Another way to put this point is to claim that logic doesn't have independent content: that it is simply a clear articulation of some sort of laws of language. Some empiricists liked this line of thought, as it let them account for logical knowledge without assuming some spooky contact with supernatural entities like "&" and "¬."
So if the meanings of these symbols follows from their definition, and they're devoid of independent content, why do logicians use operators that are also frequently used to refer to observable objects or phenomena?
For instance, I could define operators ♠ and ❤ such that:
If P ♠ Q then P ❤ P
If P ❤ Q then P ♠ P
I could make this even more elaborate by introducing an additional character ✩ and additional character R
If P ♠ Q ❤ R then P ✩ R
If P ♠ Q ✩ R then P ❤ R
If P ❤ Q ✩ R then P ♠ R
Would this system of logic be of any interest to you?
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
0
Options
Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
Another way to put this point is to claim that logic doesn't have independent content: that it is simply a clear articulation of some sort of laws of language. Some empiricists liked this line of thought, as it let them account for logical knowledge without assuming some spooky contact with supernatural entities like "&" and "¬." I don't particularly favor this approach, however.
Despite my almost universal disdain for all things Russellian and my whole-hearted cheering for Gödel, I do love his snippet about abstracted logical connectives floating around in heaven.
That which is gained via sense data is not false. Rather, it is not Knowledge qua Knowledge as it is not Certain. So, one can have sense data and operate based upon sense data. But as this sense data is inductive or abductive, rather than deductive, it is not certain.
Why must knowledge be certain?
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
do you disagree that the vast majority of decisions and actions are performed based on uncertain knowledge?
I would agree that most people base their decisions on uncertain knowledge. That does not, however, indicate that one must or can only ever act on uncertain knowledge.
do you disagree that the vast majority of important information, whether that is for pragmatic concerns or otherwise, is not anchored (and is impossible to anchor) to rationally valid axioms?
I would disagree about the impossibility.
If we grant causality, then all that transpires is necessarily determined via a causal chain. By doing deductions from a priori truths, the truths which started the chain going, so to speak, one can know, with certainty, all that will happen.
Say you are playing plinko. If you just pick a slot and drop the chip? You have no idea where it will land. If you understand all information regarding the entire causal story of the chip, the board, and all physical laws involved? You will know, with certainty, where the plinko chip will fall.
If there is no causality, no universal pre-established harmony, and the entirety of existence is perpetual, unknowable chaos? Then rationalism does not work.
But, of course, not much of anything would work in that scenario.
That which is gained via sense data is not false. Rather, it is not Knowledge qua Knowledge as it is not Certain. So, one can have sense data and operate based upon sense data. But as this sense data is inductive or abductive, rather than deductive, it is not certain.
Why must knowledge be certain?
Because that is what knowledge is.
If you have a vague, uncertain, inductive inclination about something which may possibly be applicable to something which might exist? That's cool; but that is not knowledge.
_J_ on
0
Options
Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
Another way to put this point is to claim that logic doesn't have independent content: that it is simply a clear articulation of some sort of laws of language. Some empiricists liked this line of thought, as it let them account for logical knowledge without assuming some spooky contact with supernatural entities like "&" and "¬."
So if the meanings of these symbols follows from their definition, and they're devoid of independent content, why do logicians use operators that are also frequently used to refer to observable objects or phenomena?
For instance, I could define operators ♠ and ❤ such that:
If P ♠ Q then P ❤ P
If P ❤ Q then P ♠ P
I could make this even more elaborate by introducing an additional character ✩ and additional character R
If P ♠ Q ❤ R then P ✩ R
If P ♠ Q ✩ R then P ❤ R
If P ❤ Q ✩ R then P ♠ R
Would this system of logic be of any interest to you?
Yes, it would, but your system, as of now, is both incomplete and inconsistent.
That which is gained via sense data is not false. Rather, it is not Knowledge qua Knowledge as it is not Certain. So, one can have sense data and operate based upon sense data. But as this sense data is inductive or abductive, rather than deductive, it is not certain.
Why must knowledge be certain?
Because that is what knowledge is.
If you have a vague, uncertain, inductive inclination about something which may possibly be applicable to something which might exist? That's cool; but that is not knowledge.
So "all goomblogs are goomblogs" is knowledge, but "there are four nucleotides in human DNA" is not?
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
so what useful knowledge, J, can be obtained and known as certain through rationalist inquiry?
If by "useful" you mean "can help one live in the world" then ALL useful knowledge can be obtained and known as certain through rationalist inquiry.
How would you come to the statement "gravity is a force that acts upon me at approximately 9.8 meters per second squared" through rationalist inquiry?
By doing deductions. One derives from a priori truths to the existence of the Earth. one derives from the nature of the Earth gravity. One then derives what gravity must be, given the nature of gravity, the nature of earth, the nature of reality, etc.
do you disagree that the vast majority of decisions and actions are performed based on uncertain knowledge?
I would agree that most people base their decisions on uncertain knowledge. That does not, however, indicate that one must or can only ever act on uncertain knowledge.
do you disagree that the vast majority of important information, whether that is for pragmatic concerns or otherwise, is not anchored (and is impossible to anchor) to rationally valid axioms?
I would disagree about the impossibility.
If we grant causality, then all that transpires is necessarily determined via a causal chain. By doing deductions from a priori truths, the truths which started the chain going, so to speak, one can know, with certainty, all that will happen.
Say you are playing plinko. If you just pick a slot and drop the chip? You have no idea where it will land. If you understand all information regarding the entire causal story of the chip, the board, and all physical laws involved? You will know, with certainty, where the plinko chip will fall.
If there is no causality, no universal pre-established harmony, and the entirety of existence is perpetual, unknowable chaos? Then rationalism does not work.
But, of course, not much of anything would work in that scenario.
rationalism doesn't work in any of those instances, because you can only interact with the plinko game via sense data, which is by its very nature uncertain. you cannot be certain the plinko game exists. you can never be certain it exists.
similarly, most of the information that is useful in that it can help one live in the world is fundamentally uncertain. the existence of any specific external entities is inevitably uncertain. you cannot be certain that i exist, and yet you have engaged me in discussion; you have acted on uncertain information. every day, you, J, act without certainty in almost every single thing you do, because you must interact with reality in a fashion which is necessarily uncertain.
the acknowledgment of this uncertainty is vital to human and individual growth and is, i think, why i find rationalism so repugnant, and why people think you're so weird
That which is gained via sense data is not false. Rather, it is not Knowledge qua Knowledge as it is not Certain. So, one can have sense data and operate based upon sense data. But as this sense data is inductive or abductive, rather than deductive, it is not certain.
Why must knowledge be certain?
Because that is what knowledge is.
If you have a vague, uncertain, inductive inclination about something which may possibly be applicable to something which might exist? That's cool; but that is not knowledge.
So "all goomblogs are goomblogs" is knowledge, but "there are four nucleotides in human DNA" is not?
Depends on how the knowledge of nucleotides was obtained.
That there are four nucleotides in human DNA could very well be tautological (and most likely is) given the nature of DNA.
Given what it is to be a triangle, a triangle has three sides.
Given what it is to be DNA, DNA has four nucleotides.
That sort of thing.
_J_ on
0
Options
Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
That which is gained via sense data is not false. Rather, it is not Knowledge qua Knowledge as it is not Certain. So, one can have sense data and operate based upon sense data. But as this sense data is inductive or abductive, rather than deductive, it is not certain.
Why must knowledge be certain?
Because that is what knowledge is.
If you have a vague, uncertain, inductive inclination about something which may possibly be applicable to something which might exist? That's cool; but that is not knowledge.
So "all goomblogs are goomblogs" is knowledge, but "there are four nucleotides in human DNA" is not?
"Goomblogs are goomblogs" is more certain than "there are four nucleotides in human DNA"
If one could not know the former, the later would be impossible to know.
rationalism doesn't work in any of those instances, because you can only interact with the plinko game via sense data, which is by its very nature uncertain. you cannot be certain the plinko game exists. you can never be certain it exists.
One could derive plinko. What would preclude one from deriving plinko? Remember, we are operating under a rationalist schema within which all that occurs is necessarily occuring. So, plinko's existence is necessary.
similarly, most of the information that is useful in that it can help one live in the world is fundamentally uncertain. the existence of any specific external entities is inevitably uncertain. you cannot be certain that i exist, and yet you have engaged me in discussion; you have acted on uncertain information. every day, you, J, act without certainty in almost every single thing you do, because you must interact with reality in a fashion which is necessarily uncertain.
the acknowledgment of this uncertainty is vital to human and individual growth and is, i think, why i find rationalism so repugnant, and why people think you're so weird
That most people act on uncertain data does not indicate that it is impossible to certainly discern all data.
What a priori truths regarding the Earth are you starting from to deduce the force of gravity?
Human minds couldn't deduce it, probably; however, God could know it, if only because he chose it to be that way and God would never choose something less perfect over something more perfect. Infinite computation power and BOOM by knowing the predicates of simple substances God knows the predicates of aggregate continent facts.
edit* Or we could simply say that God truly grasps all concepts; grasping a concept in a clear and distinct manner means that you grasp all the predicates contained in the substance.
What a priori truths regarding the Earth are you starting from to deduce the force of gravity?
Human minds couldn't deduce it, probably; however, God could know it, if only because he chose it to be that way and God would never choose something less perfect over something more perfect. Infinite computation power and BOOM by knowing the predicates of simple substances God knows the predicates of aggregate continent facts.
So for rationalism to work you have to posit God?
This is awesome.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
rationalism doesn't work in any of those instances, because you can only interact with the plinko game via sense data, which is by its very nature uncertain. you cannot be certain the plinko game exists. you can never be certain it exists.
One could derive plinko. What would preclude one from deriving plinko? Remember, we are operating under a rationalist schema within which all that occurs is necessarily occuring. So, plinko's existence is necessary.
similarly, most of the information that is useful in that it can help one live in the world is fundamentally uncertain. the existence of any specific external entities is inevitably uncertain. you cannot be certain that i exist, and yet you have engaged me in discussion; you have acted on uncertain information. every day, you, J, act without certainty in almost every single thing you do, because you must interact with reality in a fashion which is necessarily uncertain.
the acknowledgment of this uncertainty is vital to human and individual growth and is, i think, why i find rationalism so repugnant, and why people think you're so weird
That most people act on uncertain data does not indicate that it is impossible to certainly discern all data.
we're operating under a rationalist schema within which all that occurs is necessarily occurring? that's news to me!
i would like you to demonstrate how plinko is necessary, and how one might go from a set of axioms to plinko without resorting to empiricism.
according to your set of notions, here, you seem to believe that one could live one's entire life in a bare, featureless cube room and deduce that plinko exists with simply the power of one's mind, which is simply absurd.
Evil Multifarious on
0
Options
Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
What a priori truths regarding the Earth are you starting from to deduce the force of gravity?
Human minds couldn't deduce it, probably; however, God could know it, if only because he chose it to be that way and God would never choose something less perfect over something more perfect. Infinite computation power and BOOM by knowing the predicates of simple substances God knows the predicates of aggregate continent facts.
So for rationalism to work you have to posit God?
This is awesome.
Not that you have to posit God, although it Rationalism and Theism tend to hand-in-hand. It's more that it is possible for knowledge to be gained by thought. That humans have limited computing power just shows that there is a lot of information which humans will never know clearly and distinctly.
according to your set of notions, here, you seem to believe that one could live one's entire life in a bare, featureless cube room and deduce that plinko exists with simply the power of one's mind, which is simply absurd.
If you've witnessed _J_ in his natural habitat, this makes perfect sense.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
What a priori truths regarding the Earth are you starting from to deduce the force of gravity?
Human minds couldn't deduce it, probably; however, God could know it, if only because he chose it to be that way and God would never choose something less perfect over something more perfect. Infinite computation power and BOOM by knowing the predicates of simple substances God knows the predicates of aggregate continent facts.
So for rationalism to work you have to posit God?
This is awesome.
Not that you have to posit God, although it Rationalism and Theism tend to hand-in-hand. It's more that it is possible for knowledge to be gained by thought. That humans have limited computing power just shows that there is a lot of information which humans will never know clearly and distinctly.
the way J is putting it, he seems to believe it is entirely possible to know anything that is knowable without need for experience
this is silly, and the rationalism you are describing is a) more limited in what is knowable in such a fashion, and b) something we can't necessarily do with our feeble human brains, which sounds more plausible although i do not necessarily agree
Evil Multifarious on
0
Options
Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
edited March 2010
Well, that's why I think _J_ is approaching Rationalism from the wrong angle. He thinks it's an epistemological method, I think it's a philosophy that founds itself on a radically new ontology.
So if the meanings of these symbols follows from their definition, and they're devoid of independent content, why do logicians use operators that are also frequently used to refer to observable objects or phenomena?
For instance, I could define operators ♠ and ❤ such that:
The basic definitions are indeed not chosen by accident. They are thought to bear an important relation to arguments in natural language and to help us sort those natural language arguments into the good and the bad. This, for instance, is one reason why we tend to include multiple operators, despite the fact that we can do all the same work with one. But it's also true that there are many different ways to choose them such that they still yield interesting results: for instance, there are multi-valued logics, modal logics, relevance logics, and so on.
MrMister on
0
Options
Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
So if the meanings of these symbols follows from their definition, and they're devoid of independent content, why do logicians use operators that are also frequently used to refer to observable objects or phenomena?
For instance, I could define operators ♠ and ❤ such that:
The basic definitions are indeed not chosen by accident. They are thought to bear an important relation to arguments in natural language and to help us sort those natural language arguments into the good and the bad. This, for instance, is one reason why we tend to include multiple operators, despite the fact that we can do all the same work with one. But it's also true that there are many different ways to choose them such that they still yield interesting results: for instance, there are multi-valued logics, modal logics, relevance logics, and so on.
Oh, and also: J is, as always, is presenting philosophy as seen through a funhouse mirror. It bears just enough resemblance that you can recognize the origin, but the transformation is deeply disturbing.
zuh?
Essentially: you clearly know some philosophy, but never ever mention any developments past the early modern era. So, there are these baffling holes in your exposition, and you appear to delight in saying things that are, on the face of them, completely absurd, and which were last advocated by a Spanish monk in the sixteenth century.
MrMister on
0
Options
MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
Oh, and also: J is, as always, is presenting philosophy as seen through a funhouse mirror. It bears just enough resemblance that you can recognize the origin, but the transformation is deeply disturbing.
zuh?
Essentially: you clearly know some philosophy, but never ever mention any developments past the early modern era. So, there are these baffling holes in your exposition, and you appear to delight in saying things that are, on the face of them, completely absurd, and which were last advocated by a Spanish monk in the sixteenth century.
You always make me happy.
I look forward to your posts.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
What a priori truths regarding the Earth are you starting from to deduce the force of gravity?
Human minds couldn't deduce it, probably; however, God could know it, if only because he chose it to be that way and God would never choose something less perfect over something more perfect. Infinite computation power and BOOM by knowing the predicates of simple substances God knows the predicates of aggregate continent facts.
Wait, I've missed something. Why is God necessary for rationalism again?
What a priori truths regarding the Earth are you starting from to deduce the force of gravity?
Human minds couldn't deduce it, probably; however, God could know it, if only because he chose it to be that way and God would never choose something less perfect over something more perfect. Infinite computation power and BOOM by knowing the predicates of simple substances God knows the predicates of aggregate continent facts.
Wait, I've missed something. Why is God necessary for rationalism again?
What a priori truths regarding the Earth are you starting from to deduce the force of gravity?
Human minds couldn't deduce it, probably; however, God could know it, if only because he chose it to be that way and God would never choose something less perfect over something more perfect. Infinite computation power and BOOM by knowing the predicates of simple substances God knows the predicates of aggregate continent facts.
Wait, I've missed something. Why is God necessary for rationalism again?
Oh, and also: J is, as always, is presenting philosophy as seen through a funhouse mirror. It bears just enough resemblance that you can recognize the origin, but the transformation is deeply disturbing.
zuh?
Essentially: you clearly know some philosophy, but never ever mention any developments past the early modern era. So, there are these baffling holes in your exposition, and you appear to delight in saying things that are, on the face of them, completely absurd, and which were last advocated by a Spanish monk in the sixteenth century.
Psh. No reason for some hip young intellectual to know anything post-19th century.
Everything, have you not been paying attention to Podly?
I'm having trouble discerning whether this is a sarcastic reference to Podly inserting a god without backing up the assertion that one is necessary for rational thought, or whether this is an honest reference to Podly seemingly believing that he need not back up the assertion that a god is necessary for rational thought.
I'm having trouble discerning whether this is a sarcastic reference to Podly inserting a god without backing up the assertion that one is necessary for rational thought, or whether this is an honest reference to Podly seemingly believing that he need not back up the assertion that a god is necessary for rational thought.
Grudgeblessed is the mind too small for doubtRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
I approve of this thread.
Initially I was confounded by the stark polarity between rationalism and empiricism, but then I realized that you guys chose to ignore the last 200 years of philosophical evolution (see what I did there?), so now all is well again.
All that I have, up to this moment, accepted as possessed of the highest truth and certainty, I received either from or through the senses. I observed, however, that these sometimes misled us; and it is the part of prudence not to place absolute confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
Sometimes one’s senses fuck up and one receives sense data which does not truly mirror any discrete referent “out there” in reality. If one is hit hard enough upon the head one will “see” stars; but this sense data of stars does not truly mirror reality; there are no stars “out there” which one has perceived via the sense. Since the senses can be fooled or flawed it is best to not trust them. Or, said another way, reason is not subject to the flaws to which the senses are subject.
This argument has always seemed backwards to me. First there's the obvious complaint that people make mistakes in their reasoning, and there's no surefire way to know when you've made a mistake.
But my main complaint is that he thinks sense data is fallible. If you're "seeing stars" then your senses are giving you information that is 100% true- something is causing your optics nerves to fire in a way that produces white light. you might interpret that as stars, but that's your reasoning that's flawed, not the original sense data.
It is impossible to know enough about a plinko board to predict with 100% accuracy where the chip will fall. Not because of limitations of sense data or of our mental capacities; it's simply the nature of the universe that you cannot know that much.
Set up a series of gratings with gaps not much bigger than the wavelength of a photon generator so that they look like a plinko board. Shoot a photon into one end. It is impossible to predict with certainty where it comes out no matter how much you know. In fact, depending on how you set up the experiment, it may come out of more than one hole.
Plinko seems predictable, as opposed to the photon/grating problem, because the plinko chip always falls out of one of the holes. This is thanks to normalization, whereby the unpredictable, bizarre effects of the universe becomes so unlikely compared to easily-predicted ones that it becomes safe to simply ignore them.
Rationalism has no normalization. But, on the other hand, if you take a stance that sense data and empiricism are worthless and only reason from the logical axioms is important you would never have any reason to consider plinko or a photon passing through a series of gratings. Those things are only important to sense data observers.
My problem with splitting rationalism and empiricism as that both are useless without the other. Rationalism can reason its way to any logical statement, but can make no statements about what we observe. Empiricism cannot know anything and so is trapped in a quagmire of repeated observations without accurate predictions. Beyond mental wankery I don't see a point in being dedicated to one without the other. Sense data is unnecessary for logical thought, and reason is unnecessary for observation, but you can't reason about anything except abstractions like A and P without observation, and you cannot draw any conclusions about your observations without reason.
Edit:
With regard to causality: it's unimportant to pure reason because the A in A = A doesn't need a cause. Nor does P need a cause to be P or ~P. Causality, or an explanation for the appearance of causality, cannot be abandoned in any even vaguely empirical worldview because, while A is content to simply =A, the universe appears to require a chain of causal events leading up to an Apple. Leibniz didn't disprove or obviate the need for causality. He simply waved it away as an artifact of our method of viewing the world. That's fine, but it's a consistent artifact endemic to our observational capabilities. Time and causality may be illusory, but they are illusions we seem incapable of piercing.
CptHamilton on
PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
0
Options
Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
edited March 2010
CptH: This is why, again, I feel it is an error of historicism to see Rationalism as an epistemological question. Rationalism did not come about because people all of a sudden wanted clarity. Rationalism was the logical development of the new ontology of the modern world. The peripatetic worldview of the scholastics was being shattered, specifically by Copernicus. If the universe was heliocentric rather than geocentric then Aristotelianism was, for lack of a better term, fucked. You could no longer posit that all beings were a combination of composite matter and immaterial form, because philosophers were having a hell of a time explaining how a rock fell to the ground if the earth was not an absolute location. Copernicus advocated that the book of nature was written in mathematics, and that math was alone was needed to understand the physical world. Descartes picked this idea up by doing away with substantial forms and arguing that matter was known not by any "internal" concept but by extension, figure, and motion alone.
However, this itself was quite problematic. Surely the soul was not extended in any way! And what about chiliagons and God? These things, sometimes by defintion, could not take up space or be set in motion. (How would you move God?) The answer is obvious -- well these things are something categorically different than the material world which is beholden to the laws of logic and math. The Rationalists, though, wanted to apply the same rigor that they applied to the material world that they applied to the non-material world, and were not content to just say "God works in mysterious ways" and leave it at that. Thus, they needed to advance the concept of substance to make sure that the non-material existed in the same way as the material.
I take the notion of "substance' to be the central question of Rationalism. A substance is anything which can exist independently of anything else. Descartes kind of screwed himself on this one -- he says that substance is either corporeal or rational, but both of these exist only with the will of God, so only God then is the real substance. He kind of brushes it aside and says "but forget that lol" and Spinoza gets great mileage out of this, saying that matter is a mode of God under the attribute "extension" and that the mind is a mode of God under the attribute "thought.". Leibniz, sagaciously so, pointed out that "extension" alone was not enough for the discussion of matter, because then we get into the problem of infinite divisibility (Cartesion mechanics was a sort of ur-String Theory) and the problems of active and passive energy (Cartesian mechanics couldn't really explain things like a billiard ball striking another one and transferring its kinetic energy). Thus, he said that the only substance which could truly exist per se would be a simple, non-divisible, substance -- which he later came to term the monads.
Now, how we come to know these things were extremely important questions for the Rationalists, but I do not think that they were the most important questions. And the great mathematical and scientific achievements of the Rationalists -- the calculus, the groundwork for mechanics and astronomy -- were likewise not a result of their epistemic quest, but of their ontological questioning "what exists?"
Well, that's why I think _J_ is approaching Rationalism from the wrong angle. He thinks it's an epistemological method, I think it's a philosophy that founds itself on a radically new ontology.
Upon what texts do you base this read of rationalism, though?
In Book 2 of the Ethics, Spinoza gives an account of human knowing.
Note II.--From all that has been said above it is clear, that we, in many cases, perceive and form our general notions:--(1.) From particular things represented to our intellect fragmentarily, confusedly, and without order through our senses (II. xxix. Coroll.); I have settled to call such perceptions by the name of knowledge from the mere suggestions of experience. (2.) From symbols, e.g., from the fact of having read or heard certain words we remember things and form certain ideas concerning them, similar to those through which we imagine things (II. xviii. note). I shall call both these ways of regarding things knowledge of the first kind, opinion, or imagination. (3.) From the fact that we have notions common to all men, and adequate ideas of the properties of things (II. xxxviii. Coroll., xxxix. and Coroll. and xl.); this I call reason and knowledge of the second kind. Besides these two kinds of knowledge, there is, as I will hereafter show, a third kind of knowledge, which we will call intuition. This kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things. I will illustrate all three kinds of knowledge by a single example. Three numbers are given for finding a fourth, which shall be to the third as the second is to the first. Tradesmen without hesitation multiply the second by the third, and divide the product by the first; either because they have not forgotten the rule which they received from a master without any proof, or because they have often made trial of it with simple numbers, or by virtue of the proof of the nineteenth proposition of the seventh book of Euclid, namely, in virtue of the general property of proportionals.
But with very simple numbers there is no need of this. For instance, one, two, three, being given, everyone can see that the fourth proportional is six; and this is much clearer, because we infer the fourth number from an intuitive grasping of the ratio, which the first bears to the second.
That's not ontology; that is epistemology. Spinoza maintains that there are 3 kinds of knowing:
1) Knowledge of the first kind, opinion, or imagination:
-From particular things represented to our intellect fragmentarily, confusedly, and without order through our senses.
-From symbols, e.g., from the fact of having read or heard certain words we remember things and form certain ideas concerning them, similar to those through which we imagine things
2) Reason and knowledge of the second kind.
-From the fact that we have notions common to all men, and adequate ideas of the properties of things
3) Intuition
-Besides these two kinds of knowledge, there is, as I will hereafter show, a third kind of knowledge, which we will call intuition. This kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things.
While these epistemic systems require an ontological account of the manner by which those things which exist can operate them the primary focus is still upon the epistemology, rather than the ontology.
Posts
So if the meanings of these symbols follows from their definition, and they're devoid of independent content, why do logicians use operators that are also frequently used to refer to observable objects or phenomena?
For instance, I could define operators ♠ and ❤ such that:
If P ♠ Q then P ❤ P
If P ❤ Q then P ♠ P
I could make this even more elaborate by introducing an additional character ✩ and additional character R
If P ♠ Q ❤ R then P ✩ R
If P ♠ Q ✩ R then P ❤ R
If P ❤ Q ✩ R then P ♠ R
Would this system of logic be of any interest to you?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Despite my almost universal disdain for all things Russellian and my whole-hearted cheering for Gödel, I do love his snippet about abstracted logical connectives floating around in heaven.
Why must knowledge be certain?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If by "useful" you mean "can help one live in the world" then ALL useful knowledge can be obtained and known as certain through rationalist inquiry.
I would agree that most people base their decisions on uncertain knowledge. That does not, however, indicate that one must or can only ever act on uncertain knowledge.
I would disagree about the impossibility.
If we grant causality, then all that transpires is necessarily determined via a causal chain. By doing deductions from a priori truths, the truths which started the chain going, so to speak, one can know, with certainty, all that will happen.
Say you are playing plinko. If you just pick a slot and drop the chip? You have no idea where it will land. If you understand all information regarding the entire causal story of the chip, the board, and all physical laws involved? You will know, with certainty, where the plinko chip will fall.
If there is no causality, no universal pre-established harmony, and the entirety of existence is perpetual, unknowable chaos? Then rationalism does not work.
But, of course, not much of anything would work in that scenario.
How would you come to the statement "gravity is a force that acts upon me at approximately 9.8 meters per second squared" through rationalist inquiry?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Because that is what knowledge is.
If you have a vague, uncertain, inductive inclination about something which may possibly be applicable to something which might exist? That's cool; but that is not knowledge.
Yes, it would, but your system, as of now, is both incomplete and inconsistent.
So "all goomblogs are goomblogs" is knowledge, but "there are four nucleotides in human DNA" is not?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
By doing deductions. One derives from a priori truths to the existence of the Earth. one derives from the nature of the Earth gravity. One then derives what gravity must be, given the nature of gravity, the nature of earth, the nature of reality, etc.
rationalism doesn't work in any of those instances, because you can only interact with the plinko game via sense data, which is by its very nature uncertain. you cannot be certain the plinko game exists. you can never be certain it exists.
similarly, most of the information that is useful in that it can help one live in the world is fundamentally uncertain. the existence of any specific external entities is inevitably uncertain. you cannot be certain that i exist, and yet you have engaged me in discussion; you have acted on uncertain information. every day, you, J, act without certainty in almost every single thing you do, because you must interact with reality in a fashion which is necessarily uncertain.
the acknowledgment of this uncertainty is vital to human and individual growth and is, i think, why i find rationalism so repugnant, and why people think you're so weird
Depends on how the knowledge of nucleotides was obtained.
That there are four nucleotides in human DNA could very well be tautological (and most likely is) given the nature of DNA.
Given what it is to be a triangle, a triangle has three sides.
Given what it is to be DNA, DNA has four nucleotides.
That sort of thing.
"Goomblogs are goomblogs" is more certain than "there are four nucleotides in human DNA"
If one could not know the former, the later would be impossible to know.
One could derive plinko. What would preclude one from deriving plinko? Remember, we are operating under a rationalist schema within which all that occurs is necessarily occuring. So, plinko's existence is necessary.
That most people act on uncertain data does not indicate that it is impossible to certainly discern all data.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Human minds couldn't deduce it, probably; however, God could know it, if only because he chose it to be that way and God would never choose something less perfect over something more perfect. Infinite computation power and BOOM by knowing the predicates of simple substances God knows the predicates of aggregate continent facts.
edit* Or we could simply say that God truly grasps all concepts; grasping a concept in a clear and distinct manner means that you grasp all the predicates contained in the substance.
So for rationalism to work you have to posit God?
This is awesome.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
we're operating under a rationalist schema within which all that occurs is necessarily occurring? that's news to me!
i would like you to demonstrate how plinko is necessary, and how one might go from a set of axioms to plinko without resorting to empiricism.
according to your set of notions, here, you seem to believe that one could live one's entire life in a bare, featureless cube room and deduce that plinko exists with simply the power of one's mind, which is simply absurd.
Not that you have to posit God, although it Rationalism and Theism tend to hand-in-hand. It's more that it is possible for knowledge to be gained by thought. That humans have limited computing power just shows that there is a lot of information which humans will never know clearly and distinctly.
If you've witnessed _J_ in his natural habitat, this makes perfect sense.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the way J is putting it, he seems to believe it is entirely possible to know anything that is knowable without need for experience
this is silly, and the rationalism you are describing is a) more limited in what is knowable in such a fashion, and b) something we can't necessarily do with our feeble human brains, which sounds more plausible although i do not necessarily agree
The basic definitions are indeed not chosen by accident. They are thought to bear an important relation to arguments in natural language and to help us sort those natural language arguments into the good and the bad. This, for instance, is one reason why we tend to include multiple operators, despite the fact that we can do all the same work with one. But it's also true that there are many different ways to choose them such that they still yield interesting results: for instance, there are multi-valued logics, modal logics, relevance logics, and so on.
I believe the plural is logix
Essentially: you clearly know some philosophy, but never ever mention any developments past the early modern era. So, there are these baffling holes in your exposition, and you appear to delight in saying things that are, on the face of them, completely absurd, and which were last advocated by a Spanish monk in the sixteenth century.
I believe you're incorrect.
You always make me happy.
I look forward to your posts.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
God is always necessary.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
What if you don't believe in God?
Psh. No reason for some hip young intellectual to know anything post-19th century.
Everything, have you not been paying attention to Podly?
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
My work here is complete.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
Initially I was confounded by the stark polarity between rationalism and empiricism, but then I realized that you guys chose to ignore the last 200 years of philosophical evolution (see what I did there?), so now all is well again.
Please continue.
But my main complaint is that he thinks sense data is fallible. If you're "seeing stars" then your senses are giving you information that is 100% true- something is causing your optics nerves to fire in a way that produces white light. you might interpret that as stars, but that's your reasoning that's flawed, not the original sense data.
Set up a series of gratings with gaps not much bigger than the wavelength of a photon generator so that they look like a plinko board. Shoot a photon into one end. It is impossible to predict with certainty where it comes out no matter how much you know. In fact, depending on how you set up the experiment, it may come out of more than one hole.
Plinko seems predictable, as opposed to the photon/grating problem, because the plinko chip always falls out of one of the holes. This is thanks to normalization, whereby the unpredictable, bizarre effects of the universe becomes so unlikely compared to easily-predicted ones that it becomes safe to simply ignore them.
Rationalism has no normalization. But, on the other hand, if you take a stance that sense data and empiricism are worthless and only reason from the logical axioms is important you would never have any reason to consider plinko or a photon passing through a series of gratings. Those things are only important to sense data observers.
My problem with splitting rationalism and empiricism as that both are useless without the other. Rationalism can reason its way to any logical statement, but can make no statements about what we observe. Empiricism cannot know anything and so is trapped in a quagmire of repeated observations without accurate predictions. Beyond mental wankery I don't see a point in being dedicated to one without the other. Sense data is unnecessary for logical thought, and reason is unnecessary for observation, but you can't reason about anything except abstractions like A and P without observation, and you cannot draw any conclusions about your observations without reason.
Edit:
With regard to causality: it's unimportant to pure reason because the A in A = A doesn't need a cause. Nor does P need a cause to be P or ~P. Causality, or an explanation for the appearance of causality, cannot be abandoned in any even vaguely empirical worldview because, while A is content to simply =A, the universe appears to require a chain of causal events leading up to an Apple. Leibniz didn't disprove or obviate the need for causality. He simply waved it away as an artifact of our method of viewing the world. That's fine, but it's a consistent artifact endemic to our observational capabilities. Time and causality may be illusory, but they are illusions we seem incapable of piercing.
However, this itself was quite problematic. Surely the soul was not extended in any way! And what about chiliagons and God? These things, sometimes by defintion, could not take up space or be set in motion. (How would you move God?) The answer is obvious -- well these things are something categorically different than the material world which is beholden to the laws of logic and math. The Rationalists, though, wanted to apply the same rigor that they applied to the material world that they applied to the non-material world, and were not content to just say "God works in mysterious ways" and leave it at that. Thus, they needed to advance the concept of substance to make sure that the non-material existed in the same way as the material.
I take the notion of "substance' to be the central question of Rationalism. A substance is anything which can exist independently of anything else. Descartes kind of screwed himself on this one -- he says that substance is either corporeal or rational, but both of these exist only with the will of God, so only God then is the real substance. He kind of brushes it aside and says "but forget that lol" and Spinoza gets great mileage out of this, saying that matter is a mode of God under the attribute "extension" and that the mind is a mode of God under the attribute "thought.". Leibniz, sagaciously so, pointed out that "extension" alone was not enough for the discussion of matter, because then we get into the problem of infinite divisibility (Cartesion mechanics was a sort of ur-String Theory) and the problems of active and passive energy (Cartesian mechanics couldn't really explain things like a billiard ball striking another one and transferring its kinetic energy). Thus, he said that the only substance which could truly exist per se would be a simple, non-divisible, substance -- which he later came to term the monads.
Now, how we come to know these things were extremely important questions for the Rationalists, but I do not think that they were the most important questions. And the great mathematical and scientific achievements of the Rationalists -- the calculus, the groundwork for mechanics and astronomy -- were likewise not a result of their epistemic quest, but of their ontological questioning "what exists?"
Logices?
Upon what texts do you base this read of rationalism, though?
In Book 2 of the Ethics, Spinoza gives an account of human knowing.
That's not ontology; that is epistemology. Spinoza maintains that there are 3 kinds of knowing:
1) Knowledge of the first kind, opinion, or imagination:
-From particular things represented to our intellect fragmentarily, confusedly, and without order through our senses.
-From symbols, e.g., from the fact of having read or heard certain words we remember things and form certain ideas concerning them, similar to those through which we imagine things
2) Reason and knowledge of the second kind.
-From the fact that we have notions common to all men, and adequate ideas of the properties of things
3) Intuition
-Besides these two kinds of knowledge, there is, as I will hereafter show, a third kind of knowledge, which we will call intuition. This kind of knowledge proceeds from an adequate idea of the absolute essence of certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of things.
While these epistemic systems require an ontological account of the manner by which those things which exist can operate them the primary focus is still upon the epistemology, rather than the ontology.