How We Know - Harry Binswanger's New Book


Neil Parille

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Michael,

Glad to see you are ambitious as always.

While I have some fundamental disagreements with Rand's epistemology, I still think ITOE is the clearest and most concise discussion of Objectivist epistemology. More attention should be paid to the discussions in the appendix.

I found Evidence of the Senses very tedious. In the end, after discussing every other wrong theory at length, Kelley does not provide anything new that Rand had not already addressed. He like Rand and all Objectivists continuously confuse the terms "senses" and "perception," for example.

I read Robins years ago. Your are right that it is from a Christian perspective, so you already know his views are mystic and subjective. I think you will be pretty disgusted with both his metaphysics and epistemology by the time your done with that book, but it is very interesting for providing a window on that kind of thinking.

I wish you success with writing fiction. I think you could do very well. You have imagination, and I know you think creatively, and have a sense of humor, something witch too many authors lack, or fail to develop. Twain, Wilde, and Shaw are examples of the best of humor.

"I've learned the hard way that life is short and this stuff can get awfully long."

OH, yes. Good reason for me to quit here. Do make the most of everything, my friend.

Randy

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Roger is exactly right, of course. If, as Ba'al said, "The way to know how we know is to study the brain in its natural mode of operation," this means that we must first know how we know what we know (in an epistemological sense) before we can claim any knowledge about the brain and its processes. If, in contrast, we must first understand neurophysiology before we can legitimately claim to know anything, then we will be forever barred from knowing anything about the brain at all, since we will be unable to distinguish true claims about neurophysiology from false claims.

Ghs

The time has come for you to catch up on the latest technology in neurophysiological scanning. MRI, dynamic MRI, PET scans and the like. It is now possible to look inside of people's brains will they are operating.

On cannot be a photographer without knowing something about light and photographic technology. One cannot be an epistemologist without knowing something about the organs which do the knowing. Our mind is our brain in operations. If one wishes to know how the mind works, then one must know something about how the brain and sense organs work.

And auto-mechanics do have to know the technology of engines, something about electricity and a modicum of thermodynamics.

To understand reality one must know something about the basic pieces of reality -- time, space, energy and atomic particles and above all, thermodynamics.

The main reason why philosophy has failed us is because many philosophers are and were scientific ignoramuses.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Roger is exactly right, of course. If, as Ba'al said, "The way to know how we know is to study the brain in its natural mode of operation," this means that we must first know how we know what we know (in an epistemological sense) before we can claim any knowledge about the brain and its processes. If, in contrast, we must first understand neurophysiology before we can legitimately claim to know anything, then we will be forever barred from knowing anything about the brain at all, since we will be unable to distinguish true claims about neurophysiology from false claims.

Ghs

The time has come for you to catch up on the latest technology in neurophysiological scanning. MRI, dynamic MRI, PET scans and the like. It is now possible to look inside of people's brains will they are operating.

On cannot be a photographer without knowing something about light and photographic technology. One cannot be an epistemologist without knowing something about the organs which do the knowing. Our mind is our brain in operations. If one wishes to know how the mind works, then one must know something about how the brain and sense organs work.

And auto-mechanics do have to know the technology of engines, something about electricity and a modicum of thermodynamics.

To understand reality one must know something about the basic pieces of reality -- time, space, energy and atomic particles and above all, thermodynamics.

The main reason why philosophy has failed us is because many philosophers are and were scientific ignoramuses.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Once again you have completely missed the point. Some things never change, but let me try one more time. If we must know neurophysiology before we can know anything, then how can we ever know neurophysiology in the first place? Are we born with innate knowledge of brain functions? If not, then how can that knowledge ever be acquired, given your claim that all knowledge depends on a knowledge of neurophysiology? Unless we can know things prior to our knowledge of the physical brain, we could have no epistemological foundation on which to justify theories of neurophysiology. We could not even get started.

Moreover, neurophysiology is a relatively recent science. Do you seriously mean to say that, prior to the development of that science, no one knew anything? No one knew, for example, that fire burns,or that water is essential to human life, or that a bullet will hurt you, before the development of brain science?

Philosophy has not failed "us." It has failed you, obviously, but this is only because you are clueless about the proper role of philosophy and its relationship to science.

The time has come for you to catch up with common sense. This is not brain science, after all.

Ghs

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The time has come for you to catch up with common sense. This is not brain science, after all.

Ghs

To really understand the cosmos we have to -overcome- common sense. Common sense are the prejudices we acquire from perception restricted to man-scale things and happening. All the interesting stuff is happening out of our direct sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. The Real reality is at Planck scale, not man scale.

All of our progress in physics has come from making war our our common sense.

And most of what I have missed (there is a lot!) has been a distraction from grasping the invariant relations and processes of the Real reality.

I am blessed by not being overburdened by neurotypical distractions.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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The time has come for you to catch up with common sense. This is not brain science, after all.

Ghs

To really understand the cosmos we have to -overcome- common sense.

You have overcome common sense in a spectacular fashion. In fact, your comments so far transcend common sense that they make no sense at all. My congratulations.

Ghs

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The time has come for you to catch up with common sense. This is not brain science, after all.

Ghs

To really understand the cosmos we have to -overcome- common sense.

You have overcome common sense in a spectacular fashion. In fact, your comments so far transcend common sense that they make no sense at all. My congratulations.

Ghs

Eagles fly alone.....

I cherish my good fortune not being weighed down by neuro-typical crapdoodle.....

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The time has come for you to catch up with common sense. This is not brain science, after all.

Ghs

To really understand the cosmos we have to -overcome- common sense.

You have overcome common sense in a spectacular fashion. In fact, your comments so far transcend common sense that they make no sense at all. My congratulations.

Ghs

Eagles fly alone.....

I cherish my good fortune not being weighed down by neuro-typical crapdoodle.....

You are actually denying the existence of any "neuro-typical crapdoodle" while affirming it at the same time. But what you deny is in your head regardless. Everybody has a philosophy--the operating system of the human mind and consciousness. Scientific methodology itself represents what we can accurately call "the philosophy of science." No matter how many times this is pointed out to you, you only repeat your babble about purely physical processes as if that were somehow an argument to end all arguments, not realizing any arguments by you affirm the existence of which you are arguing against. Go ahead. Tell us there is no such thing as a philosophy of and for science and as such is not true and valid and correct. Tell us that science does not have the same epistemology and metaphysics as Objectivism, that it's all twaddle.

--Brant

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You are actually denying the existence of any "neuro-typical crapdoodle" while affirming it at the same time. But what you deny is in your head regardless. Everybody has a philosophy--the operating system of the human mind and consciousness. Scientific methodology itself represents what we can accurately call "the philosophy of science." No matter how many times this is pointed out to you, you only repeat your babble about purely physical processes as if that were somehow an argument to end all arguments, not realizing any arguments by you affirm the existence of which you are arguing against. Go ahead. Tell us there is no such thing as a philosophy of and for science and as such is not true and valid and correct. Tell us that science does not have the same epistemology and metaphysics as Objectivism, that it's all twaddle.

--Brant

Philosophy is a popular passtime among those not well versed in science and mathematics....

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You are actually denying the existence of any "neuro-typical crapdoodle" while affirming it at the same time. But what you deny is in your head regardless. Everybody has a philosophy--the operating system of the human mind and consciousness. Scientific methodology itself represents what we can accurately call "the philosophy of science." No matter how many times this is pointed out to you, you only repeat your babble about purely physical processes as if that were somehow an argument to end all arguments, not realizing any arguments by you affirm the existence of which you are arguing against. Go ahead. Tell us there is no such thing as a philosophy of and for science and as such is not true and valid and correct. Tell us that science does not have the same epistemology and metaphysics as Objectivism, that it's all twaddle.

--Brant

Philosophy is a popular passtime among those not well versed in science and mathematics....

I hope you're enjoying it, but I thought you were well versed in science and mathematics.

--Brant

science and mathematics are a popular pastime for those who can't spell well or engage in ratiocination

it's not so hard for those interested in science and mathematics to be well versed therein, but it is extremely hard to actually do good science according to the chemist Dr. Arthur Robinson

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You are actually denying the existence of any "neuro-typical crapdoodle" while affirming it at the same time. But what you deny is in your head regardless. Everybody has a philosophy--the operating system of the human mind and consciousness. Scientific methodology itself represents what we can accurately call "the philosophy of science." No matter how many times this is pointed out to you, you only repeat your babble about purely physical processes as if that were somehow an argument to end all arguments, not realizing any arguments by you affirm the existence of which you are arguing against. Go ahead. Tell us there is no such thing as a philosophy of and for science and as such is not true and valid and correct. Tell us that science does not have the same epistemology and metaphysics as Objectivism, that it's all twaddle.

--Brant

Philosophy is a popular passtime among those not well versed in science and mathematics....

I hope you're enjoying it, but I thought you were well versed in science and mathematics.

--Brant

science and mathematics are a popular pastime for those who can't spell well or engage in ratiocination

it's not so hard for those interested in science and mathematics to be well versed therein, but it is extremely hard to actually do good science according to the chemist Dr. Arthur Robinson

Well enough versed to read the journals and understand 95 percent of the articles.

Yes, there are scientists and mathematicians who occasionally do significant work in epistemology. Church, Turing Quine, J.S. Bell , to name a few. With the exception of Hume and Hobbes the classical philosophers who indulged in metaphysics were mucking about. J.S. Mill came up with some useful heuristics in inductive reasoning....

There are some branches of philosophy that actually produce useful results. Technical parts of epistemology and logic. Metaphysics is a waste of time. Ethics, politics, and aesthetics are exercises in judgement and opinion. There is nothing solid there.....

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You have to understand you are on essentially a philosophy forum. You have made thousands of posts here and on other such previously but you continually dump on them and by implication who also post on them. It's bad form. That's from how you generalize, not actual particular criticisms of factual matters. Nobody gets a free pass here. You can dump on philosophy all you want--anyone can--but you'll get dumped on in turn out of refusal to sanction it.

To do philosophy well is neither common nor easy--nor its application. But it sure is easy to get in the front door and yammer away. It's like painting or singing, those sort of things. Anyone can do them. The front door of science and mathematics requires a big step up, however, and it's that that stops hoi polloi. As for myself, I never had much time for them regardless. They just weren't me. There has always been some kind of voice in my head saying, No, No and Nope. But I have acquired a true liberal arts understanding of science over many decades, the kind usually not taught in college. My respect for science is just as profound as anyone's, just like yours is.

As for metaphysics, Objectivism doesn't say much about it for there isn't much to say it's so axiomatic, but something had to be said so Rand said it. Next!

--Brant

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You have to understand you are on essentially a philosophy forum. You have made thousands of posts here and on other such previously but you continually dump on them and by implication who also post on them. It's bad form. That's from how you generalize, not actual particular criticisms of factual matters. Nobody gets a free pass here. You can dump on philosophy all you want--anyone can--but you'll get dumped on in turn out of refusal to sanction it.

To do philosophy well is neither common nor easy--nor its application. But it sure is easy to get in the front door and yammer away. It's like painting or singing, those sort of things. Anyone can do them. The front door of science and mathematics requires a big step up, however, and it's that that stops hoi polloi. As for myself, I never had much time for them regardless. They just weren't me. There has always been some kind of voice in my head saying, No, No and Nope. But I have acquired a true liberal arts understanding of science over many decades, the kind usually not taught in college. My respect for science is just as profound as anyone's, just like yours is.

As for metaphysics, Objectivism doesn't say much about it for there isn't much to say it's so axiomatic, but something had to be said so Rand said it. Next!

--Brant

And science is mentioned frequently in this forum by others besides myself, so I am doing a perfectly reasonable thing by comparing science, which succeeds often with philosophy which hardly ever succeeds. Especially metaphysics. Hume almost buried metaphysics, but Kant dug it up out of the grave in which Hume put it.

In the Darwinian struggle between natural philosophy (aka physical science) and metaphysics, metaphysics lost Big Time. It is a fail......

Ba'al Chatzaf

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I don't know what contest philosophy lost, especially since science is an outgrowth of it.

Maybe I'll get some popcorn so I can watch the slugfest in style.

When's the next bout?

:smile:

Michael

How can you say that when the Aristoteleans threatened the life of Galileo?

And the issue is natural philosophy (what we now call physical science) vs. metaphysics which is bloody nonsense.....

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How can you say that when the Aristoteleans threatened the life of Galileo?

Bob,

Sorry. I thought you were talking about philosophy.

:smile:

Michael

I am. When empirical science collided with Aristotle, the Aristoteleans (namely the Church management) showed the instruments of torture to Galileo and he recanted (surprise, surprise!!!). Science (then called natural philosophy) collided with theology and metaphysics so the metaphysicians resorted to force.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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How can you say that when the Aristoteleans threatened the life of Galileo?

Bob,

Sorry. I thought you were talking about philosophy.

:smile:

Michael

I am. When empirical science collided with Aristotle, the Aristoteleans (namely the Church management) showed the instruments of torture to Galileo and he recanted (surprise, surprise!!!). Science (then called natural philosophy) collided with theology and metaphysics so the metaphysicians resorted to force.

Ba'al Chatzaf

And, since this is an Objectivist forum, how sails Objectivist metaphysics in this conflict?

--Brant

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I am. When empirical science collided with Aristotle, the Aristoteleans (namely the Church management)...

Dayaamm!

And here I thought churches were for religions...

Whodda thunk Aristotle founded a church?

:smile:

Michael

Have you bothered to study history???? Read -The Galileo Affair- by Maurice A. Finocchiaro. It gives a very good account of the philosophical issues in the events surrounding Galileo's persecution of the Church. By the 17 th century, Aristotelian metaphysics were welded to Church dogma primarily because of the use Acquinas made of Aristotle's philosophy.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Have you bothered to study history????

Dayaamm!

I need to read history because I think churches belong to religion?

And history is going to disabuse me of that notion? It's going to teach me Aristotle died on the cross for our sins?

That must be my lack of science, huh?

:smile:

Michael

no. You need to know the background of why Galileo's anti- Aristotelian stand brought the ire of the Church management down upon him. Aristotle had become some what of a secular saint to the Catholic Church because of the use Acquinal made of using Aristotle's principles and arguments to defend the Catholic faith against its detractors.

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Have you bothered to study history????

Dayaamm!

I need to read history because I think churches belong to religion?

And history is going to disabuse me of that notion? It's going to teach me Aristotle died on the cross for our sins?

That must be my lack of science, huh?

:smile:

Michael

no. You need to know the background of why Galileo's anti- Aristotelian stand brought the ire of the Church management down upon him. Aristotle had become some what of a secular saint to the Catholic Church because of the use Acquinal made of using Aristotle's principles and arguments to defend the Catholic faith against its detractors.

You know only a small part of the story. When the writings of Aristotle were rediscovered in the early 13th century, mainly via Muslim sources, they were widely regarded as serious threats to the Catholic Church because of their naturalistic emphasis. Indeed, the Bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, banned many of Aristotle's doctrines from the University of Paris (where Aquinas taught), including the doctrines of the eternity of the universe and the denial of personal immorality. The more consistent Aristotelians -- the so-called "Averroists," such as Siger of Brabant -- who taught in the Faculty of Arts at Paris took considerable risks; indeed, Siger was imprisoned and died while in custody, supposedly murdered by a madman. Aquinas got by only because he was able to integrate Aristotelianism into Catholic teaching in a manner that didn't raise too too many eyebrows. And his use of Aristotle later inspired many Catholics in their scientific pursuits. For example, Aristotle's writings became a major impetus for the study of anatomy and medicine during the Renaissance.

Galileo was never forbidden to discuss Copernicanism; he was forbidden to defend it as absolute truth. He had promised a future pope to present Copernicanism only as a hypothesis, but that's not what he did, and the pope got pissed off. Many higher-ups in the Catholic Church were Copernicans; indeed, Copernicus himself was a devout Catholic. Galileo's crime was not that he contradicted Aristotle, but rather that he contradicted the Bible. Some well-known Catholic writers argued against the Aristotelian views of Aquinas; that was a major controversy during the later Middle Ages.

Ghs

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Have you bothered to study history????

Dayaamm!

I need to read history because I think churches belong to religion?

And history is going to disabuse me of that notion? It's going to teach me Aristotle died on the cross for our sins?

That must be my lack of science, huh?

:smile:

Michael

no. You need to know the background of why Galileo's anti- Aristotelian stand brought the ire of the Church management down upon him. Aristotle had become some what of a secular saint to the Catholic Church because of the use Acquinal made of using Aristotle's principles and arguments to defend the Catholic faith against its detractors.

You know only a small part of the story. When the writings of Aristotle were rediscovered in the early 13th century, mainly via Muslim sources, they were widely regarded as serious threats to the Catholic Church because of their naturalistic emphasis. Indeed, the Bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, banned many of Aristotle's doctrines from the University of Paris (where Aquinas taught), including the doctrines of the eternity of the universe and the denial of personal immorality. The more consistent Aristotelians -- the so-called "Averroists," such as Siger of Brabant -- who taught in the Faculty of Arts at Paris took considerable risks; indeed, Siger was imprisoned and died while in custody, supposedly murdered by a madman. Aquinas got by only because he was able to integrate Aristotelianism into Catholic teaching in a manner that didn't raise too too many eyebrows. And his use of Aristotle later inspired many Catholics in their scientific pursuits. For example, Aristotle's writings became a major impetus for the study of anatomy and medicine during the Renaissance.

Galileo was never forbidden to discuss Copernicanism; he was forbidden to defend it as absolute truth. He had promised a future pope to present Copernicanism only as a hypothesis, but that's not what he did, and the pope got pissed off. Many higher-ups in the Catholic Church were Copernicans; indeed, Copernicus himself was a devout Catholic. Galileo's crime was not that he contradicted Aristotle, but rather that he contradicted the Bible. Some well-known Catholic writers argued against the Aristotelian views of Aquinas; that was a major controversy during the later Middle Ages.

Ghs

But he did present the Copernican thesis as a hypothesis (as all scientific explanations are). He mocked the Aristotelian Simplicio who was also a surrogate for the Pope himself. That is what got Galileo in hot water.

The Church management changed their minds on Aristotle after Aquinas' brilliant defense of the Faith using the Aristotelian mode of argument. That was over 300 years before the Galileo affair. Galileo was a smart smart ass and Pope Urban did not appreciate his wit.

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Consider Aquinas 1600 years after Aristotle and only 700 years from us. And if Aristotle was such a bad influence on science who/what was the bad influence that stopped science until he was rediscovered? And who/what has been the good influence since?

--Brant

wonder what will be what 1600 years after Aquinas--or even in the year 2525?

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