The Basic Philosophy Series 101 -1: What is philosophy and how is it done?

[Abba]

Do philosophers even agree that there is an objective Truth?

Of course. A serious philosopher must understand that we can arrive at objective Truth. If he doubts that and is skeptical and then he is a living contradiction.

 

[Abba]

Reporting for class Miss.

Welcome Acapiteadcalcem,

You may have noticed that I have been absent for a couple of days. Well, as you know by now, in my neck of the woods we were hit hard by snow - we really have a natural disaster here. The place looks like a hurricane went by. Any way, I am back and brought the class members some apples to make up for my absence.

http://www.seitznet.com/upload/image-6.jpg

What is philosophy? I would also add that philosophy follows a method. Fr Robert Sokolowski (an American phenomenologist) says that much of the confusion about what philosophy is comes from the confusion about how it proceeds. Is it just sitting around thinking deeply about things? No. Is it a matter of giving opinions in the absence of hard evidence? No. Philosophy is a method by which truth is discovered.

I agree. :yup: I think that one of the reasons why Plato was so grateful to Socrates is exactly that one of the things that he learned from Socrates was that we can arrive at knowledge with our reason by employing discourse, analysis, logic, rationality, mathematics, etc… This process is very different from musing, imagining, inspiration, and selecting ‘a point of view’ or joining a ‘school’ of thought.

The Scholastic philosophers in the Middle Ages perfected a method. This method was largely abandoned in the Enlightenment period.

The Scholastic method of philosophy includes the following:

(1) All knowledge begins in the senses. (This also means we should refer to experience to verify what we think philosophy shows us).

(2) Philosophy makes distinctions between things. It carefully defines words so that we are clear on what we are talking about.

I admit to not being very knowledgeable about scholasticism. I have not read much of the philosophers who are considered ‘scholastics’, including, Saint Saint Thomas Aquinas. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism However, I am surprise with the mention of method #1. I would think that Saint Thomas Aquinas and others would not think that knowledge begins in the senses. Certainly, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle did not think this to be so. Socrates was very apprehensive of the ‘information’ obtained by the senses and Plato was very valiant in his attacks against materialism.

I am finding it difficult to think that Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventure et al., thought that knowledge begins in the senses. Would it be possible to provide a quote?

 

[Shike]

Hmm, I guess I’m not sure how this addresses my point, and ironically if philosophy isn’t about making any assumptions, then we shouldn’t assume the position that philosophy isn’t a POV or an opinion.

Oops! It seems like you missed the double negative in my post. Perhaps you should read it again?

ciao,
Michael

 

[Shike]

I would think that Saint Thomas Aquinas and others would not think that knowledge begins in the senses. Certainly, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle did not think this to be so. Socrates was very apprehensive of the ‘information’ obtained by the senses and Plato was very valiant in his attacks against materialism.

I am finding it difficult to think that Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventure et al., thought that knowledge begins in the senses. Would it be possible to provide a quote?

I won’t be able to provide much help in the quote department, and will leave that to others. But I am fairly certain that Aristotle is especially famous for the view that all our knowledge has a beginning, however fundamental, in the senses.

Cue now the Modern Empiricists taking this position to an extreme and screwing up the possibility of metaphysical demonstrations.

 

[Abba]

I won’t be able to provide much help in the quote department, and will leave that to others. But I am fairly certain that Aristotle is especially famous for the view that all our knowledge has a beginning, however fundamental, in the senses.

Cue now the Modern Empiricists taking this position to an extreme and screwing up the possibility of metaphysical demonstrations.

Hello Shike,

Well, I actually deleted Aristotle’s name from my post and then put it back. I know he is known for taking the position that knowledge for humans begins with the senses and experience. Notice how I did not offer a specific comment of Aristotle… What I had in mind is that he employs systematic philosophy although he begins with the senses and experience. I thought once challenged I could review and find something and certainly he does employ systematic philosophy but he is pretty clear regarding his position about that knowledge for humans starts with the senses and experience. I thought there maybe some room there for introducing abstract thinking via a different way, but, I have not found one in my quick review. I am still going to check the metaphysics but, I think even that he starts with the sense and experience…

I never spent too much time with Aristotle but, I think his criticism of Plato’s forms is over rated. I get the impression that he valued abstract thinking more than meets the eye and actually offers a type of synthesis much like Kant did centuries later. I think materialists are promoting and emphasizing their preferences of Aristotle and I just want to check some of his writings myself.

Nonetheless, I will give it to you. I should be more precise and exact.

---

Aristotle:
On the Soul

Part 4

Turning now to the part of the soul with which the soul knows and thinks (whether this is separable from the others in definition only, or spatially as well) we have to inquire (1) what differentiates this part, and (2) how thinking can take place.

If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process in which the soul is acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or a process different from but analogous to that. The thinking part of the soul must therefore be, while impassible, capable of receiving the form of an object; that is, must be potentially identical in character with its object without being the object. Mind must be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible.

Therefore, since everything is a possible object of thought, mind in order, as Anaxagoras says, to dominate, that is, to know, must be pure from all admixture; for the co-presence of what is alien to its nature is a hindrance and a block: it follows that it too, like the sensitive part, can have no nature of its own, other than that of having a certain capacity. Thus that in the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and judges) is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing. For this reason it cannot reasonably be regarded as blended with the body: if so, it would acquire some quality, e.g. warmth or cold, or even have an organ like the sensitive faculty: as it is, it has none. It was a good idea to call the soul ‘the place of forms’, though (1) this description holds only of the intellective soul, and (2) even this is the forms only potentially, not actually.

Observation of the sense-organs and their employment reveals a distinction between the impassibility of the sensitive and that of the intellective faculty. After strong stimulation of a sense we are less able to exercise it than before, as e.g. in the case of a loud sound we cannot hear easily immediately after, or in the case of a bright colour or a powerful odour we cannot see or smell, but in the case of mind thought about an object that is highly intelligible renders it more and not less able afterwards to think objects that are less intelligible: the reason is that while the faculty of sensation is dependent upon the body, mind is separable from it.

Once the mind has become each set of its possible objects, as a man of science has, when this phrase is used of one who is actually a man of science (this happens when he is now able to exercise the power on his own initiative), its condition is still one of potentiality, but in a different sense from the potentiality which preceded the acquisition of knowledge by learning or discovery: the mind too is then able to think itself.

Since we can distinguish between a spatial magnitude and what it is to be such, and between water and what it is to be water, and so in many other cases (though not in all; for in certain cases the thing and its form are identical), flesh and what it is to be flesh are discriminated either by different faculties, or by the same faculty in two different states: for flesh necessarily involves matter and is like what is snub-nosed, a this in a this. Now it is by means of the sensitive faculty that we discriminate the hot and the cold, i.e. the factors which combined in a certain ratio constitute flesh: the essential character of flesh is apprehended by something different either wholly separate from the sensitive faculty or related to it as a bent line to the same line when it has been straightened out.

Again in the case of abstract objects what is straight is analogous to what is snub-nosed; for it necessarily implies a continuum as its matter: its constitutive essence is different, if we may distinguish between straightness and what is straight: let us take it to be two-ness. It must be apprehended, therefore, by a different power or by the same power in a different state. To sum up, in so far as the realities it knows are capable of being separated from their matter, so it is also with the powers of mind.

Continues…
classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/soul.3.iii.html#333

 

[Shike]

I never spent too much time with Aristotle but, I think his criticism of Plato’s forms is over rated. I get the impression that he valued abstract thinking more than meets the eye and actually offers a type of synthesis much like Kant did centuries later. I think materialists are promoting and emphasizing their preferences of Aristotle and I just want to check some of his writings myself.

If I am not mistaken, in F.C. Copleston’s History of Philosophy he says that Aristotle, while having a good point, did overdo the criticism of The Forms a bit. That the criticisms would start to lead one to believe that perhaps they lacked a universal aspect. Perhaps I went a bit far in my attribution to Copleston, but I’m not going to look it up at the moment.

That said, there are legitimate problems with Plato’s Forms as you yourself probably know. A fascinating topic that I hope we eventually get to.

The comparison to Kant sounds fun and intriguing, and I would be interested in hearing more.

As for materialists promoting Aristotle’s views… it is like mice promoting the manufacture of mousetraps, motorized mousetraps that seek and destroy vermin with heat-seeking missiles.

 

[Acapiteadcalcem]

However, I am surprise with the mention of method #1. I would think that Saint Thomas Aquinas and others would not think that knowledge begins in the senses. Certainly, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle did not think this to be so. Socrates was very apprehensive of the ‘information’ obtained by the senses and Plato was very valiant in his attacks against materialism.

I am finding it difficult to think that Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Bonaventure et al., thought that knowledge begins in the senses. Would it be possible to provide a quote?

Welcome back Abba! I am glad you didn’t get swept away in the storm.

In fact, not only Aquinas and the Scholastics, but Aristotle too maintained–in opposition to Plato–than knowledge begins in the senses. I stress ‘begins’ because, unlike the materialist, they do not believe it ends there. We can move from what we perceive to judgements about what we can’t perceive. Reason can take us beyond the senses to unseen truths.

But they are quite adamant that however lofty reason may climb, it does indeed begin with sense perception and experience confirms this for us. For we are not born with knowledge, as Plato held, in order to remember it throught teaching or recollection. Knowledge is gained through experience, so that I first perceive being, then I perceive that this being is not like that being, and so arrive at truth; finall, I perceive the goodness of truth or being itself (ST I.16.4.ad2).

Thomas says,

“I answer that, all our natural knowledge begins from sense. Hence our natural knowledge can go as far as it can be led by sensible things. But our mind cannot be led by sense so far as to see the essence of God.” (ST I.12.12)

And again in the De Trinitate (q6.a2) he explains how knowledge progresses from the senses:

“Now all our knowledge begins in the senses; from sense perception results the apprehension of the imagination (which is a movement arising from sensory knowledge, as the [Aristotle] says), and from it in turn springs our intellectual apprehension, for images are like objects to the intellectual soul, as is clear in the De Anima.”

And we find similar arguments in Anselm, Bonaventure, etc.

 

[Kismetji]

In fact, not only Aquinas and the Scholastics, but Aristotle too maintained–in opposition to Plato–than knowledge begins in the senses. I stress ‘begins’ because, unlike the materialist, they do not believe it ends there. We can move from what we perceive to judgements about what we can’t perceive. Reason can take us beyond the senses to unseen truths.

How can we “move from what we perceive to judgements” not just about what we perceive, but that we perceive in the first place?

Let’s say there is an object which is “prime red.” I distinguish it on what basis? That it is a red object? Or because I have the concept “prime red” by which I pick prime red out? If so, how did I first recognize that concept? To recognize prime red I would have had to distinguish it on some basis. But if I distinguished it as a red object that would mean I had already had the concept in mind beforehand. So, you find yourself in a circle.

We are only at the level of color, mind you.

 

[JDaniel]

How can we “move from what we perceive to judgements” not just about what we perceive, but that we perceive in the first place?

Let’s say there is an object which is “prime red.” I distinguish it on what basis? That it is a red object? Or because I have the concept “prime red” by which I pick prime red out? If so, how did I first recognize that concept? To recognize prime red I would have had to distinguish it on some basis. But if I distinguished it as a red object that would mean I had already had the concept in mind beforehand. So, you find yourself in a circle.

Kismetji:

Why is it that you think this a circle? What is learning? Do you not think that human beings learn? Do you not believe that we can be shown ‘prime red,’ and remember it by its permanent facticity in our memory?

God bless,
jd

 

[Shike]

How can we “move from what we perceive to judgements” not just about what we perceive, but that we perceive in the first place?

Let’s say there is an object which is “prime red.” I distinguish it on what basis? That it is a red object? Or because I have the concept “prime red” by which I pick prime red out? If so, how did I first recognize that concept? To recognize prime red I would have had to distinguish it on some basis. But if I distinguished it as a red object that would mean I had already had the concept in mind beforehand. So, you find yourself in a circle.

We are only at the level of color, mind you.

Not to steal Acapiteadcalcem’s thunder, but it seems to me that it doesn’t require any prior concept of red to distinguish it from anything else. It is enough to experience red to know that it is different from other things that are other colors. One first recognizes things before one reflects and recognizes concepts of things.

 

[Acapiteadcalcem]

How can we “move from what we perceive to judgements” not just about what we perceive, but that we perceive in the first place?

It’s a great point.

St Thomas was aware of this potential problem, and he thought through it like this: to know that you are perceiving is already to be making a judgment; perception awareness is not followed by judgment, it is judgment.

Knowers and known things are distinguished by the fact that known things (such as red or red objects) only have their own form, whereas knowers have both their own form and the form of the thing known; in other words, the species of the known thing (a very good discussion of this can be found in a great book, Metaphysical themes in Thomas Aquinas II, Volume 2 by Fr John F. Wippel). To perceive is therefore already to take on the form of the thing known so that there is no further movement to judgement that it exists. There can then be further judgments (through what Thomas calls 'composition and division) through which more complex reasoning takes place:

“The human intellect must of necessity understand by composition and division. For since the intellect passes from potentiality to act, it has a likeness to things which are generated, which do not attain to perfection all at once but acquire it by degrees: so likewise the human intellect does not acquire perfect knowledge by the first act of apprehension; but it first apprehends something about its object, such as its quiddity [this is a Scholastic term which means ‘what a thing is’ or its essence], and this is its first and proper object; and then it understands the properties, accidents, and the various relations of the essence. Thus it necessarily compares one thing with another by composition or division; and from one composition and division it proceeds to another, which is the process of reasoning.” (Summa Theologica, part 1, q85, a5)

 

[Kismetji]

Do you not believe that we can be shown ‘prime red,’ and remember it by its permanent facticity in our memory?

God bless,
jd

No. Concepts go all the way down. We cannot recognize ‘red’ without presupposing the concept ‘red.’

 

[Kismetji]

Not to steal Acapiteadcalcem’s thunder, but it seems to me that it doesn’t require any prior concept of red to distinguish it from anything else. It is enough to experience red to know that it is different from other things that are other colors. One first recognizes things before one reflects and recognizes concepts of things.

How can there be recognition without prior knowledge? I could only recognize my mother if I already was acquainted with her AS my mother. Otherwise it’s only another face on the street.

 

[Kismetji]

“The human intellect must of necessity understand by composition and division. For since the intellect passes from potentiality to act, it has a likeness to things which are generated, which do not attain to perfection all at once but acquire it by degrees: so likewise the human intellect does not acquire perfect knowledge by the first act of apprehension; but it first apprehends something about its object, such as its quiddity [this is a Scholastic term which means ‘what a thing is’ or its essence], and this is its first and proper object; and then it understands the properties, accidents, and the various relations of the essence. Thus it necessarily compares one thing with another by composition or division; and from one composition and division it proceeds to another, which is the process of reasoning.” (Summa Theologica, part 1, q85, a5)

This sounds like the “correctness conditions” view set forth by Christopher Peacocke. It fails though, because the leap to the second story (reason, judgment) still cannot be made. Sense-perceptions, no matter how complicated or variegated, are still only sense perceptions. As such they do not have a truth value. It does not matter if you examine and cross-examine them, all that amounts to is more sense data in a never-ending, passive and indeterminate stream. It is judgments which superimpose themselves on the phenomena in question - and so reality is something necessarily filtered. If we did not have this mode of knowing, we would not even know we were experiencing. This is because experiences are particulars of a certain kind and if we cannot judge truly or falsely whether a thing is, say, red, then our minds are completely passive and no knowledge can be had.

 

[Acapiteadcalcem]

This sounds like the “correctness conditions” view set forth by Christopher Peacocke. It fails though, because the leap to the second story (reason, judgment) still cannot be made. Sense-perceptions, no matter how complicated or variegated, are still only sense perceptions. As such they do not have a truth value. It does not matter if you examine and cross-examine them, all that amounts to is more sense data in a never-ending, passive and indeterminate stream…

This is just a bare assertion. What is your evidence for this claim?

Rather, isn’t it self-contradictory to say, as a truth value judgement on sense perception, that perceptions have no truth value? How could you possibly make that determination based on what you have said?

 

[Kismetji]

This is just a bare assertion. What is your evidence for this claim?

Rather, isn’t it self-contradictory to say, as a truth value judgement on sense perception, that perceptions have no truth value? How could you possibly make that determination based on what you have said?

The two things to keep in mind is that to judge something as veridical, it has to be in the form of a proposition. What is described exists in the logical space of nature (space/time/causes, etc) but how it is described exists in the logical space of reasons. A separate domain which figures into the logical space of nature.

Just think if you had no language, no coherent thought processes, like an animal, could you “know” anything? Not in the propositional, truth-bearing sense.

I can make a truth value judgment precisely because it is NOT based on sense-perception, but rather because I presuppose the existence of truth, and therefore say that certain perceptions are veridical (in other words, part of a world). In my view logic validates the existence of a world, and also the opposite; the world validates the existence of logic, for without a world of thought in which a thinker could exist, there would be nothing, not even logic.

 

[Acapiteadcalcem]

The two things to keep in mind is that to judge something as veridical, it has to be in the form of a proposition. What is described exists in the logical space of nature (space/time/causes, etc) but how it is described exists in the logical space of reasons. A separate domain which figures into the logical space of nature.

Just think if you had no language, no coherent thought processes, like an animal, could you “know” anything? Not in the propositional, truth-bearing sense.

I can make a truth value judgment precisely because it is NOT based on sense-perception, but rather because I presuppose the existence of truth, and therefore say that certain perceptions are veridical (in other words, part of a world). In my view logic validates the existence of a world, and also the opposite; the world validates the existence of logic, for without a world of thought in which a thinker could exist, there would be nothing, not even logic.

I’m not sure we have much of a disagreement here, if I understand you correctly: I agree that knowledge is formulated in language; I also agree that there is a correspondence between the mind and reality.

What is it in particular you disagree with? Are you arguing for idealism–or at least that we can’t verify as real what we perceive to be the case? I’m not sure I qutie get the thrust of your point.

 

[JDaniel]

No. Concepts go all the way down. We cannot recognize ‘red’ without presupposing the concept ‘red.’

I do not postulate nor create, “red.” I “see” red as a non-descript hue. I can, at that point call it, “gobbledygook.” But, everyone else seems to call it, and knows it to be called, something else. So, they will no doubt not be able to receive the fullness of my communication!

The only person to blame is me.

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

The two things to keep in mind is that to judge something as veridical, it has to be in the form of a proposition. What is described exists in the logical space of nature (space/time/causes, etc) but how it is described exists in the logical space of reasons. A separate domain which figures into the logical space of nature.

Just think if you had no language, no coherent thought processes, like an animal, could you “know” anything? Not in the propositional, truth-bearing sense.

My apologies, Acap, I couldn’t help myself!

Kismetji:

So, the inevitable conclusion of your argument above is that man could never, ever have understood danger in his primordial, primitive condition. Interesting that we’re here at all! Before man could talk, he would more than likely have been killed or eaten to extinction. All of this, then, is illusion, isn’t it?

I can make a truth value judgment precisely because it is NOT based on sense-perception, but rather because I presuppose the existence of truth, and therefore say that certain perceptions are veridical (in other words, part of a world). In my view logic validates the existence of a world, and also the opposite; the world validates the existence of logic, for without a world of thought in which a thinker could exist, there would be nothing, not even logic.

With the exception of your inevitable conclusion from your above proposition, I would concur. Of course, were we all killed and eaten, or unable to understand that jumping from a steep cliff, or that we are food for lions, or that walking into water that is way over our heads, will more than likely take your life, then there should be no one here to make judgments. Right?

God bless,
jd

 

[Abba]

Hello everyone,

I lost internet connection again. I was one of the few that got it for a little bit. 90% of the residents in town do not have power. Power was established at the library and we are taking turns with the internet. We get 30 minures per day each.

I read the posts. I am thinking about this thread. I plan to post what Aristotle said about philosophy and how it is wondering.

I am writing as if I was writing a telegram.

People in town look a mess - no hot water, no heat, no cooking… it’s tough. but, people are helping each other. The night before last five people slept on the floor in my living room. I have power and heat and cooking gas. I just do not have internet nor phone service.

Yes, I like to think of the first philosophers are the children. Why are we here? Where does the sun come from? What keeps the moon in the sky? Why, why, why why?

Philosophy begins in wondering about our existence and the universe we live in.

Philosophy is the search for knowledge… for answers…for truth… it is not mere opinions nor views nor musing…

But, how do philosophers come to know? What are the processes used to find the answers to the questions they pose? Would defining epistemology help to answer the question?

I have a couple of minutes left…and I am writing under pressure here…tic toc tic toc…

Signing off from storm country…

P.s. I will respond to the posts addressed to me as soon as I can…