How does one gain objective knowledge?

[IWantGod]

How does one gain objective knowledge? Is it from other people?

It’s hard to see what you might mean by this question.

What kind of knowledge? What do you mean by “how”. Do you mean how does it work?

Without knowing what you actually mean, i will assume that you mean “how does one know if the information you have has an objective source?”.

1. Well, firstly we cannot create what we don’t know. We can only create information from what we do know, so it follows necessarily that at least some of the knowledge you have comes from an objective source. So you can know if information is objective if you didn’t create it.
2. Also anything that is deductively true or necessarily true is objective knowledge since you did not create it and you discovered it.
3. Even if our physical experiences (the universe and our everyday sensory knowledge) has no objective extension, it can still be classed as objective knowledge on some level if it can be determined that you are not creating the information.

You have given an epistemological question which could mean different things depending on your intent. Please explain exactly what it is that you are asking.

 

[AlNg]

E.g. the only context off the top of my head where we can clearly talk about ‘objectively-known’ truth is in a logically deductive argument. That is, one which has the algebraical form of:

if A = B
and B = C
then A = C

What happens if you let “=” be “is the classmate of”?

Anne is the classmate of Bob
Bob is the classmate of Carl
Anne is not the classmate of Carl.

we cannot create what we don’t know.

Mathematicians often create theorems which they did not know were true beforehand.

anything that is deductively true or necessarily true is objective knowledge

It depends on the truth of the assumptions used in the deduction.

 

[Wesrock]

MNathaniel:

E.g. the only context off the top of my head where we can clearly talk about ‘objectively-known’ truth is in a logically deductive argument. That is, one which has the algebraical form of:

if A = B
and B = C
then A = C

What happens if you let “=” be “is the classmate of”?

Anne is the classmate of Bob
Bob is the classmate of Carl
Anne is not the classmate of Carl.

Then you’re changing identity into a mere relation, so of course it is going to work differently.

 

[AlNg]

Then you’re changing identity into a mere relation

Does “=” always mean exactly identity?

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Then you’re changing identity into a mere relation

Does “=” always mean exactly identity?

It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. - Bill Clinton

More seriously, an equals sign in that case is expected to be read as either ‘equals’ or ‘is’. Substituting “is a classmate of” is obviously not a nuanced case of “=”, though, and is just substituting something in that’s entirely different and doesn’t show anything.

 

[AlNg]

It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.

That is what I was thinking of. In the real world, are two snowflakes ever identical? More generally, given two different objects in the real world, are they ever identical, i.e., the same in every detail?

 

[Gorgias]

What happens if you let “=” be “is the classmate of”?

Then you’ve changed the relation (it becomes a ‘member-of’ relationship) and therefore, you can’t assert what you think you’re proving you’re asserting.

Essentially, instead of disproving what you think you’re disproving, you’ve instead set up the following invalid assertion (which is obviously incorrect):

Anne and Bob are both members of a particular set
Bob and Carl are both members of a particular set
Therefore, Anne and Carl are (or are not) both members of a particular set

See how neither of those work? Anne and Bob might be members of the set “folks whose names start with ‘A’ or ‘B’”, in which case Carl isn’t a member of that set; by the same standard, Bob and Carl might members of the set “men”, in which case Anne isn’t. On the other hand, Anne and Bob could be members of the set “people who wear black” and Bob and Carl might be members of the set “people who wear yellow”, and Anne and Carl could be members of the set “Steeler fans.”

See how your change to the relation doesn’t do what you think it’s doing?

Mathematicians often create theorems which they did not know were true beforehand.

Hmm… are you conflating “had not proven” with “did not know”?

That is what I was thinking of.

Meh. You moved the goalposts. Maybe you didn’t realize that this is what you did, but you did.

 

[Ilkka]

How does one gain objective knowledge? Is it from other people?

If one were to nitpick, they would say it is impossible to gain truly objective knowledge unless one is God and knows all things. The only thing absolutely certain to me personally is that my mind exists and that’s it.

 

[AlNg]

are you conflating “had not proven” with “did not know”?

No. The results were unforeseen and came about unexpectedly as he was working on a related problem.

 

[MNathaniel]

I don’t think you followed the A/B/C formula here, and actually, that might be my fault. Maybe I messed it up? Let me sort through this live, haha…

Okay, you said:

Anne and Bob are both members of a particular set
Bob and Carl are both members of a particular set
Therefore, Anne and Carl are (or are not) both members of a particular set

[(A)Anne and Bob] are [(B) both members of a particular set]
[(C )Bob and Carl] are [(B) both members of a particular set]
Therefore, [(A)Anne and Bob] are [(C )Bob and Carl]

Yeah no, this example doesn’t work, all agreed. And you did basically use the letters as I set them up in the premises, though you deviated on the conclusion line (and I wouldn’t have chosen your example of what to fill in the blanks with, since these terms, when all included, resulted in a deductive argument that failed to meet the criterion of soundness).

So, trying to sort this out with an example of my own… An example of a valid deductive argument would go:

All (A: Rottweilers) are (B: Dogs)
(C: Rover) is a (A: Rottweiler)
Therefore (C Rover is a (B: Dog)

So okay, maybe a more usual structure is

if all (As) are (Bs)
and (C ) is an (A)
then (C ) is a (B).

So while the other is technically mathematically true, maybe when it comes to the category-based stuff (which can be objectively known, through deduction, assuming the premises can be known as true), it’s this latter formula that works best.

 

[Gorgias]

I don’t think you followed the A/B/C formula here

I did, but it was in service of showing that it didn’t do what you thought it was doing.

I wouldn’t have chosen your example of what to fill in the blanks with, since these terms, when all included, resulted in a deductive argument that failed to meet the criterion of soundness

That’s the whole point – it wasn’t a logically sound substitution.

it’s this latter formula that works best.

Except that it’s a different example than the original one that was presented, and which you seem to have been trying to debunk.

 

[o_mlly]

So while the other is technically mathematically true, maybe when it comes to the category-based stuff (which can be objectively known, through deduction, assuming the premises can be known as true), it’s this latter formula that works best.

Obviously, I have way too much free time …

Let a = Anne

Let b = Bob

Let c = Carl

Let A = Set 1

Let B = Set 2

a ∈ A

b ∈ A

b ∈ B

c ∈ B

A ⊄ B

B ⊄ A

Unless A ⊆ B or B ⊆ A nothing can be said about c in relation to a. Whoops!

 

[WannabeSaint]

The concept is not the object of knowledge, but the means by which the knower obtains the object of knowledge which is other. It is important to emphasize the difference here with Descartes, the Rationalists, and the Idealists, who all profess that the concept is the object of knowledge.

What is meant by “concept”?
What is an example of when the concept is the medium of the object of knowledge?
What is an example of when the concept is the object of knowledge?

 

[HarryStotle]

This is Kant’s problem, too: he claims that we absolutely cannot experience things-in-themselves.

I wonder if there is a distinction to be made between experience (according to a perceptual or sensory mode) and apprehension according to intellectual or conceptual modes?

If so, then Kant might be right that we cannot experience things-in-themselves, but that fact does not preclude the possibility of apprehending things-in-themselves by intellection.

The question would then be how do we know with certainty that we are grasping the thing-in-itself and not merely a perceptual representation?

He makes an interesting reply to Objection 3 in the First Part of the Second Part, Question 57 Article 5 of the Summa.

Reply to Objection 3. As stated in Ethic. vi, 2, truth is not the same for the practical as for the speculative intellect. Because the truth of the speculative intellect depends on conformity between the intellect and the thing. And since the intellect cannot be infallibly in conformity with things in contingent matters, but only in necessary matters, therefore no speculative habit about contingent things is an intellectual virtue, but only such as is about necessary things. On the other hand, the truth of the practical intellect depends on conformity with right appetite. This conformity has no place in necessary matters, which are not affected by the human will; but only in contingent matters which can be effected by us, whether they be matters of interior action, or the products of external work. Hence it is only about contingent matters that an intellectual virtue is assigned to the practical intellect, viz. art, as regards things to be made, and prudence, as regards things to be done.
http://newadvent.org/summa/2057.htm#article5

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

The concept is not the object of knowledge, but the means by which the knower obtains the object of knowledge which is other. It is important to emphasize the difference here with Descartes, the Rationalists, and the Idealists, who all profess that the concept is the object of knowledge.

What is meant by “concept”?
What is an example of when the concept is the medium of the object of knowledge?
What is an example of when the concept is the object of knowledge?

Being VERY brief, a concept is the similitude or ‘representation’ in the mind of the external object known. I do not mean a “visual” representation, but the notion of what a thing is without needing to consider any particular material conditions. You know what triangles and triangularity are apart from any particular example of them. What unites the concept to the external object is that they are the same form (form as understood in hylemorphism). The concept is that form existing intelligibly in the mind, versus that form existing “naturally” in the external object.

When you see a triangle you know that object as an other (than yourself) and as a triangle by virtue of the form in your mind. A concept serves as the medium that unites your intellect to the other object which you sense and perceive, with the other object as the object of your thoughts.
Descartes and the Rationalists were generally nominalists and so couldn’t really speak of the concept and the object as having the same form, and furthermore they argued that what we know when we know something is not the external object at all but only the representation in our mind. (So rather than the concept moving/uniting the intellect to the external object, the intellect moves to only the concept and stops.) Given their commitments they struggled explaining why we could trust that the representation in our minds is actually a representation of an external object at all.

For Thomists, a concept is only the object of thought in itself when you are reflecting on it. That is, when you’re kind of doing what we’re doing now. Thinking directly about what a concept or particular concept is. When I see a triangle and know it the concept is a medium to have that triangle as the object of thought. When I reflect on what a triangle is the concept itself is the object of thought.

 

[o_mlly]

What is meant by “concept”?
What is an example of when the concept is the medium of the object of knowledge?
What is an example of when the concept is the object of knowledge?

Concepts, a product of intellect, are universals.
Ideas, a product of imagination, are particulars

Imagine automobile. The idea one draws from memory is a red, blue, yellow or some color of a particular make and model.

Now think automobile. The concept one draws from the intellect is a machine with 3 or more wheels, power source, fuel reservoir, transmission mechanism, driver control apparatus, etc. The concept of automobile is the set of properties that all things categorized as automobiles must possess.

If so, then Kant might be right that we cannot experience things-in-themselves, but that fact does not preclude the possibility of apprehending things-in-themselves by intellection.

Of course, Kant was also unaware of the Vulcan Mind Meld.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[HarryStotle]

Of course, Kant was also unaware of the Vulcan Mind Meld.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Apparently, Kant was self-admittedly unaware of the Vulcan-Mind-Meld-In-Itself, although he might have been aware of the concept.

 

[BT3241]

By simply saying “I don’t know” your thinking is not fixed and you are open to possibilities

 

[JoeShlabotnik]

In an objective manner?

 

[BT3241]

adjective

adjective: objective
(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.