The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics

[Neil Parille]

There may be some merit to "thinking in essentials," but it is likely to lead one astray. Look at the Ominous Parallels. Since Kant wasn't a Nazi, his followers weren't Nazis, and the Nazis weren't big fans of Kant, common sense says that Kant wasn't the ideological godfather of Nazism.

As someone said, most of us, upon picking up bios of Hitler and books on Nazism and seeing that they don't mention Kant, would have dropped the project.

-Neil Parille

Edited July 15, 2010 by Neil Parille

[Philip Coates]

> There may be some merit to "thinking in essentials," but it is likely to lead one astray. [Neil]

That's if you don't do it properly.

[Philip Coates]

Subject: Failure to See the Forest in Philosophy

> Do you really compare yourself favorably to GHS in philosophical acumen, in particular the area of thinking in essentials? What would be the objective basis of this judgment on your part?

Bill, there is absolutely no comparison between George's actual understanding of philosophy, in fundamental and essential terms. The way to see this, if you yourself have a good understanding of philosophy is to read his posts and compare them to mine.

In my posts -- across several years, there is an understanding of the fundamentals of Hume and Kant and how they influenced the world. In his -- that I've seen in the past year, there is too often a lot of "pedantry", a lot of out-of-context quotes which claim to 'prove' that Hume was really for certainty, that Kant was in favor of reason in a deep way and the like. Or that some cherry-picked analyst agrees with him.

What George, for all his books, fails to realize (maybe he should read less and think more) is that K and H were fundamentally skeptics in their key doctrines.

This is not to say they were always consistent. But it's about what view trumps what other. Both in their own systems and in their influence.

I really recommend Peikoff's history of philosophy courses. There are some good texts such as W.T. Jones, but P and Rand are often better at essentializing so you need them as a complement. It's hopeless to debate with you guys until you've absorbed some of the basics, because you'll always take a nit and magnify it into an eagle.

,,,,,

Here's another example of a Randian statement in essentials about the history of philosophy: Down through the centuries, ages of western civilization have been either Platonic or Aristotelian in fundamentals.

A nit-picker will search for an Aristotelian tree in the Platonic forest of the Dark Ages or say that it was a Christian age, not a Platonic one.

Once again, he just ain't getting it.

Edited July 15, 2010 by Philip Coates

[BaalChatzaf]

,,,,,

Here's another example of a Randian statement in essentials about the history of philosophy: Down through the centuries, ages of western civilization have been either Platonic or Aristotelian in fundamentals.

You are overlooking the pragmatic and empirical threads in philosophy. The Ionians, who invented the beginning of science (not Aristotle) were neither Aristotelian nor Platonic. The empiricists are neither. Hume was not Aritstotelian nor was he Platonic. He was just careful not to let his suppositions outrun his direct knowledge of the world. The same could be said of Peirce, Popper and Dennett.

How would you classify Richard Feynman. Do you think he overlooked "essentials"?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Alfonso Jones]

Subject: Failure to See the Forest in Philosophy

> Do you really compare yourself favorably to GHS in philosophical acumen, in particular the area of thinking in essentials? What would be the objective basis of this judgment on your part?

Bill, there is absolutely no comparison between George's actual understanding of philosophy, in fundamental and essential terms. The way to see this, if you yourself have a good understanding of philosophy is to read his posts and compare them to mine.

Philip -

I have compared your posts to his. That is why your attempted one-upmanship left me aghast.

Thinking in essentials is tricky, and requires maturity and breadth of perspective. The danger is that of confusing oneself by ignoring all the evidence / examples which does/do not fit with an attempted integration/generalization. In such a case, one is left claiming to have "thought in essentials" when in fact what they did was to make unwarranted generalizations, jumping to unwarranted conclusions.

Bill P

[Alfonso Jones]

Subject: Failure to See the Forest in Philosophy

I really recommend Peikoff's history of philosophy courses. There are some good texts such as W.T. Jones, but P and Rand are often better at essentializing so you need them as a complement. It's hopeless to debate with you guys until you've absorbed some of the basics, because you'll always take a nit and magnify it into an eagle.

I am quite familiar with Peikoff's history of philosophy courses, and the 5 volume W. T. Jones series.

No need for oneupmanship games. If you have something specific in one of these to cite as relevant, do so. Otherwise, remember something I often remind my students of . . . . purchasing the textbook and attending class will not confer knowledge on one, if they do not choose to think. Learning is not by osmosis, or by leaning one's head sideways and hoping the professor will pour knowledge into your ear.

Bill P

[dan2100]

Dan,

Have you read Stuart Kauffman's At Home in the Universe? That book is currently on my list and my brother read it. Kauffman has a renegade theory that the autocatalytic reactions make the origin of life a much more statistically likely event. If I like that book, I'll proceed to his more mathematically intensive Origins of Order.

Jim

Sorry, I haven't read that one yet, so I can't provide much in the way of informed commentary on it.

[9thdoctor]

In my posts -- across several years, there is an understanding of the fundamentals of Hume and Kant and how they influenced the world. In his -- that I've seen in the past year, there is too often a lot of "pedantry", a lot of out-of-context quotes which claim to 'prove' that Hume was really for certainty, that Kant was in favor of reason in a deep way and the like. Or that some cherry-picked analyst agrees with him.

What George, for all his books, fails to realize (maybe he should read less and think more) is that K and H were fundamentally skeptics in their key doctrines.

Alternately, you’re rationalizing a less nuanced understanding of other philosophers work, to justify the fact that you haven’t put in the work GHS has. I can’t imagine what reaction you’re expecting from a post like this, can’t you foresee that you’ll be publicly burned to a crisp?

Which reminds me, I did want some toast with breakfast this morning, but was out of bread. Request to GHS, assuming you’re going to bother replying to Phil, I prefer toast nicely browned, but never totally burned. Order up!

[George H. Smith]

What George, for all his books, fails to realize (maybe he should read less and think more) is that K and H were fundamentally skeptics in their key doctrines.

As I have said before, Hume expressly defended what he called "mitigated skepticism" in regard to his epistemological theories. But to call Kant a skeptic is unbelievably ignorant. It is akin to calling Thomas Aquinas an atheist or Karl Marx an advocate of laissez-faire capitalism.

This is not to say they were always consistent. But it's about what view trumps what other. Both in their own systems and in their influence.

Since you know virtually nothing about Hume and Kant, you have no way of knowing if they were consistent or not, or in what respects they were inconsistent.

As for "what trumps the other," this merely functions as a cover for your ignorance. You never define your terms, you never defend your theory of trumping (are we talking about bridge?), you never establish a historical context when discussing specific philosophers, and you never present particulars. Trumping, for you, is one big package deal -- a vague notion that you picked up from Rand second-hand and accepted on faith.

I really recommend Peikoff's history of philosophy courses. There are some good texts such as W.T. Jones, but P and Rand are often better at essentializing so you need them as a complement.

The introduction by Jones is a good overview, one that quotes extensively from the original sources. It therefore contradicts your interpretations. If you are going to cite a secondary source, at least try to find one that supports your positions.

I listened to Peikoff's History of Philosophy course back in the 1970s, after Roy Childs had obtained copies of the reel-to-reel tapes. Some of it was well done, but some of it was so ideologically driven that the interpretations were warped and unreliable.

It's hopeless to debate with you guys until you've absorbed some of the basics, because you'll always take a nit and magnify it into an eagle.

Right, Phil. Never let the facts stand in your way.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

In my posts -- across several years, there is an understanding of the fundamentals of Hume and Kant and how they influenced the world. In his -- that I've seen in the past year, there is too often a lot of "pedantry", a lot of out-of-context quotes which claim to 'prove' that Hume was really for certainty, that Kant was in favor of reason in a deep way and the like. Or that some cherry-picked analyst agrees with him.

What George, for all his books, fails to realize (maybe he should read less and think more) is that K and H were fundamentally skeptics in their key doctrines.

Alternately, you’re rationalizing a less nuanced understanding of other philosophers work, to justify the fact that you haven’t put in the work GHS has.

The problem with Phil is not that his understanding is "less nuanced" than mine. The problem is that many of his claims are flat wrong. No appeal to fundamentals can excuse the pig-headed defense of claims that are demonstrably false.

It is not necessary to devote countless hours to the study of past philosophers in order to acquire a fundamental understanding of their ideas. Many good overviews, such as the introductions by Jones and Copleston, are available. Virtually nothing I have said about Hume and Kant is controversial. It is standard stuff that you might learn in a college course on the history of philosophy.

The problem arises when one approaches the history of ideas with an ideological ax to grind. This attitude has destroyed Phil's objectivity, assuming he had any objectivity to begin with.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

> You never define your terms, you never defend your theory of trumping (are we talking about bridge?), you never establish a historical context when discussing specific philosophers, and you never present particulars.

1. Actually I have done so in many posts over many years. I am not willing to repeat them again for you, because I don't think you would read them objectively. When my patience runs out with you snarky and insulting dudes, I'm more likely to just make a terse summary statement. Not spell every argument all out again: Go review the Peikoff courses. While not infallible, he did a pretty good job.

2. If there is anyone with an ax to grind, it's you. You persist in letting non-essentials about major philosophers trump essentials.

I don't doubt you can find scholars to support your view, as I can find scholars to support mine. But in many cases the viewpoint of academics is to itemize every little wrinkle, not to look for what makes K and H "were fundamentally skeptics in their key doctrines".

3. LOGIC NOTE: You are not allowed to convert "fundamentally a skeptic in key doctrines" to "is a skeptic" by stripping away the qualifications.

4. I will repeat one point (and if you don't get it or want to "blow smoke", I'm simply going to have to leave you to your own devices:

Hint for George and Bill and others -- For K, ultimate reality is basically unknowable by reason. It's the noumenal world, not the phenomenal world. As Peikoff and Rand pointed out that is the gateway to skepticism. Saying K is a skeptic is a shorthand for saying his most fundamental point destroys reason as a power for knowledge. And the philosophers who followed him saw this.

It is skeptical in fundamental implications despite K not thinking he is a skeptic, despite modern commentators to claim he is an advocate of 'reason'.

I'll make it even simpler for you, George, so even you can get it: To say you can't know reality (as it really is rather than as our mind makes it appear to be) -- NOTHING COULD BE MORE SKEPTICAL THAN THAT.

And if K were to answer, "Ah, but our mind has categories, filters, processing which *creates* cause and effect and logic and certainty", the answer - and the one given by subsequent thinkers - is absurdly simple:

How do you know it created them correctly? After all you aren't in touch with ultimate reality to check?

Got it straight now? (And, yes, these things were pointed out in the Peikoff courses -- perhaps you should have taken detailed notes and thought about them as carefully as I did?)

Edited July 15, 2010 by Philip Coates

[Philip Coates]

> Here's another example of a Randian statement in essentials about the history of philosophy: Down through the centuries, ages of western civilization have been either Platonic or Aristotelian in fundamentals.

> You are overlooking the pragmatic and empirical threads in philosophy.

First, that's why I said ages, not every age including the present. Second, a statement in essentials is about the driving force or underlying premises, not about every rebelling or incipient or contradictory viewpoint.

[Philip Coates]

> If you have something specific in one of these to cite as relevant, do so [bill P]

Your last three posts are -themselves- simply a personal putdown of my posts in general without citing any specific example.

As for your snarky metaphor about pouring stuff into an deaf ear, with the implication that I am one -->

Back at you. Do I need to shout, so you can hear me, pal?

Edited July 15, 2010 by Philip Coates

[George H. Smith]

I don't doubt you can find scholars to support your view, as I can find scholars to support mine.

Name a couple.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

I'll make it even simpler for you, George, so even you can get it: To say you can't know reality (as it really is rather than as our mind makes it appear to be) -- NOTHING COULD BE MORE SKEPTICAL THAN THAT.

Maybe Kant's just telling us it's a jungle out there; to be careful.

--Brant

reality (metaphysics) and reality-mind (epistemology) = Objectivism (Rand was a skeptic too?)

Edited July 15, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Philip Coates]

> I don't doubt you can find scholars to support your view, as I can find scholars to support mine.

>Name a couple.

Address the main point of my post - about Kant and skepticism.

[Dragonfly]

Maybe Kant's just telling us it's a jungle out there; to be carefull.

Be careful, Brant.

[Brant Gaede]

Kant destroyed reason with his reasoning. Lordy!

--Brant

quite a trick

[Brant Gaede]

Maybe Kant's just telling us it's a jungle out there; to be carefull.

Be careful, Brant.

Forgot to use the spell checker. If I didn't have a spell checker I'd be too embarrassed to post anything under my own name.

--Brant

and phonics deprived too boot

[George H. Smith]

> I don't doubt you can find scholars to support your view, as I can find scholars to support mine.

>Name a couple.

Address the main point of my post - about Kant and skepticism.

Couldn't name any, could you? What a blowhard.

Your "main point" is thoroughly wrong. So what else is new?

Ghs

[bmacwilliam]

I'll make it even simpler for you, George, so even you can get it: To say you can't know reality (as it really is rather than as our mind makes it appear to be) -- NOTHING COULD BE MORE SKEPTICAL THAN THAT.

And if K were to answer, "Ah, but our mind has categories, filters, processing which *creates* cause and effect and logic and certainty", the answer - and the one given by subsequent thinkers - is absurdly simple:

How do you know it created them correctly? After all you aren't in touch with ultimate reality to check?

But, in the light of evidence, isn't Kant right on this one? (That's a question, not a statement)

For example our "perception" of time (in the Newtonian sense) and it's (apparent) distinct separation with the concept of distance is simply an artifact of our limited minds. Reality makes no distinction, space and time are really the same (spacetime), in the same way that length and width are the same (or different only in perspective).

Also we have no way of conceptualizing 4 spacetime dimensions (or at least I don't know anyone who can). 1,2, and 3d are easy to understand, but throw in a 4th spacial dimension and we can't understand it.

Aren't these two clear examples of how we cannot really "know" reality? Maybe I'm missing something?

Bob

[dan2100]

> I don't doubt you can find scholars to support your view, as I can find scholars to support mine.

>Name a couple.

Address the main point of my post - about Kant and skepticism.

Would you please state clearly your "main point" "about Kant and skepticism"?

[Philip Coates]

> Your "main point" is thoroughly wrong

Without giving any reasons. What a blowhard.

[George H. Smith]

I'll make it even simpler for you, George, so even you can get it: To say you can't know reality (as it really is rather than as our mind makes it appear to be) -- NOTHING COULD BE MORE SKEPTICAL THAN THAT.

And if K were to answer, "Ah, but our mind has categories, filters, processing which *creates* cause and effect and logic and certainty", the answer - and the one given by subsequent thinkers - is absurdly simple:

How do you know it created them correctly? After all you aren't in touch with ultimate reality to check?

But, in the light of evidence, isn't Kant right on this one? (That's a question, not a statement)

For example our "perception" of time (in the Newtonian sense) and it's (apparent) distinct separation with the concept of distance is simply an artifact of our limited minds. Reality makes no distinction, space and time are really the same (spacetime), in the same way that length and width are the same (or different only in perspective).

Also we have no way of conceptualizing 4 spacetime dimensions (or at least I don't know anyone who can). 1,2, and 3d are easy to understand, but throw in a 4th spacial dimension and we can't understand it.

Aren't these two clear examples of how we cannot really "know" reality? Maybe I'm missing something?

Bob

Your analysis of space and time is too skeptical (to use Phil's word) for Kant's taste. He would not agree that space and time are simply "artifact of our limited mind." Rather, he maintains that these forms of perception are necessary presuppositions of all experience and therefore of all knowledge.

Moreover, Kant did not claim that we "cannot really 'know' reality." He said that we cannot know the world as it is in itself, i.e., reality as it exists apart from our perception of it. We know the world only as it appears to our senses, and how it appears is influenced by the nature of our sensory organs. This is the world of phenomena, i.e., things as they appear to us.

It is a huge mistake -- one that Phil commits again and again -- to assume that Kant's phenomenal world is somehow not real, or that it is a distortion of reality. This is not Kant's point at all. Phenomenal knowledge is limited to what we can perceive via our sense organs, but it is real knowledge.

Although I don't wish to push the point too far, there are interesting parallels between Kant's approach and Rand's. Where Kant speaks of our forms of perception, Rand speaks of our means of perception; and, like Kant, Rand insists that our sensory organs have specific natures which determine how we perceive reality. And, like Kant, Rand insists that to speak of knowing reality as it exists apart from our perception of it makes little if any sense, for this would require knowledge without a means of attaining that knowledge. Lastly, Rand, like Kant, argues that although our knowledge is limited to our specific means of perception, this limitation does not somehow invalidate the knowledge that we acquire thereby.

Major differences between Kant and Rand emerge when we move from forms of perception to Kant's categories of the understanding. They differed as well in how they approached the fundamental problems of epistemology. Kant did not set out to prove that we have accurate knowledge of reality. He thought it is quite obvious that we do possess such knowledge, including absolutely certain knowledge , based solely on reason, of a fundamental kind. (The latter are Kant's so-called synthetic a priori truths.)

Kant then proceeds to ask his celebrated "transcendental" question, viz: What presuppositions must be true in order to explain the fact that we possess the knowledge that we do? What must be true of our senses and of our mind in order to make sense of our experiences and account for our knowledge of reality?

Kant's transcendental methodology is why we frequently find "stolen concept" arguments in his writings. For example, to those philosophers who, like Hume, denied necessary causal relationships, Kant replies (in effect) that such relationships are presupposed in any attempt to make sense of the world, and that even philosophers who deny causation must assume its truth in science and other fields. Another example is found in Kant's defense of free will. One of his arguments is essentially identical to the stolen concept argument presented by NB in "The Contradiction of Determinism." to the effect that knowledge presupposes volition.

There is much more that could be said, obviously, but I will stop here. This account is more than sufficient to demonstrate the lunacy of Phil's contention that Kant was essentially a skeptic. The claim is bizarre beyond belief.

Ghs

[Philip Coates]

> Would you please state clearly your "main point" "about Kant and skepticism"?

Dan, I thought I did. Point #4 in post #111.