, Gagarin is **incapable **of inferring the Gestalt of Creation if he were to sip from Aldrin’s communion chalice due to the a priori limits he has placed (or had placed) on his perception (‘this sense perception is nothing-but what it is’). Empiricism of the STEM kind you have been advocating, acknowledges its method, but claims that this allows its proponents to stand, as it were, outside the Universe, looking in. In reality, there is no such place to stand, for humans. Do you agree?

Nicely said!

 

[Syntax]

Agree. I think the key distinction here is the objective/subjective divide. A major vector in our orientation is our embrace or eschewing of objectivity as authoritative vis. subjectivity. Aldrin here is embracing a subjective interpretation, which Gagarin cannot/does not share, and Gagarin has an objective interpretation, with which Aldrin (even though he believes in God, he doesn’t “see him in orbit”) and anyone else hanging around at that point would concur with:no god visible out that window.

I don’t think any *a priori *exclusions are needed here. If Gagarin is agnostic on that question up front, not inclined for or against the idea, then it seems he’s perfectly capable of drinking the sacramental wine, and failing to find anything numinous or spiritual about it it all, as a matter of reflection after the fact. He needn’t rule it out ahead of time, but can remain receptive to the prospect, and simply fail to duplicate Aldrin’s experience and spiritual interpretation.

I don’t, and would say that empiricism of “my kind” is emphatic in its rejection of such a supposed vantage point (“standing outside the universe”). We are hopelessly trapped in our own parochial vantage points – inside the universe – each of us.

I think what may explain the view you supposed I endorsed is the effects of collective knowledge building. Science and other modes of objective analysis can’t ever place us (or I) “outside the universe” – there again is an incoherent term! But while we remain within the universe, objective methodologies provide something of a “mirror” that let’s us think and know in more vicarious fashion, not stepping outside the universe, but stepping outside our own parochial selves a bit, “seeing” via objective methodologies and instrumentation.

For example, getting apprised of biology and evolution, and understanding the implications that arise from that enterprise provides a bit of “epistemic” distance where we can look back at our human selves without the full coloration of our passions and caprice. The models that work work because they do not depend on any individual’s subjectivity, and perform objectively. From this, we can “reflect on ourselves” in a way that is novel with the introduction of this method, and for example, see the conspicuous absence (empirically, objectively) of present “Designer/Creators” or any super-powered agents at all, beyond human capabilities. And we can further see patterns and dynamics that indicate why and how religion obtains even and especially because it is imaginative, fanciful and anodyne.

I think this “collective gestalt” is the missing piece in thinking about my views, from what you’ve said. In that way, we can step outside ourselves a bit, and look around “collectively”, where no particular will or subjective bias gets to rule all the others.

But you are missing the point. A great deal is essentially connected to a particular point of view, or type of paradigm, and however virtuous our attempts may be to give a complete account of the world collectively, as you say, in objective terms detached from these perspectives, these very attempts, if pushed far enough, inevitably lead to false reductions and outright denials that certain patently real phenomena exist at all, which is precisely what your parochial “objectivism” does, since in the same tongue that you express disdain for particular perspectives you forget your own efforts to arrive at a completely detached point of view are entirely dependent on your own subjectivity as a fundamental feature of reality too.

This is precisely why we find your rendering of “objectivity” a very conspicuous form of blindness, since it is an idealist presumptive strain running throughout all your views, namely that *what *there is and *how *things really are could not go beyond what we can in principle, think or conceive in terms of the extant fruitfulness of scientific methodological paradigms. Your “scientism” is a special form of idealism since it puts only one type of understanding in charge of the rest of universe. I find it bizarre that in spite of your allegedly “skeptical outlook” you continue to deny the existence of certain entities as if the current methods already in existence have already solved all the problems for which they were not designed to solve to begin with. A perfect example of this is your elimitavisim toward the subjectivity of mental states. The world described by physics, neurology, and the methodologies of science leave undescribed the *irreducibly subjective character *of conscious mental processes, whatever may be their intimate relations to the physical operations of the brain, but you continue to insist that the problems do not lie in our methodologies, but in our postulation of the very existence of mental phenomena! That’s not a healthy objective skepticism; that’s a presumptive dogmatism!

 

[Betterave]

I remarked a couple posts back (to someone else) that empiricism is not just simple observation, it requires rational analysis to build models out of the sense-data.

That isn’t anything new - ask any empiricist, or see here, for example, a link I have pointed people to before when this objection is raised:

(my emphasis)

That whole section is good, I recommend it.

Uh… right. I have to ask you, TS, seriously: are you serious? You are pointing out to me that you “remarked a couple posts back (to someone else) that empiricism is not just simple observation, it requires rational analysis to build models out of the sense-data”? That was my point! That’s been my point all along! (I wish you would learn to read more carefully so that you could actually respond when someone raises a point against you, instead of just repeating what he said and acting like you’re teaching him something.) That’s what makes it ridiculous for you to say so much of what you say! Example:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Betterave
I can ride a bicycle and I could prove it to you. That’s ‘reality’! But you wouldn’t be impressed if I told you that I can bicycle around the world - you’d probably say, “wait a minute, what about the oceans that cover 70% of the earth? - your bicycle isn’t going to work there!” I could insist, “don’t trust me, trust reality - actually, that’s superfluous, just watch me”…and I’d ride off down the street yelling over my shoulder, “Q.E.D.!”

You’d probably be confused… know what I’m sayin?

Posted by TS:
I guess so, because I am confused, now. The “don’t trust me” wasn’t an inviation to watch me, or to advance claims of my own in particular, but just to say that an objective, thorough analysis will bear out what I’ve claimed on its own merits – you can back me and my words right out of the picture, and the answer will remain the same.

But we can’t back you and your words out of the picture, you and your words are the part of the picture we’re trying to evaluate! You and your words (which obviously also express your apprehension of the words of others) are required for the rational analysis and model building that has produced the answers that you give! If you deny this, you are denying the distinction between map and reality! “Rational analysis and models” are in the ‘map’ domain, are they not?

As for fallibility, if you suppose I’ve made claims to infallibility, you’re mistaken. I affirm without reservation the falllibility of human reasoning – all the more reason to rely on objective and rigorous methods that work to mitigate the effects of our limitations!

I’m well aware that you claim that. But other claims you make conflict with that claim. Why should it be possible to “back you and your words right out of the picture, and the answer will remain the same” unless we knew that your words were true, and how could we accept your so baldly insisting that your words were true, that they simply expressed ‘reality’ and should be accepted as obviously true without even needing to appeal to trust (!), unless you were making an implicit claim to infallibility?

Infallible is a red-herring, here. Not my claim, and a non-starter for human epistemology. Saying that this criterion or that is fallible doesn’t tell us anything, because we have no idea, no reference for what “infallible” even means. That’s the whole reason for epistemology – it’s our response to opaque nature of “infallible”.

This is a ridiculous statement.

Nevertheless, performance means that a) observation of phenomena addressed by a model matches its predictions, b) the explanatory mechanisms of the model account for the background evidence, and c)the model is liable to falsification, at least in principle.

We can observe, then, and see how empirical models perform on these measures. We can judge their performance.

Okay, and you just failed to answer the question (that’s why I have to ask so many): You have stipulated a few vague criteria that make up your notion of ‘performance’ but you have not explained how these criteria are empirically grounded, i.e., how they have been formulated and deemed to be correct as a result of observations of reality. The fact that models may or may not perform on the basis of (your construal of) your own oh-so-vague measures is obviously irrelevant - the same could obviously be said of any measures, advanced by anyone! Do you get that that is the point, TS? Eventually you have to, please!

 

[Betterave]

Here’s a question for you, just for yuks: how do you measure the performance of whatever epistemology you endorse. That’s me asking, what’s your answer?

Why “just for yuks,” TS? Is that because you’re arrogant and you’re admitting that you really don’t care… or what?

Let’s just say that if it is patently absurd in that it pays no attention to its own groundless and dogmatic status, it’s not a good epistemology. (It’s like ‘negative epistemology’ - it’s conducive to open-mindedness. ) If you’re seriously interested we can discuss this more, but you should realize that when someone gives you a position like this, the substance of that position is already being expressed in his critique of other positions.

Well, ‘the reality of reality’ refers *[as a matter of ad hoc stipulation that TS expects everyone to just accept]

to our affirmation of the primacy of **sense(?)**experience, and that is, indeed, the basis for judging one empirical model vs. another, or judging an empirical claim on its own grounds. If you accept the flame burning your hand as real (under either realist or idealist metaphysics – doesn’t matter), you have already granted the basis for this distinction, this measure of the models.
That is non sequitur, surely? And what distinction? You made a distinction? Where?