Defining the fragmentary
Dao Jones
There is no 'really good definition' in the sense I think you want.
Postmodernism is messy. It is frustrating, elusive, self-referential,
circular, fragmentary, inevitable and all-embracing but apparently
ineffectual and without long-term consequences.
Here's a shot at a description of Postmodernity (NB not Postmodernism)
"Postmodernity is what happens when doubt permeates every single aspect
of identity."
Postmodernism might be "what results from the attempt to describe and
embrace the disparate threads of this situation and function
intellectually in the aftermath of the admission that there cannot be
rational certainty."
Dao Jones
P.S. If you're still out there, A.J., you might take a look at the
quotes I posted the other day under the heading Doubt, Risk, Trust,
Change.
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
>Postmodernism might be "what results from the attempt to describe and
>embrace the disparate threads of this situation and function
>intellectually in the aftermath of the admission that there cannot be
>rational certainty."
Do all such definitions have to be so blatantly self-contradictory?
--
Iván Ordóñez
iord...@columbus.rr.com
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~iordonez
email is iordonez at columbus dot rr dot com
Dao Jones
iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
> Do all such definitions have to be so blatantly self-contradictory?
Would you care to expand on that, or were you just hoping to start some
kind of macho-intellectual pissing contest?
Dao Jones
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
I'm starting a pissing contest, of course, but I will expand anyway. The
definition was
>Postmodernism might be "what results from the attempt to describe and
>embrace the disparate threads of this situation and function
>intellectually in the aftermath of the admission that there cannot be
>rational certainty."
Either postmodernism is what follows after the "might be" or it is not. If
it is not, we have a vacuous definition; hence I shall treat the "might
be" as an "is," being that such is the only meaningful alternative. Now,
the "admission that there cannot be rational certainty" is either a gain
in knowledge, or it is not. If it is not, it cannot be called an admission
in any meaningful sense; if it is, it consists on a predicative assertion.
Therefore what it postulates, that there cannot be rational certainty,
applies to itself: you cannot be certain that there cannot be rational
certainty. Given this, it is non-sensical to make such declaration, being
that you cannot admit that of which you are not certain. Hence this
definition negates itself. It is a contradiction.
Iván Ordóñez
Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
[...]
>What follows after x might be y is not a "vacuous" definition but a
>tentative one.
A definition is an introduction of a new term as a function of known terms
in the language. There is no such thing as a "tentative definition."
Either you define what a new word is or you don't. You don't say "a snake
might be a kind of earthworm that grew out of divine punishment for eating
dirt." Such sentence is true, because it commits to nothing; it doesn't
say what a snake is, but what it might be. Hence that sentence is not a
definition, but a cop-out.
> As a matter of fact, "might be" turns up in responsible
>scientific writing all the time. It means... well, how do I explain
>that... perhaps you tell us what you imagine "might" means and why people
>use it a lot, and we can work from there.
Yes, "might" is used a lot. Just not on definitions.
[...]
>Run that by me again. It cannot be an admission if it is not a gain in
>knowledge because?
Because you can only admit something you have learned to be true. You
cannot admit something you think is false, or something you are dubious
about. At most you can admit that something dubious *might* be true.
> If I admit that I ate two pieces of cake instead of
>one, that's not an admission because I already knew I ate two pieces of
>cake? Is that how this works?
No. If you ate exactly two pieces of cake you can admit that, but you
cannot admit that you ate three pieces.
[...]
>You mean, the definition ought to have included modification of certainty,
>as in: "the admission that there cannot be rational certainty about x, y,
>z" -- yes?
Yes, something like that.
> Of course, most of us might have read the sentence and
>concluded that "certainty" referred to "threads of this situation," and we
>would have shut up until we had some inkling what situation and what
>threads were concerned.
I have no clue how most of you (whoever "you" might be) would have reached
that conclusion. The definition was a conjunction of two parts:
1) what results from the attempt to describe and embrace the disparate
threads of this situation AND
2) what results from the attempt to function intellectually in the
aftermath of the admission that there cannot be rational certainty.
So you see, "certainty" does not refer to "threads of the situation." It
is in a different sub-sentence.
[...]
>Actually, people admit things of which they aren't certain all the time,
>so you ought to work on this a bit more. Seeing that you are trying so
>hard to speak in the name of precision and all that...
Please give me an example of someone admitting, in the same sense used in
the definition, something of which he or she is not certain.
br...@wralaw.com
iord...@a.fake.address.com (Iván Ordóñez) wrote:
> >Postmodernism might be "what results from the attempt to describe and
> >embrace the disparate threads of this situation and function
> >intellectually in the aftermath of the admission that there cannot be
> >rational certainty."
> hence I shall treat the "might
> be" as an "is,"
I think you will learn par usual that PoModernism thrives on
nested ambiguity. The definition of PoModernism is what it
might be, a linguistic nihilistic surrealism, that happens
later.
(What I condense follows ...)
> being that such is the only meaningful alternative. Now,
> the "admission that there cannot be rational certainty" is either a gain
> in knowledge, or it is not. If it is not, it cannot be called an admission
> in any meaningful sense; if it is, it consists on a predicative assertion.
> Therefore what it postulates, that there cannot be rational certainty,
> applies to itself: you cannot be certain that there cannot be rational
> certainty. Given this, it is non-sensical to make such declaration, being
> that you cannot admit that of which you are not certain. Hence this
> definition negates itself. It is a contradiction.
What results from an admission that 'there +cannot+ be rational certianty'
is that there +is+ rational certainty that 'there +cannot+ be rational
certainty.' PoMo, wears the cloths of objectivisms favorite straw man.
There +cannot+ be rational certainty that there +is+ rational certainty.
or There +is+ rational certainty that there +cannot+ be rational certainty.
or There +is not+ rational certainty that there +is+ rational certainty.
Note that +cannot+ is a rule that would span all time vs. +is not+ which
is a fact of the present +I do not know of+ is what PoMo's mean. And after
reading this will make a note speak more subjectively in the Future.
Of course if any individual gains rational certainty, the +cannot+ and
+is not+ are false. And of this I am certain *ergo there +is+ rational
certainty -even if it +is+ only entirely abstract.
And this does not say anything about axiomatical events that happen
outside of conscience abstraction. Which is one step closer towards
logical nihilism-which is what POMO strives for but is unaware of.
> Iván Ordóñez
> iord...@columbus.rr.com
> email is iordonez at columbus dot rr dot com
Bryn Ayers
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Josh Soffer
deprives us of the ability to claim patterns, unities , regularies in
the world. What kind of a world is it which is composed only of chaotic
randomness and alienness, of radical anrachy, of irrationality and
impossibility of truth, they wonder? I would have no interest in
postmodern ideas if this is what they had to offer me. If it was radical
lack of order I was after I could just as well choose heraclitan flux or
animistic conceptions in which every rock and twig held its own
irreducible, arbitrary spirit. I embrace pomo directions because I see
in them an overall order more precise and intricate than the
explanations of world and mind which preceded them. The key term in pomo
thinkng is 'relative'
To say that aesthetic or scientific ideas are relative to
culture, or that one's scientific observations of the 'objective' world
is biased by one's pre-existing ideological paradigm, is only to reveal
an extraordinarily intimate continuity which links who I am this minute
of time with who I was the previous minute and who I will be the next,
and links my thinking as a whole with that of my neighbors and the
larger society surrounding me. To believe in the absolute freedom of the
scientist to generate theories independently of the tradition within
which he /she operates is to believe in a freedom of a certain
psychological arbitariness and unpreditability, which is antithetical to
the goals of unity and integration in science.
If one wants to reject the implications of the great variety of pomo
views in favor of more traditional views of science, rationalty and
truth, it would be far more accurate to say that one does so for
consevative reasons, that is, in the belief that the world is LESS
ordered than the pomos claim, that human nature is LESS effectively
understandable than it is asserted as being by authors like Heidegger,
Foucault, Lacan. It would seem to be paradoxical that the same
individuals who accuse pstmodernism of nihilism and arbitariness also
blame it for being TOO tolerant and accepting, too ethically permissive.
How can a viewpoint which sees no order in teh world be so accepting?
SIn't it necessary to RELATE to others , to have insight into their ways
of thinking, in order to accept them?
The fact is, the sort of philsophical stance which is the most arbitrary
is that which rests on foundations concealing the greatest irreducible
mysteries. For example, fundamentalist theologies may appear to subsume
the universe within the most simple and elegant theoretical system, but
the overall PREDICTIVE order of such a system is limited by the claimed
irredubility and impenetrability of its originating terms. In such
systems , human nature is modelled after a description of attributes of
God. But how well does this blueprint of God help to make sense of why
others do things which we disagree with, which shock us, which we don't
understand?
The limits of its explanatory power, that is, of its ability to
relate the actions of myself and others, or certain aspects of myself
with other aspects of myself , is directly expressed in the intolerances
and severlty of the social and judicial systems derived form those
theological premises. OF course the same is true even of so-called
secular systems of belief. Physicists and social scientists whose
thinking does not embody a postmodern framework may appear to offer a
more precise language of measurement and methodology than their
intellectual opponents, but the overall level of predictive order that
their orientation permits is limited in relation to pomo archtiectures
of understanding.
If the minute topography of the postmodern world is too
self-reflexively dynmaic to be ossified as logical axioms or strict
mathematical regualrites, it is nevertheless a process of change whose
overall chartacteristics are exquisitely interwoven in a way distinctly
more unified , the conncetions bewteen people more keenly seen, than is
accomplished through non-pomo orientations. The upshot of pomo as an
ethics is not the glorification of differnce but the RECONCILIATION of
difference, or as Derrida says, the mulitplication of dfference ad
infinitum, beyond the violence of polarized stratifications.
-------------------------------------------------------
Josh Soffer: http://www.inergy.com/joshsoffer/welcome.html
Josh Soffer
"The definition was Postmodernism might be "what results from the
attempt to describe and embrace the disparate threads of this situation
and function intellectually in the aftermath of the admission that there
cannot be rational certainty."
Either postmodernism is what follows after the "might be" or it is not.
If it is not, we have a vacuous definition; hence I shall treat the
"might be" as an "is," being that such is the only meaningful
alternative. Now, the "admission that there cannot be rational
certainty" is either a gain in knowledge, or it is not. If it is not, it
cannot be called an admission in any meaningful sense; if it is, it
consists on a predicative assertion. Therefore what it postulates, that
there cannot be rational certainty, applies to itself: you cannot be
certain that there cannot be rational certainty. Given this, it is
non-sensical to make such declaration, being that you cannot admit that
of which you are not certain. Hence this definition negates itself. It
is a contradiction. "
You are precisely right, The definition negates itself and is a
contradiction. In other words, postmodern discourse has built into
itself self-contradiction. but the meaning of this contradiciton is not
how one would understand the sense of negation from the point of view of
formal logic. From a pomo standpoint, to grossly overgeneralize, an
assertion which negates itself is one which transcends itself
qualitatively, that is, one whose definition changes in the instant that
one would nail it down. So one is immersed in a sea of self-transofrming
terms, with nothing extrinsic, nothing standing still, no reference
point, such that we can ground our meanings by its compass. This does
not mean that we cannot describe the dynamics of this
self-transformation. We can describe it as an intimate process, and not
have to worry that we will not be able to repeat this assertion. Such an
assertion concerning the self-transformational nature of a term of
meaning has a certain stability,not in spite of the fact of the ubiquity
of self-contradiction, but because of it. That which is stable in a
postmodern world of meaning's 'productive' negation, is the idea of
pattern. A fractal pattern, for instance, never returns to itself in
such a way as to directly describe mathematically, but it has a
self-similarity. Now I recognize that a fractal is generated from a
logical formula, but imagine a pattern begun from a non-formulaic
instigation whose recursive behavior was a fractal-like self-similarity
non-mathematically describable but regular in its wanderings. Now
imagine that this structure represents our experience of the world in
time, and that recollection is a furthering of the fractal-like
structure. This is a world in which propositional logic has no
foudnation to stand on, because turning around over our shoulder to fix
our new meanings in reference to already determined significations
always leads us into new terrain. The past is always ahead of us.
I wonder, Ivan, what your backround is in the hisotry of logic?i know
you're involved in computers, but are you aware of the journey that
logic has taken since computer logic was made possible with the work of
people like Frege and Turing ? You are right to analyze logic
propositions in terms of language definitions,as this was the direction
that was taken in analytic philosophy. But are you familiar with the
modest conclusions concerning the grounding of truth statements offered
by Quine and Sellars? Have you followed the even more radical turn taken
by Dennett and Putnam? As a computer person this should be of relevance
to you. Dennett and others have essentially abandoned the project of
fixing the validity of formal definitions in any absolute sense, because
of their awareness that the chain of meanings that would enclose an
axiomatic system are always shifting in relation to themselves as we
attempt to nail them down. Instead , Dennett is content with an
approach which is sloppier at a local level but ultimately less
arbitrary and more ordered than formal logic.
Josh Soffer
Dao Jones
>
> I think you will learn par usual that PoModernism thrives on
> nested ambiguity.
Well, it predicts or observes that state of affairs, and arises from it.
I don't see that that's a bad thing. 'Thrives' is interesting. It isn't
as if PM comes along and devours intellectual events and grows stronger
to increase the great PM hegemony...
> The definition of PoModernism is what it
> might be, a linguistic nihilistic surrealism, that happens
> later.
Ummmm...you're very big on linguistic nihilistic surrealism today.
Remove that clause and I'd have no dispute with your statement. With it,
I'm not so sure. Would you mind expanding on it?
> What results from an admission that 'there +cannot+ be rational certianty'
> is that there +is+ rational certainty that 'there +cannot+ be rational
> certainty.' PoMo, wears the cloths of objectivisms favorite straw man.
Oh, no, please. We *have* to get a new intellectual crime.
> There +cannot+ be rational certainty that there +is+ rational certainty.
> or There +is+ rational certainty that there +cannot+ be rational certainty.
> or There +is not+ rational certainty that there +is+ rational certainty.
>
> Note that +cannot+ is a rule that would span all time vs. +is not+ which
> is a fact of the present +I do not know of+ is what PoMo's mean. And after
> reading this will make a note speak more subjectively in the Future.
Although I won't, because the resulting discussion has been edifying.
> Of course if any individual gains rational certainty, the +cannot+ and
> +is not+ are false. And of this I am certain *ergo there +is+ rational
> certainty -even if it +is+ only entirely abstract.
Is your certainty rational?
1. It was inspired by the desire to prove your point, therefore you have
a vested interest in believing what you say.
2. The rightness of your certainty is conditional upon your being
certain, hence
i) You may be mistaken in your certainty; you may only be
convinced as long as you do not examine the situation. Given this, the
only rational action is to concede uncertainty.
ii) You have stated that you are certain because you are
certain. As a ground for certainty, certainty itself is not admissible
in logic. Tautologies are not certainties, the initial separation of A
from B is an illusion.
> And this does not say anything about axiomatical events that happen
> outside of conscience abstraction. Which is one step closer towards
> logical nihilism-which is what POMO strives for but is unaware of.
Interesting. Please expand when you have time.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
> >Postmodernism might be "what results from the attempt to describe and
> >embrace the disparate threads of this situation and function
> >intellectually in the aftermath of the admission that there cannot be
> >rational certainty."
>
> Either postmodernism is what follows after the "might be" or it is not.
How binary. The definition might be incomplete, imprecise, and yet
contain the seeds of accuracy. In any case, my original post makes it
quite clear that this was a 'trial balloon'. I was attempting to
indicate something which has not yet yielded to simple (simplistic)
definitions.
> If
> it is not, we have a vacuous definition; hence I shall treat the "might
> be" as an "is," being that such is the only meaningful alternative. Now,
> the "admission that there cannot be rational certainty" is either a gain
> in knowledge, or it is not. If it is not, it cannot be called an admission
> in any meaningful sense; if it is, it consists on a predicative assertion.
> Therefore what it postulates, that there cannot be rational certainty,
> applies to itself: you cannot be certain that there cannot be rational
> certainty. Given this, it is non-sensical to make such declaration, being
> that you cannot admit that of which you are not certain. Hence this
> definition negates itself. It is a contradiction.
I could sit here and couch the ideas contained in that definition in
acceptable langauge, but you're clever enough to do that yourself, and it
would in any case miss the point.
I ackowledge freely that this definition was linguistically and
even logically imprecise. That may have been an error - but it was not
logic that I was looking for on this occasion. The post was a creative
enterprise in which others were invited to join, rather than an exercise
in theoretical pigeonholing.
At the same time, I was describing a contradictory thing. I said as
much, and more, in my original post. I've accidentally encasulated one
of the problems which Postmodernism looks at - the imprecision of
language and the dangers of transmission. I hope I caught a few more on
purpose - fragmentary timelines being described for the sake of
convenience under one label, the constant presence of doubt, and so on.
If your only problem with that statement about Postmodernism was the
argument about 'it is absolutely true that there are no absolute truths',
I'm happy. That's covered endlessly in the literature - it just won't
go away.
Finally, I was trying to get across something of the mood of PM as I see
it to the original poster. Looking at the resulting discussions, I think
that may have worked rather better than I imagined, if s/he's still out
there...
Dao Jones
j...@my-dejanews.com
> Silke-Maria Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
> >What follows after x might be y is not a "vacuous" definition but a
> >tentative one.
>
> A definition is an introduction of a new term as a function of known terms
> in the language. There is no such thing as a "tentative definition."
> Either you define what a new word is or you don't. You don't say "a snake
> might be a kind of earthworm that grew out of divine punishment for eating
> dirt." Such sentence is true, because it commits to nothing; it doesn't
> say what a snake is, but what it might be. Hence that sentence is not a
> definition, but a cop-out.
You're redefining "definition" to mean "the kind of definition that
satisfies Ivan". Everything else is, by definition, not a definition.
That's a cop-out.
Jeff Inman
terry...@rocketmail.com
> Please give me an example of someone admitting, in the same sense used in
> the definition, something of which he or she is not certain.
A 16th century western-european physician
extolling the benefits of leeches.
Tom C
have a dig through this lot later!
Tom
Dao Jones wrote in message ...
>
>There is no 'really good definition' in the sense I think you want.
>Postmodernism is messy. It is frustrating, elusive, self-referential,
>circular, fragmentary, inevitable and all-embracing but apparently
>ineffectual and without long-term consequences.
BTW - saying it is 'ineffectual' is arse. And I really do think that it is
possible to present a working definition of it. I will plough through some
books etc. In the meantime I could suggest to the progenitor of the thread
that the FAQ would be a cool place to start before we get down to the nitty
gritty...
>Here's a shot at a description of Postmodernity (NB not Postmodernism)
>
>"Postmodernity is what happens when doubt permeates every single aspect
>of identity."
Ick. Why just identity?
>Postmodernism might be "what results from the attempt to describe and
>embrace the disparate threads of this situation and function
>intellectually in the aftermath of the admission that there cannot be
>rational certainty."
Yeah - that's pretty much OK, I guess...
Tom C
>it is not, we have a vacuous definition; hence I shall treat the "might
>be" as an "is," being that such is the only meaningful alternative. Now,
>the "admission that there cannot be rational certainty" is either a gain
>in knowledge, or it is not. If it is not, it cannot be called an admission
>in any meaningful sense; if it is, it consists on a predicative assertion.
>Therefore what it postulates, that there cannot be rational certainty,
>applies to itself: you cannot be certain that there cannot be rational
>certainty. Given this, it is non-sensical to make such declaration, being
>that you cannot admit that of which you are not certain. Hence this
>definition negates itself. It is a contradiction.
Ivan - I think we are all aware of that particular logical double bind. I
don't think it makes a difference to be honest. Let me have a ponder and
I'll get back to you on this one though as I have a nice example brewing in
my head at the moment and I want to make sure it 'works' before I send it
into the world...
Tom C
Dao Jones wrote in message ...
>In article <iordonez-100...@cvl219084.columbus.rr.com>,
>iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
>> Do all such definitions have to be so blatantly self-contradictory?
>
>Would you care to expand on that, or were you just hoping to start some
>kind of macho-intellectual pissing contest?
>
>Dao Jones
Iván Ordóñez
Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
[...]
>You cannot possibly so dense, Ivan. If you say x might be y where 'y' is
>the definition, then "might" signals that this is probably not the last
>word, but a possibility.
Again, such things are not definitions. Another example: before the
composition of the sun was known, some people would have said "the sun
might be a ball of burning coal." Such statements are correct, and they
imply possibility, as you point out. But such statements *are not
definitions.* They are potential specifications of properties, which
require the word in question to have a definition already; in this case,
something like "the sun is that shining yellow thing you see in the sky
during the day" will do. If the statement we are talking about had been
offered as a possible descriptions of some of the properties of pomo, the
"might be" would have been appropriate. But it was offered as a
definition: not appropriate.
[...]
>: I have no clue how most of you (whoever "you" might be) would have reach=
>ed
>: that conclusion.
>
>Old-fashioned hermeneutic education.=20
You'll have to be more specific than that.
>: The definition was a conjunction of two parts:
>
>: 1) what results from the attempt to describe and embrace the disparate
>: threads of this situation AND
>
>: 2) what results from the attempt to function intellectually in the
>: aftermath of the admission that there cannot be rational certainty.
>
>: So you see, "certainty" does not refer to "threads of the situation." It
>: is in a different sub-sentence.
>
>"So you see" is about as reliable a give-away of an impending non-sequitur
>as "therefore I have established...".
You should change your reading habits if you have such a sorry impression
of those prefectly legitimate expressions.
> No such thing follows, of course.
>This sentence happens in a context. If you were even a mildly honest
>reader, you'd admit (see?) that you know damn well that "certainty" here
>does not refer to "certainty about how many letters there are in 'Ivan'"
>but certainty about the matter under discussion, i.e. 'this situation' --
>which leaves plenty to gripe about, but your way is singularly
>unproductive.
Sorry. Call me dense or stupid, if you are that kind of person, but don't
call me dishonest. The only thing I established is that it is not clear
that "certainty" refers to "this situation." It takes a particular kind of
reading, fallacious in my view, to reach your conclusion.
[...]
>: Please give me an example of someone admitting, in the same sense used i=
>n
>: the definition, something of which he or she is not certain.
>
>Since you do not feel obliged to pay any heed to context, why should I?
"Tu quoque" is I think the name of this fallacy.
>People, for instance, admit to emotions all the time. Are they "rationally
>certain" they are feeling these emotions?
Yes, they are.
> Or does the certainty stem from
>other sources?
It stems from their direct perception of their emotions. It is quite
rational to admit something you experience directly.
Dao Jones
Tom.C...@CHEEZbtinternet.com says...
> BTW - saying it is 'ineffectual' is arse.
<grin> I did say 'apparently'.
> And I really do think that it is
> possible to present a working definition of it. I will plough through some
> books etc.
Would be much appreciated. Although I grow increasingly fond of mine as
a jumping-off point.
> >Here's a shot at a description of Postmodernity (NB not Postmodernism)
> >
> >"Postmodernity is what happens when doubt permeates every single aspect
> >of identity."
>
>
> Ick. Why just identity?
What else is there?
To be less flippant; it seems to me that identity, in the broad sense, is
what is upset by postmodernity and postmodernism; it is necessarily the
filter through which we perceive things, and the criteria by which we
check our own Self are amongst those things which are most sorely
affected by the postmodern situation. Social, scientific, political,
ethical, aesthetic statements are all made with reference to ourselves,
and our preceptions, judgements, and capabilities within those areas
constitute a large part of what it is to be one's Self. If those things
are not absolute, how can the Self be distinct and constant? If words,
which have been the method of checking one's Self against the perceptions
of others, are flawed carriers of information, and the hard concepts of
the world are shifting, there remains only hazy, internal examination of
motive, act, thought and talent, capability and self-restriction to know
one's Self.
The collapse of the grand narrative is followed by the collapse of the
self-perception of anyone who defined themselves with reference to such a
narrative. There are probably not that many people in the world who do
not, in some way or other, define themselves with reference to narratives
(family, church, tradition, state, aesthetics) even if they qualify those
absolutes for the purpose of intellectual discussion and theory. The
separation of the individual from the world is undermined as the concept
of the objective observer crumbles, but at the same time, the constructs
which were central to that world are shown to have rocky foundations.
Self-Identity is trapped in no-man's land, dragons to the right, jokers
to the left.
I quoted these more fully in the Doubt, Risk etc. post:
"No matter how cherished, and apparently well established, a given
scientific tenet might be, it is open to revision - or might have to be
discarded altogether - in the light of new ideas or findings. The
integral relation between modernity and radical doubt is an issue which,
once exposed to view, is not only disturbing to philosophers but is
existentially troubling for ordinary individuals." (Giddens, Modernity
and Self-Identity)
"Under the general demand for slackening and for appeasement, we can hear
the mutterings of the desire for the return of terror, for the
realization of the fantasy to seize reality." (Lyotard, Answering
the Question: What is Postmodernism)
I would suggest that Giddens' "ordinary individuals" existential troubles
derive from the awareness at some level that the Self is under threat
from this situation. It is not only science which undergoes the ordeal
of doubt, but everything. That means that everything which surrounds the
Self and is contained within it may be open to change. The response to
this is what Lyotard decries - the wish (a very actual one in many
parts of the former Soviet Union) for the return of the old Myth, which
gave a defining logic to the lives of those who lived within it. It is
not the ancien regime that people seek in this directionless post-
revolutionary depression, but the curtailing and standardising of
ontology which came with it. Aufklaerung has been part-forced upon us;
the Myths vanish and we are left with the storyteller's stage to
ourselves. Postmodernity is this moment, and it is what we do next.
Dao Jones
Iván Ordóñez
Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
[...] in this universe where different fields have
>different expectations from a speech act called a "definition." And where
>people admit of tentative definitions as a matter of reason. Especially
>when it comes to things that cannot be defined exhaustively, like
>"postmodernism."
I don't want to make too much fuzz about this, so I'll admit a certain
parrochialism on my part: I like precision. I do think, however, that it
is rather innacurate, and rather confusiong, to call such things
"definitions;" as I said before, it's better to think of them as
assignments of properties to something already defined. But I can see how
some people, especially in informal discourses, might conflate such acts
with definitions.
[...]
>For heaven's sake, Ivan, if you read this passage with some pretense of
>making sense of it, you'll have to read it within its context. What do you
>think "no rational certainty" _does_ refer to here?
Two problems: first, I can't really make a lot of sense of it, and I
didn't see much context around it. I think "no rational certainty" refers
to everything, since I don't see the statement being quantified.
[...]
>It seems to me that "rational certainty," to you, is a redundancy. But
>perhaps I'm wrong -- are there forms of certainty that are not rational?
No, you're probably right. I think you are attaching too much weight to
the word "rational." To me, it just means within human reason.
>If I say, "shit, I'm angry," what rational act did I engage in before I
>arrived at that statement?
The recognition of your feeling. The verbalization of a very abstract
sensation through a series of complex cerebral mechanisms.
> If you say, "God, I hate that bitch," is that
>the outcome of rational deliberation?
Yes, if I really feel that (otherwise, why would I say it?), even if
that's just a temporary feeling.
>:> Or does the certainty stem from
>:>other sources?
>
>: It stems from their direct perception of their emotions. It is quite
>: rational to admit something you experience directly.
>
>Okay, let's stick with direct experience. If someone who is color-blind
>claims that a bunch of nice ripe bing cherries are a pleasant shade of
>grey, he has rational certainty of their greyness?
Of course. That is, he is rationally certain of the way those cherries
look to him.
Iván Ordóñez
joshs...@webtv.net (Josh Soffer) wrote:
[...]
>You are precisely right, The definition negates itself and is a
>contradiction.
Well, there doesn't seem to be a consensus about that.
[...] From a pomo standpoint, to grossly overgeneralize, an
>assertion which negates itself is one which transcends itself
>qualitatively, that is, one whose definition changes in the instant that
>one would nail it down.
If that is true, the pomo point of view does not make any sense. If such
statements are allowed, then the entire human model of reasoning becomes
inconsistent, and everything would be true and false at the same time.
Knowledge would be impossible, and we could as well blow our brains up.
[...] A fractal pattern, for instance, never returns to itself in
>such a way as to directly describe mathematically, but it has a
>self-similarity.
I don't know what you mean. Many fractal objects have very precise, very
simple mathematical definitions.
> Now I recognize that a fractal is generated from a
>logical formula, but imagine a pattern begun from a non-formulaic
>instigation whose recursive behavior was a fractal-like self-similarity
> non-mathematically describable but regular in its wanderings.
I don't think such postulation makes any sense.
> Now
>imagine that this structure represents our experience of the world in
>time, and that recollection is a furthering of the fractal-like
>structure. This is a world in which propositional logic has no
>foudnation to stand on, because turning around over our shoulder to fix
>our new meanings in reference to already determined significations
>always leads us into new terrain. The past is always ahead of us.
This is a fruitless excercise. No such world exist, and even the metaphor
to motivate imagining such word is senseless.
>I wonder, Ivan, what your backround is in the hisotry of logic?
What is the relevance of that?
[...] Instead , Dennett is content with an approach which is sloppier
>at a local level but ultimately less arbitrary and more ordered than
>formal logic.
This is not an abandonment of logic, and whoever believes so doesn't
understand the issue. Paraconsistent logics, a family of formal systems
which encompass that which you are talking about, are fully consistent in
the meta-level, and are ultimately reducible to regular formal logic.
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
[...]
>I could sit here and couch the ideas contained in that definition in
>acceptable langauge, but you're clever enough to do that yourself, and it
>would in any case miss the point.
No, I'm afraid I'm not that clever. Why would being precise miss the point?
[...]
>If your only problem with that statement about Postmodernism was the
>argument about 'it is absolutely true that there are no absolute truths',
>I'm happy. That's covered endlessly in the literature - it just won't
>go away.
I've never seen a satisfactory treatment of the issue.
Iván Ordóñez
Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>Iván Ordóñez <iord...@a.fake.address.com> wrote:
[...] I do think, however, that it
>: is rather innacurate, and rather confusiong, to call such things
>: "definitions;"=20
>
>Even if preceded by "might be"?
Specially if preceded by "might be."
[...] wouldn't it be more fruitful to try to make
>sense of it first and attack it later?
Attack? I am only wondering why it is that I see such contradictory
definitions so often. The contradiction is apparent when one takes such
statements at face value. You may know stuff that allows you to interpret
these statements in a way that is barred to me, being that I am one of the
naive variety; I'm one of those old fashioned guys who actually believe
words have meanings.
> I think the problem with the
>passage is entirely elsewhere -- namely with the contention that the
>intellectual products associated with postmodernism admit of a lack of
>rational certainty. As far as I can see, they merely replace one set of
>certainties (and often a set that nobody was so certain about to begin
>with...) with another one (often of a moral nature, so yeah, I guess we
>could argue about 'rational' some more). There are a very few writers who
>actually attempt to address this: Rorty, Fish.
I have no problem with that, as long as the set of certainties that are
being descarded do not include certain metalinguistic constructs, such as
the idea that one can be certain of anything at all. That would lead to
contradictions.
[...] if
>I burn myself on the stove and scream "ouch, that hurt," I don't think I
>engaged in an act of rational certainty.
I, on the contrary, can hardly think of an instance that more accurately
represents rational certainty. If there's anything I can be certain of
with no doubts whatsoever in my mind, it's that the damn thing hurts. And
I see nothing irrational in that certainty. So I cannot understand your
position.
> There's also the problem that we
>can misidentify our emotions; whenever we change our mind from "I was
>angry" to "I was scared," or "I was angry" to "I was aroused," etc., we
>admit that the moment of articulation is by no means an accurate
>reflection of what we take our emotions to have been upon reflection.
Ah, but being certain often has little to do with being right. At the
moment you thought you were angry, you sincerely believed you were. You
may have misidentified, but your certainty was based on error, not on
irrationality. Being rational just means using your mind, not being right
every time.
>:> If you say, "God, I hate that bitch," is that
>:>the outcome of rational deliberation?
>
>: Yes, if I really feel that (otherwise, why would I say it?), even if
>: that's just a temporary feeling.
>
>Deliberation? Rational?
Yes and yes. I explored my feelings; that was a deliberation; I reached a
logical conclusion; that was rational.
Dao Jones
iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
> I don't want to make too much fuzz about this, so I'll admit a certain
> is rather innacurate, and rather confusiong, to call such things
> assignments of properties to something already defined. But I can see how
> some people, especially in informal discourses, might conflate such acts
> with definitions.
<shrug> If you aren't happy with that use of the word, fine. I think you
are being over-literal. For what it's worth, the OED allows both usages.
> No, you're probably right. I think you are attaching too much weight to
> the word "rational." To me, it just means within human reason.
Then you need to do some reading. The word 'rational' has had any amount
of significant theoretical baggage heaped upon it. See especially Max
Ernst Weber.
> >If I say, "shit, I'm angry," what rational act did I engage in before I
> >arrived at that statement?
>
> The recognition of your feeling.
This need not be rational. In Weber's work, it would be specifically
irrational. It could be immediate or immanent.
> The verbalization of a very abstract
> sensation
Again, I question the rationality of this recognition. I think you can
go straight from emotion to reaction without saying to yourself 'Oh,
look, I'm cross. Right, I'll yell.' Again, it is immanent.
> through a series of complex cerebral mechanisms.
Which are not rational. They may perform according to rules (although
it's open to question just how 'rational' those rules are) but we are not
either in control of or usually aware of those rules.
How much of the background theory are you aware of? Postmodernism is not
an isolated idea - it draws on everything (of course) but often on
concepts derived from the last hundred years or so of philosophical
thought. Without a few of those ideas, you will be at a disadvantage -
and you will have frustrating conversations with others who use terms
such as 'rational' in very specific ways.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
You broke it, you fix it.
> Why would being precise miss the point?
It's not that being precise would miss the point, it's that arguing about
the precise wording - particularly if you are not completely au fait
with the theory - is dull and unrewarding. As you can see, not
everyone sees your contradiction, not everyone agrees that the
contradiction is necessarily a bad thing, and in any case, according to
my dictionary, my use of 'definition' is as valid as yours.
The reason I say it would miss the point to argue constructions of that
definition with you is that it is relatively simple to construct a more
precise version of it which would meet your standards - though you
might then object on other grounds. What is interesting to me is
discussion of the suggestions I made - that "Postmodernity is what
happens when doubt permeates every single aspect of identity" and that
Postmodernism is "what results from the attempt to describe and embrace
the disparate threads of this situation and function intellectually in
the aftermath of the admission that there cannot be rational certainty."
Ignore the second clause of the second section if it bugs you logically,
and concentrate on the aspect of identity. The post was an invitation to
theorise. Play. Enjoy the idea. You can be analytical every day of
your life.
> >If your only problem with that statement about Postmodernism was the
> >argument about 'it is absolutely true that there are no absolute truths',
> >I'm happy. That's covered endlessly in the literature - it just won't
> >go away.
>
> I've never seen a satisfactory treatment of the issue.
No. The matter is still very much under discussion. I'm not especially
well-versed, so I'll leave it to others for the moment. If you want to
track down the debate, I'm sure someone can give you references.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
> >assertion which negates itself is one which transcends itself
> >qualitatively, that is, one whose definition changes in the instant that
> >one would nail it down.
>
> If that is true, the pomo point of view does not make any sense. If such
> statements are allowed, then the entire human model of reasoning becomes
> inconsistent, and everything would be true and false at the same time.
> Knowledge would be impossible, and we could as well blow our brains up.
Now you're getting it.
'Allowed' is interesting. What makes you think such a situation is
logically avoidable?
And the consequences are not as dire as you suggest. Only the illusions
are gone. Functionality remains.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
> You may know stuff that allows you to interpret
> these statements in a way that is barred to me, being that I am one of the
> naive variety; I'm one of those old fashioned guys who actually believe
> words have meanings.
Oops. Get behind something sturdy.
[snip]
> I have no problem with that, as long as the set of certainties that are
> being descarded do not include certain metalinguistic constructs, such as
> the idea that one can be certain of anything at all. That would lead to
> contradictions.
What's wrong with that? And again, what makes you so sure this situation
can be avoided?
> [...] if
> >I burn myself on the stove and scream "ouch, that hurt," I don't think I
> >engaged in an act of rational certainty.
>
> I, on the contrary, can hardly think of an instance that more accurately
> represents rational certainty.
Then we're arguing about different things.
> If there's anything I can be certain of
> with no doubts whatsoever in my mind, it's that the damn thing hurts. And
> I see nothing irrational in that certainty. So I cannot understand your
> position.
Because you are using words imprecisely. Your definition of rationality
is sweeping and vague. You need to do some research.
> > There's also the problem that we
> >can misidentify our emotions; whenever we change our mind from "I was
> >angry" to "I was scared," or "I was angry" to "I was aroused," etc., we
> >admit that the moment of articulation is by no means an accurate
> >reflection of what we take our emotions to have been upon reflection.
>
> Ah, but being certain often has little to do with being right.
Right. Dr. Jones prescribes a whole sheaf of books on Epistemology.
> At the
> moment you thought you were angry, you sincerely believed you were.
Certainty = sincere belief?
> You
> may have misidentified, but your certainty was based on error, not on
> irrationality. Being rational just means using your mind, not being right
> every time.
Oh, no, Nurse! The case is incurable! Quickly - get me some
thorazine! No, not for him, for me!
DJ
Dao Jones
says...
> I think the problem with the
> passage is entirely elsewhere -- namely with the contention that the
> intellectual products associated with postmodernism admit of a lack of
> rational certainty. As far as I can see, they merely replace one set of
> certainties (and often a set that nobody was so certain about to begin
> with...) with another one (often of a moral nature, so yeah, I guess we
> could argue about 'rational' some more). There are a very few writers
> who actually attempt to address this: Rorty, Fish.
I'm curious - what certainties are put in place of the old ones? I
think people continue to function *as if certain* but are aware at some
level that they are *acting out* certainty. Hence all those existential
troubles...
Dao Jones
Josh Soffer
I wrote:
[...] A fractal pattern, for instance, never returns to itself in
such a way as to directly describe mathematically, but it has a
self-similarity.
Ivan Ordonez wrote:
"I don't know what you mean. Many fractal objects have very precise,
very simple mathematical definitions."
I was referring to the Mandelbrot fractal . As Penrose pointed out, "the
complete details of the complicaton of the structure of Mandelbrot's set
cannot really be fully comprehended by any one of us, nor can it be
fully revealed by any computer." This is not a problem for Penrose, as
he follows Goedel in concluding that the ultimate truth of logical
propositions cannot be settled by some universal algorithim, but by
absract argument."The concept of mathematical truth cannot be
encapsulated in any formalistic scheme.There is something absolute and
'God-given' about mathematical truth."
I wrote:
I wonder, Ivan, what your backround is in the hisotry of logic?
Ivan wrote:
"What is the relevance of that?"
I wanted to get a sense of your particular philsophy of logic. You have
one, you know, whether you are entirely aware of it or not. Did you
think there were just two options, either postmodernist critique of
formal logic or everyone else who uses logic? Your own undrestanding of
the ultimate grounding of propositional truth statements belongs
somehwere on a historical continuum. I don't know exactly where, but
mabe you can help me out. For instance, do you buy Penrose's Platonism?
Analytic philosophers Austin and Quine are more relativistic about the
basis of truth. As Putnam explains " Wittgenstein and Quine have savaged
[critiqued] the idea that the question "Do A and B have the same
meaning?" is a question which has any context-independent answer. Quine
argued that there are no general rules which determine what does and
what does not count as a situation in which a particular sentence is
assertable. Assertibility, to the extent that it is rational, is
pragmatic and depends on the entire context."
"The "meaning " of a sentence cannot be identified with the rule or
battery of rules which determine its assertibility conditions, for there
are no such rules. Quine prposed, in fact, that talk of the 'meaning' of
a sentence or text only makes sense when relativized to an
interpretation, or , as he put it, to a 'translation manual'. There is
no "fact of the matter" as to which translation manual is the right
one."
"But if all sentences and texts lack determinate meaning, then how can
Quine view his own utterances as anything more than mere noise? Quine's
answer is that his utterances have determinate meanings relative to
themselves."
Ivan, do you prefer this approach to Penrose's? If so, you may see that
you are not far removed from a pomo orientation. It is not a large leap
from Quine to Foucault ,or to Putnam's les polarized brand of
psotfoundationalism. As Putnam points out, the problem with Quine's
solution is that it is solipsistic. It refers only to itself in order
to define itself. Putnam says " a sane relativism can recognize that
there is a fact of the matter in interpretation without making that
fact of the matter unique or context-independent.The notion of an ideal
"correct" interpretation seems problematic. Yet the radical view that
interpretations are simply the inventions of the interpreter is just the
old self-refuting relativism in it's latest guise. That everything we
say is false becasue everything we say falls short of being everything
that could vbe said is an adolescent sort of error."
"Our norms and standards of warranted assertibility are historical
products; they evolve in time. The "God's -Eye View"-the view from which
absolutely all languages are equally part of the totality being
scrutinized-is forever inaccessible.
If there is no convergence to One True Interpretation , then, by the
same token, the fashion of seeing the interpretations of past centuries
as wholly superceded by contemporary 'insights' may be recognized as the
naive progressivism that it is. Perhaps we can come to see criticism as
a conversation with many voices rather than as a contest with winners
and losers. "
All facts are values, and value judgements have no objective
truth-value, they are pure expressions of preference", but for Putnam
this does not mean that we cannot pragmatically choose between
values,even if our choices are themselves contingent .
The upshot of all this is that what seems to you as simply incoherent
nonsense is merely the latest chapter in a 100 year old tradition of
rigorous skeptical inquiry into the basis of formal truth statements,
and by extension , mathematics. Where do you finally nail down meaning
and truth? In God? A Platonic universe? In the relative context of a
word, a sentence, a whole language, a culture?
Ivan wrote
"Paraconsistent logics, a family of formal systems which encompass that
which you are talking about, are fully consistent in the meta-level, and
are ultimately reducible to regular formal logic."
I was talking about Dennett, who generally agrees with Quine about the
indeterminacy of translation, which turns truth propostiions into a
'soft' tool of description. Do you agree with them?
Tom C
>> >
>>
>>
>> Ick. Why just identity?
>
>What else is there?
Indeed? Surely doubt is not only permeating every aspect of identity but the
concept of identity in the unified (semi-Cartesian) way itself?
I'll have to look at the rest later as I am v. busy, but don't worry, I'll
get around to it...!
j...@my-dejanews.com
> joshs...@webtv.net (Josh Soffer) wrote:
> [...] From a pomo standpoint, to grossly overgeneralize, an
> >assertion which negates itself is one which transcends itself
> >qualitatively, that is, one whose definition changes in the instant that
> >one would nail it down.
>
> If that is true, the pomo point of view does not make any sense. If such
> statements are allowed, then the entire human model of reasoning becomes
> inconsistent, and everything would be true and false at the same time.
> Knowledge would be impossible, and we could as well blow our brains up.
This complaint works better as a cry of pain than as an argument.
Suppose truth is such that no "definition" which fails to contradict
itself is plausible. This doesn't ruin knowledge at all.
Jeff Inman
Iván Ordóñez
Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>Iván Ordóñez <iord...@a.fake.address.com> wrote:
>[...]
>
>: Ah, but being certain often has little to do with being right.=20
>
>True. That's why the original definition (or "definition" on your terms)=20
>included "rational," which I've been trying to explain for seven (?)
>posts now.
Being rational is not a guarantee of being right either. See, I think
you'v been quite rational in all seven posts. But you've alse been wrong.
> Nobody would say that you can't be certain that you're a pink
>hippopotamus. You can be quite certain of that. The question is, what
>would it mean to be _rationally_ certain of being a pink hippopotamus.
Depends on whether you have any reason to believe it rationally. You may
have suffered some kind of brain damage that renders your ability to
interpret certain information quite twisted, leaving you with the
erroneous, but rational conclusion that you are a pink hippopotamus. Or
you could be perfectly ok, but insist, against all eveidence which is
available to you, that you are a pink hippopotamus. In that case, you
would just be lying to other people, because you could not possibly
believe that yourself. In the eyes of others you would appear irrational.
If you manage to convince yourself, you would definitely be irrational.
> I
>think your conflation of belief, emotion, and rationality is charming, but
>in some odd way rather postmodern in the worst sense itself.
Except that I am not doing that. I am drawing distinctions between being
certain, being rational and being right. You can be either ot these three
things with or without either of the other two.
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
>In article <iordonez-120...@cvl219084.columbus.rr.com>,
>iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
[...]
>> I have no problem with that, as long as the set of certainties that are
>> being descarded do not include certain metalinguistic constructs, such as
>> the idea that one can be certain of anything at all. That would lead to
>> contradictions.
>
>What's wrong with that? And again, what makes you so sure this situation
>can be avoided?
You are actually asking what is wrong with a contradictory belief system?
[...]
>Certainty = sincere belief?
Yes.
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
>In article <iordonez-110...@cvl219084.columbus.rr.com>,
>iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
>> [...] From a pomo standpoint, to grossly overgeneralize, an
>> >assertion which negates itself is one which transcends itself
>> >qualitatively, that is, one whose definition changes in the instant that
>> >one would nail it down.
>>
>> If that is true, the pomo point of view does not make any sense. If such
>> statements are allowed, then the entire human model of reasoning becomes
>> inconsistent, and everything would be true and false at the same time.
>> Knowledge would be impossible, and we could as well blow our brains up.
>
>Now you're getting it.
>
>'Allowed' is interesting. What makes you think such a situation is
>logically avoidable?
There are no contadictions in reality. You know, not (A and not A) and all that.
>And the consequences are not as dire as you suggest.
Yes, they would be. Now you are the one who needs to do some research.
> Only the illusions
>are gone. Functionality remains.
On the contrary. In a world where contradictions exist, machines would
work and not work at the same time, stuff would exist and not exist at the
same time. Such a world would have no coherence at all, and nothing could
function (or rather, it would both function and not function). But such
world does not exist.
Anyway, I see that there are two positions forming: one, which is Silke's,
is that postmodernism is not really about contradictions. The other,
apparently yours, is that it is, but that there's nothing wrong with
contradictions. Of course I like Silke's position a lot more, except I
don't think she's gotten rid of the contradictions.
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
>In article <iordonez-110...@cvl219084.columbus.rr.com>,
>iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
>>
>> No, I'm afraid I'm not that clever.
>
>You broke it, you fix it.
I didn't break it. It was already broken when I picked it up.
[...] What is interesting to me is
>discussion of the suggestions I made - that "Postmodernity is what
>happens when doubt permeates every single aspect of identity"
[...] concentrate on the aspect of identity. The post was an invitation to
>theorise. Play. Enjoy the idea. You can be analytical every day of
>your life.
Of course I can, thank you. Ok, here's my take on the idea: I don't think
it's terribly original. Radical skepticism has been around for thousands
of years.
Iván Ordóñez
joshs...@webtv.net (Josh Soffer) wrote:
[...]
>I was referring to the Mandelbrot fractal . As Penrose pointed out, "the
>complete details of the complicaton of the structure of Mandelbrot's set
>cannot really be fully comprehended by any one of us, nor can it be
>fully revealed by any computer."
What this means is that there can not be a finite extensional
representation of Mandelbrot's set. But that doesn't mean that this set is
not well defined. The definition is quite simple actually: it is the set
of all points c in the complex plane such that the series x_0 = c, x_i =
x_(i-1)^2+c is bounded for all i.
> This is not a problem for Penrose, as
>he follows Goedel in concluding that the ultimate truth of logical
>propositions cannot be settled by some universal algorithim, but by
>absract argument."The concept of mathematical truth cannot be
>encapsulated in any formalistic scheme.There is something absolute and
>'God-given' about mathematical truth."
This is just mysticism, well within Penrose's style. What he is saying is
a lot simpler than that: Tarsky's theorem establishes that there is no
truth predicate in logic of any order. The implication is simply that
there are undecidable propositions in mathematics. Now, what conclusions
are you trying to reach from this fact?
[...] Did you
>think there were just two options, either postmodernist critique of
>formal logic or everyone else who uses logic?
Actually, there is just one option: to use logic, whether you are aware of
it or not.
> Your own undrestanding of
>the ultimate grounding of propositional truth statements belongs
>somehwere on a historical continuum. I don't know exactly where, but
>mabe you can help me out. For instance, do you buy Penrose's Platonism?
I do only when I'm wearing my logician's hat.
[...]
>The upshot of all this is that what seems to you as simply incoherent
>nonsense is merely the latest chapter in a 100 year old tradition of
>rigorous skeptical inquiry into the basis of formal truth statements,
>and by extension , mathematics.
I disagree. I have the utmost respect for Quine and Putnam, and I see them
as true representatives of such rigorous inquiry. Unfortunately I cannot
say the same of at least some of the writings of certain pomo thinkers. I
think your belief that they can be placed in the same plate as Putnam is,
to say the least, quite heterodox.
> Where do you finally nail down meaning
>and truth? In God? A Platonic universe? In the relative context of a
>word, a sentence, a whole language, a culture?
Why would I want to do that? Truth is, ultimately, an abstraction. What
matters to us is not really truth, but decidability, which is but a subset
of truth. When I'm doing logic I take an implicitly Platonic approach to
the matter. When I'm talking about earthly affairs, I take a pragmatic,
contextual approach.
>Ivan wrote
>
> "Paraconsistent logics, a family of formal systems which encompass that
>which you are talking about, are fully consistent in the meta-level, and
>are ultimately reducible to regular formal logic."
>
>I was talking about Dennett, who generally agrees with Quine about the
>indeterminacy of translation, which turns truth propostiions into a
>'soft' tool of description. Do you agree with them?
I agree with the indeterminacy of translation argument, but indeterminacy
does not mean impossibility. Anyway, the point is that none of these
things imply an abandonment of logic.
Iván Ordóñez
Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
[...] At the moment where you claimed that certainty and
>rational certainy are the same thing you abandoned that distinction
>and defeated your own position.
A little logic, please? A rock and a hard rock are the same (can't think
of a better example; pretend there are no soft rocks), but that doesn't
mean that being a rock and being hard are the same. One can only be
certain rationally, but one does not necessarily reach certainty through
reason.
And my original position was that admitting the impossibility of rational
certainty is a contradiction, because such admission could only be
achieved after certainty, that is, rational certainty.
Iván Ordóñez
Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>: A little logic, please? A rock and a hard rock are the same (can't think
>: of a better example; pretend there are no soft rocks),=20
>
>Let's work on this analogy a bit. How about saying that "red dress" is
>redundant since "dress" would do. Yes, all red dresses are dresses, but
>no, not all dresses are red dresses.
>
> Hope that's logical enough.
No, it isn't, because the concept "dress" does not subsume the concept
"red," whereas "rock" does subsume "hard," and "cerain" subsume
'rational."
>: And my original position was that admitting the impossibility of rational
>: certainty is a contradiction, because such admission could only be
>: achieved after certainty, that is, rational certainty.
>
>Only if the admission is an admission of rational certainty, instead of an
>admission of "this is what it looks like but the last word on it hasn't
>been spoken." In other words, you don't have to be _certain_ to admit that
>something appears to be the case.
It is one thing to admit that something appears to be the case, and
another to admit that something *is* the case. The sentence seems to me of
the latter kind.
> Perhaps you wouldn't have stumbled over
>"absolute certainty" -- but of course some might argue that "absolute
>certainty" is much more of a redundant phrase than "rational certainty."
I think they are equally redundant.
Josh Soffer
"The concept of mathematical truth cannot be encapsulated in any
formalistic scheme.There is something absolute and 'God-given' about
mathematical truth."
Ivan ORdonez wrote:
This is just mysticism, well within Penrose's style. What he is saying
is a lot simpler than that: Tarsky's theorem establishes that there is
no truth predicate in logic of any order. The implication is simply that
there are undecidable propositions in mathematics. Now, what conclusions
are you trying to reach from this fact?"
My point was simply that Penrose and Goedel are among those whose
Paltonism is not confined to doing logic, but reflects a Kantian belief
that not only math, but ethical issues are ultimately decidable by
reference to universal intuited categories. In other words, these
scientists have need of a God concept of some sort. Think of Mike Morris
as an example. He is a scientific platonist who goes along with the idea
of a universal ( non-culturally relative) basis for ethical judgements
I'm not sayin this is Tarsky's postion. I don't know what he believes.
This justs points outs that that the problem of rational decidablility
is dealt with in different ways in philsophy of logic and has direct
links to one's ethical, religious, and political views. If you go along
with Quine then you most likely are 1) not a theist 2) not a believer in
strict behaviorism (a siimulus corresponds determinatively to a meaning
with which it is paired.). This would put you in more of a cognitivist
camp, recognizing that meanings are not assimlated unmediated form
environmental data but are framed within schemes. Facts , theories and
values interpenetrate each other, as Putnam says, such that we can never
locate a neutral 'fact'.
Ivan wrote:
" I have the utmost respect for Quine and Putnam, and I see them as true
representatives of such rigorous inquiry. Unfortunately I cannot say the
same of at least some of the writings of certain pomo thinkers. I think
your belief that they can be placed in the same plate as Putnam is, to
say the least, quite heterodox."
"Truth is, ultimately, an abstraction. What matters to us is not really
truth, but decidability, which is but a subset of truth. When I'm doing
logic I take an implicitly Platonic approach to the matter. When I'm
talking about earthly affairs, I take a pragmatic, contextual approach.
I agree with the indeterminacy of translation argument, but
indeterminacy does not mean impossibility. Anyway, the point is that
none of these things imply an abandonment of logic."
As long as when you are donning your Platonic logical hat, you are aware
of its limits. If you go along with undecidability and Quine's critique
of the 'two dogmas of empiricism' then you can still treat logic as a
useful tool, and the best means we have currently to guide computers to
do the miraculous things they do for us. However, this does not mean
that the conventions of symbolic logic will always be necessary for the
operations of 'computing' systems. The ideas of Putnam and Quine
anticipate such a future beyond formal languages. As for certain pomo
writers (like Rorty, Foucault), Putnam and John McDowell, another
favorite of mine, argue along with you that indeterminacy does not mean
impossiblity. Well, to be more accurate, they would assert that
indeterminacy does not mean radical incommensurability between meanings.
We can negotiate, tranlate, compromise beween interpretations. They
agree with hermeneuticists like Gadamer on this important point. This
view, which I support, is all within the bounds of postfoundational
thinking even as its version of pomo differs from the discourses of
radical otherness.
Josh Soffer
Iván Ordóñez
Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
[...] delusions, arguable
>the prime example of the irrational, tend to appear in the form of utter
>certainty.
You have to classify these things carefully. A person can only be accused
of irrationality when he or she engages in self-deception. If the delusion
is due to such self-deception, it is irrational indeed. On the other hand,
if it occurs due to failures outside the scope of our own will (such as
brain damage, color blindness, etc.) then there is no irrationality.
> Religious faith is another frequent example of a non-rational
>certainty.
Depends on what causes it. Many people who are quite rational are educated
by religious parents; they are told several myths during childhood, and
they have little reason to doubt them. As they grow old and become more
informed, many of them will abandon their religious beliefs. They were
always rational, even when they were religious.
On the other hand, people who maintain such beliefs even knowing that they
are rationally untenable are engaging in self-deception; they are
irrational.
> Hence, you're assuming your conclusion. If "certain" subsumed
>'rational,' then the only possible non-rational states would be those of
>uncertainty and doubt. Are you prepared to argue that?
Whoever engages in self deception is not certain of anything. How can they
be really certain of something a part of them knows to be undefensible?
(If they had no such part, how could there be any self-deception?)
Certainty involves total coherence, absolute consistency, as far as
thought can reach. The mind of the irrational self-deceiver is anything
but certain: it is rather clouded by continuous doubt. The irrational
person is close-minded: he or she will not accept any new evidence capable
of altering their world view. But that won't prevent the new knowledge
from being there somehow, making true certainty impossible.
So yes.
>: It is one thing to admit that something appears to be the case, and
>: another to admit that something *is* the case. The sentence seems to me of
>: the latter kind.
>
>That misses the question of whether the admission fulfils the criterium of
>_rational_ certainty where rational stands in a specific philosophical
>tradition.
I don't care much for tradition. And you still haven't shown a case where
someone can admit (acquire a positive belief) something (that is, fully,
with no internal doubt or self-deception, which I believe is the default
meaning of "admit") they cannot be certain of. This may all be a problem
of terminology (or language!) but I seems very counterintuitive to me that
the word "admit" could mean anything else.
Josh Soffer
" A person can only be accused of irrationality when he or she engages
in self-deception. If the delusion is due to such self-deception, it is
irrational indeed. On the other hand, if it occurs due to failures
outside the scope of our own will (such as brain damage, color
blindness, etc.) then there is no irrationality. "
Newer approaches within psychotherapy (constructivism) don't use a
rational-irrational dichotomy. Instead, the axes of thought would lie
along lines of relative self-consistency and internal coherence. Do my
sequential assumptions force me to ride off in two opposite directions
or is ther a relative continuity from one moment to the next? Emotional
crises express the experienced chaos and confusion of incoherence in
my thinking. Affect is not the opposite of rationality but simply the
qualitative aspect of meaning. (No assumption is affectively neutral
because no assumption is value-neutral. To stake a position is to reveal
a bias, a quality, an attitude, a mood. ) Note that the definition of
coherence is not measured relative to the 'correctness' of the match of
my beliefs wth a presumed fixed outside datum, because empirical
evidence is already framed by my beliefs. To change my beliefs is to
change the criterion for what qualifies as evidence.
What does this have to do with a statement like "If all cats are
mammals , then this cat in front of me is a mammal'? Well, the
indeterminacy of translation which I mentioned as being Quine's position
and which you said you agreed with holds that there would be no
absolute, certain way of determining definitively, publically, a
particular meaning of 'cat' , 'mammal' or the conjunction 'if-then' ,
because this involves recourse to a single 'manual' of interpersonal
translation , which doesn't exist. But what about the meaning of the
statement just FOR ME? Would one not have to conclude that regardless of
what relative solipsistic definition I fix for 'cat' and 'mammal', that
the original premise remains constant for me, such that I can draw
deductions from it?
In fact, this feature of logic seems to be protected from cultural
relativisms like that of Foucault and Kuhn , since within a culture or
paradigm lies a certain consistent configuration of meaning . Foucault's
archeology of history and Kuhn's history of science offer no way of
defining rationality in a way that escapes the norms of particular
cultural or scientific paradigms, but within the confines of those
groups , assumptions are shared, and an overall coherence is
maintained. But note that the normative coherence within groups does not
allow of certain, absolute coherence in the sense of perfect agreement
among the members of the culture concernng assertions of truth. This
leaves us with only the example of the individual's own internal
consistency in assertions of logic. But what is left of the power of
terms like 'certain' or 'absolute' if their only province is now to be
manifested in the individual's ability to deduce , for themselves alone,
conclusions from premises, if the meaning of these conclusions and
premises is undecidable, absolutely for certain,in any public way?
Isn't the significance of logic reduced to a minimal certainty of
stability of reference? I say this first term means such and such , then
I define its relation to a second term in such and such a way, and then
I draw conclusions from this relationship concerning the placement of a
third term. I can't say anything defnintively about the 'meaning' of
any of these terms, for that would involve a public tribunal, and we saw
where that gets us (undecidability). Even my own understanding of the
signifactions of these terms is not guaranteed to remain stable
indefinitely . So what's left is just the stability of an empty chain of
associations. It tells us that humans are rational only to the extent
that we create idiocyncratic chains of syntactic relations and refer
back to them, and that , within our own cultural groups , we can attain
a certain level of intersubjective agreement concerning the meaning of
these chains of relations. Is this not the conclusion we must reach from
reading the thoughts of brilliant scholars of logic like Putnam and
Quine?
I could complicate the discussion further by adding that authors like
Derrida prevent the individual from returning to a pristinely preserved
archive of memory in the process of comparing a previously drawn premise
with subsequent terms. Memory is a reconstruction, not a duplication,
and so even within the context of my own chain of associations , an
absolute stability of referential comparision does not hold. To refer
back is to transform the meaning of that which is recalled. I'll leave
this for another time , though .
Ivan wrote:
" Certainty involves total coherence, absolute consistency, as far as
thought can reach. The mind of the irrational self-deceiver is anything
but certain: it is rather clouded by continuous doubt. The irrational
person is close-minded: he or she will not accept any new evidence
capable of altering their world view. But that won't prevent the new
knowledge from being there somehow, making true certainty impossible. "
-------------------------------------------------------
Josh Soffer: http://www.inergy.com/joshsoffer/welcome.html
Jim Humphreys
Silke-Maria Weineck wrote:
>This talk isn't about people; it's about beliefs that can be verified
>rationally. Religious faith cannot be verified rationally. That's kind of
>the whole point of faith.
>
When you say that a belief cannot be 'verified rationally', the term
'rationally' is redundant - one is able to verify something or one
is not. In the case of a religious or other belief, whilst one may
not be able to verify it, this does not establish that it is 'irrational'
[ see below]. To those, who make the claim that 'only those claims
which are verifiable are rational', we may simply reply by asking
them to state how that very claim is itself to be verified.
>>[io] On the other hand, people who maintain such beliefs even knowing that
they
>>are rationally untenable are engaging in self-deception; they are
>>irrational.
>What nonsense. They are rational people holding irrational beliefs. Of
>which there are many, and many of those crucial to survival.
The claim here that religious beliefs are 'irrational' seems to me
to be implausible and untenable. In logic there is no definition of
'irrational', as there is , for example, of unsoundness or invalidity.
Hence,
if you wish to maintain this charge you must provide a definition and
substantiate it. My own view is that very few of the beliefs of mainstream
religion would qualify as 'irrational' using any sensible definition of
that
term. Ivan Ordonez's suggestion that those who hold an irrational belief
are themselves irrational seems absurd. It also seems unlikely that most
individuals would hold religious beliefs which they 'know' are 'rationally
untenable'.
Jim Humphreys
Jim Humphreys
Silke-Maria Weineck wrote:
>>>This talk isn't about people; it's about beliefs that can be verified
>>>rationally. Religious faith cannot be verified rationally. That's kind of
>>>the whole point of faith.
>
>>When you say that a belief cannot be 'verified rationally', the term
>> 'rationally' is redundant - one is able to verify something or one
>>is not.
>But then again, I didn't say all all belief couldn't be verified
>rationally. I said there are beliefs, like religious faith, that cannot be
>verified rationally. On the other hand, my belief that a certain article
>appeared in a certain journal and a certain issue, can be verified
>rationally.
But it is arguable that religious belief can, in principle at least, be
verified
rationally in the same way that some other beliefs may be. Natural theology
addresses such issues. For example an adherent to a contemporary modal
version of the ontological argument can maintain that he has rational
support
for his beliefs. Likewise it is logically possible that some scientific
finding
or other might demonstrate conclusively that the intuited religious beliefs
are well-founded.
>>In the case of a religious or other belief, whilst one may
>> not be able to verify it, this does not establish that it is 'irrational'
>> [ see below]. To those, who make the claim that 'only those claims
>>which are verifiable are rational', we may simply reply by asking
>>them to state how that very claim is itself to be verified.
>By definition of rational, of course. For Ivan, it seems synonymous with
>"mental," but I don't think that's very relevant to the discussion we're
>trying to have.
Which definition of ' rational', then, allows you to verify the claim
"Only those claims which are verifiable are rational"?
>>>>[io] On the other hand, people who maintain such beliefs even knowing
that
>>>> they are rationally untenable are engaging in self-deception; they are
>>>>irrational.
>>>What nonsense. They are rational people holding irrational beliefs. Of
>>>which there are many, and many of those crucial to survival.
>>The claim here that religious beliefs are 'irrational' seems to me
>>to be implausible and untenable. In logic there is no definition of
>>'irrational', as there is , for example, of unsoundness or invalidity.
>But we're not in logic class, so your point is?
My point is that you are merely asserting that religious belief is
irrational.
Furthermore you neglect to make the distinction between having a belief
and not (personally) being able to provide rational support for it, and a
belief which may be 'intrinsically' irrational.
>>Hence,
>>if you wish to maintain this charge you must provide a definition and
>>substantiate it. My own view is that very few of the beliefs of mainstream
>>religion would qualify as 'irrational' using any sensible definition of
>>that term.
>How about rational = verifiable, we can then talk about processes of
>verification.
This would seem to be an unsatisfactory definition. I have
already drawn your attention to one objection to this, which is that this
criterion fails to meet its own criterion - it cannot itself be verified.
Secondly, scientific beliefs are not verifiable ( they are falsifiable),
on your account we should insist that they are not rational.
Jim Humphreys.
Puss in Boots
> I could complicate the discussion further by adding that authors like
> Derrida prevent the individual from returning to a pristinely preserved
> archive of memory in the process of comparing a previously drawn premise
> with subsequent terms.
I'll vouch for that. Why, only the other day I was
returning to my pristinely preserved archive of memory -- you'll
know I was in the process of comparing a previously drawn
premise with subsequent terms -- when who popped up but Derrida!
"What are you doing here?" I asked. "I'm here to prevent you
from going in," he replied. That pissed me off. "Just you try
and stop me!" "I will," he said. "Me or authors like me."
-- Moggin
Iván Ordóñez
joshs...@webtv.net (Josh Soffer) wrote:
[...]
>My point was simply that Penrose and Goedel are among those whose
>Paltonism is not confined to doing logic, but reflects a Kantian belief
>that not only math, but ethical issues are ultimately decidable by
>reference to universal intuited categories. In other words, these
>scientists have need of a God concept of some sort.
Well, I think they are wrong.
[...] This would put you in more of a cognitivist
>camp, recognizing that meanings are not assimlated unmediated form
>environmental data but are framed within schemes. Facts , theories and
>values interpenetrate each other, as Putnam says, such that we can never
>locate a neutral 'fact'.
Yes, that is close to my views.
[...] If you go along with undecidability and Quine's critique
>of the 'two dogmas of empiricism' then you can still treat logic as a
>useful tool, and the best means we have currently to guide computers to
>do the miraculous things they do for us. However, this does not mean
>that the conventions of symbolic logic will always be necessary for the
>operations of 'computing' systems.
I'm not sure what you mean here. You can program computers to do fuzzy
logic, non-monotonic reasoning, qualitative reasoning, or to write poetry,
but on the bottom level you will always find code that is strictly
logical, and is prefectly well described by a first-order system. The same
is true of our brains, by the way: nomatter how convoluted our ideas, how
illogical our thoughts, they are ultimately the result of the activity of
our neurons, which are perfectly logical little machines.
Iván Ordóñez
Weineck <sm...@umich.edu> wrote:
>Iván Ordóñez <iord...@a.fake.address.com> wrote:
[...]
>: You have to classify these things carefully. A person can only be accused
>: of irrationality when he or she engages in self-deception.=20
>
>According to whom?
Why, according to me, of course. Were you expecting an appeal to
authority? I am proposing a definition of rationality and irrationality on
the basis of logical consistency and clarity of concepts. I want to
distinguish errors commited from ignorance from errors commited from
self-deception; I think it is unfair to attach irrationality to the
ignorant.
[...]
>What nonsense. They are rational people holding irrational beliefs.
One only calls them rational because most of the time they behave or talk
rationally. If most of their beliefs were irrational, we would call them
irrational.
[...]
>You mean, you only refer yourself to traditional authority if it suits
>your case.
No, I only refer to it if I believe it to make sense. And I only assign it
value on those grounds, not on their standing as traditions.
> As in your definition of definition.
Exactly.
>This is going nowhere, I'll say goodbye.
So long!
Iván Ordóñez
joshs...@webtv.net (Josh Soffer) wrote:
[...] the
>indeterminacy of translation which I mentioned as being Quine's position
>and which you said you agreed with holds that there would be no
>absolute, certain way of determining definitively, publically, a
>particular meaning of 'cat' , 'mammal' or the conjunction 'if-then' ,
>because this involves recourse to a single 'manual' of interpersonal
>translation , which doesn't exist.
Indeed, but who cares about absolute, certain, definitive meaning? I'm
pretty sure that "cat", "mammal" and "if-then" mean the same for you as
for me. I'm over 99% sure. Hell, I'm over 99.99999% sure. With those odds,
who needs certainty? Now, where does my confidence come from? Purely from
statistic correlation. But all meaning is extracted that way.
[...] But what is left of the power of
>terms like 'certain' or 'absolute' if their only province is now to be
>manifested in the individual's ability to deduce , for themselves alone,
>conclusions from premises, if the meaning of these conclusions and
>premises is undecidable, absolutely for certain,in any public way?
What is left is the fact that we can still use those terms in a practical
sense. I can say, informally, that I am certain, or absolutely sure, that
"cat" means the same for you and for me, even though that is not strictly
true. In this case, "certain" and "absolute" just means pretty close to a
probability of 1.
[...] So what's left is just the stability of an empty chain of
>associations.
It is not empty. It's meaning may not be 100% certain, or stable on time.
But, with a small degree of uncertainty, there *is* communicable meaning.
> It tells us that humans are rational only to the extent
>that we create idiocyncratic chains of syntactic relations and refer
>back to them, and that , within our own cultural groups , we can attain
>a certain level of intersubjective agreement concerning the meaning of
>these chains of relations.
That is not true at all. With uncertainties and all, "cat" means the same
as "gato," the corresponding word in my native language. Yes, not 100% the
same, but pretty close. And that concept corresponds, albeit imperfectly,
to entities that exist in the real world.
[...] Memory is a reconstruction, not a duplication,
>and so even within the context of my own chain of associations , an
>absolute stability of referential comparision does not hold.
And as before, such absolute stability is not needed. We only need
reasonable reliability.
Jim Humphreys
Silke-Maria Weineck wrote:
>> Which definition of ' rational', then, allows you to verify the
>>claim "Only those claims which are verifiable are rational"?
>The definition of verifiable under which we'd be operating.
If one wishes to maintain that "Only those claims which are verifiable are
rational",
then one has to be able to verify this claim itself ( otherwise the claim
will
itself not be rational). You have not stated how this is to be done
( I do not believe that it can). In my view the 'rational=verifiable'
definition
should be rejected [it sounds, incidentally, very similar to the
,discredited, logical
positivist criterion for meaningfulness], but the price to pay for this may
be that
religious belief would not count as being irrational.
>>>But we're not in logic class, so your point is?
>>My point is that you are merely asserting that religious belief is
>> irrational.
>Not merely. I'm asserting it on the basis of quite a bit of thought and
>study. But, as I said above, I'll change my mind if I see convincing new
>information here.
One reason ( the difficulty of constructing an adequate definition), I have
given above.
Another is that religious belief may be based on rational argument rather
than , say,
intuition.
>>Furthermore you neglect to make the distinction between having a belief
>>and not (personally) being able to provide rational support for it, and a
>>belief which may be 'intrinsically' irrational.
>I may have neglected to make it; thank you for making it for me.
[..]
>>>How about rational = verifiable, we can then talk about processes of
>>>verification.
>>This would seem to be an unsatisfactory definition. I have
>>already drawn your attention to one objection to this, which is that this
>>criterion fails to meet its own criterion - it cannot itself be verified.
>It can be verified locally, historically, provisionally -- which is the
>point of argued uncertainty.
You are equivocating here concerning 'verification'. Local, provisional
etc.
verification is *not* verification in the sense of establishing decisively
some state of affairs - this is required for your argument.
>>Secondly, scientific beliefs are not verifiable ( they are falsifiable),
>>on your account we should insist that they are not rational.
>We're talking in different dictionaries. I respect yours, but it's not the
>one that frames my argument here.
I don't see the issue in terms of 'different dictionaries'. I have shown
clearly,
I believe, that the definition of 'rational=verifiable' is untenable,
unless one
is prepared to allow that that claim itself is not rational or else
equivocates
over 'verification'.
Jim Humphreys
Jim Humphreys
Ivan Ordonez writes:
>Depends on what causes it. Many people who are quite rational are
>educated
>by religious parents; they are told several myths during childhood, and
>they have little reason to doubt them. As they grow old and become more
>informed, many of them will abandon their religious beliefs. They were
>always rational, even when they were religious.
>On the other hand, people who maintain such beliefs even knowing that they
>are rationally untenable are engaging in self-deception; they are
>irrational.
Your definition of 'irrational' differs from that of SMW, but it is, in my
view,
equally wrong. Firstly, I believe that you are incorrectly categorising the
beliefs
of many of the religious. Surely, in committing to a particular set of
(religious)
articles, the believer does not necessarily have to believe that they are
*definitely*
true. More likely, background knowledge, personal experience etc has been
taken
into consideration to form a particular belief , the nature/intensity of
which may vary
over time according to life events, new evidence etc. - in other words a
degree of
uncertainty may be admitted by the believer. Indeed this is why there is
such a
vast literature dealing with doubts etc.. So it seems that to characterize
religious
belief as invariably involving self-deception ( and hence its being
irrational)
is incorrect.
[...]
>Whoever engages in self deception is not certain of anything. How can they
>be really certain of something a part of them knows to be undefensible?
>(If they had no such part, how could there be any self-deception?)
>Certainty involves total coherence, absolute consistency, as far as
>thought can reach. The mind of the irrational self-deceiver is anything
>but certain: it is rather clouded by continuous doubt. The irrational
>person is close-minded: he or she will not accept any new evidence capable
>of altering their world view. But that won't prevent the new knowledge
>from being there somehow, making true certainty impossible.
Another objection to your argument is that we may doubt whether there is
such a psycholgical state as 'self-deception', or at least whether there is
any way to empirically establish that there is such a state. For example if
someone says that he believes, in the face of strong contrary scientific
evidence, in a proposition x, then you will claim that he is engaged in
'self-deception' and hence is an ' irrational person'. However if he
baldly states that he does not accept the contrary evidence there
would seem to be no unfailing way to demonstrate that he is
self-deceived [cf Wittgenstein's private language argument].
Jim Humphreys
Jim Humphreys
Josh Soffer writes:
>Many who object to postmodern ideas do so by arguing that such thinking
>deprives us of the ability to claim patterns, unities , regularies in
>the world. What kind of a world is it which is composed only of chaotic
>randomness and alienness, of radical anrachy, of irrationality and
>impossibility of truth, they wonder?
Which critics can you cite who base their opposition to postmodernism on
the position you outline here?
>I would have no interest in
>postmodern ideas if this is what they had to offer me. If it was radical
>lack of order I was after I could just as well choose heraclitan flux or
>animistic conceptions in which every rock and twig held its own
>irreducible, arbitrary spirit. I embrace pomo directions because I see
>in them an overall order more precise and intricate than the
>explanations of world and mind which preceded them. The key term in pomo
>thinkng is 'relative'
Alas, the precision which you claim to be able to find in pomo
analyses is not evident in your comments. Perhaps
I should ask you to explain what precisely you find is
more 'precise' in pomo ideas than the ones which
preceded them? You claim that the 'key term' in pomo
thinking is 'relative', but of course relativism predates
postmodernist thought.
>To say that aesthetic or scientific ideas are relative to
>culture, or that one's scientific observations of the 'objective' world
>is biased by one's pre-existing ideological paradigm, is only to reveal
>an extraordinarily intimate continuity which links who I am this minute
>of time with who I was the previous minute and who I will be the next,
>and links my thinking as a whole with that of my neighbors and the
>larger society surrounding me. To believe in the absolute freedom of the
>scientist to generate theories independently of the tradition within
>which he /she operates is to believe in a freedom of a certain
>psychological arbitariness and unpreditability, which is antithetical to
>the goals of unity and integration in science.
Ideas, cultures etc may well influence the direction which science takes,
but this is not itself an argument for scientific relativism.
>If one wants to reject the implications of the great variety of pomo
>views in favor of more traditional views of science, rationalty and
>truth, it would be far more accurate to say that one does so for
>consevative reasons, that is, in the belief that the world is LESS
>ordered than the pomos claim, that human nature is LESS effectively
>understandable than it is asserted as being by authors like Heidegger,
>Foucault, Lacan.
I think this is nonsense. One might wish to argue against postmodernism
simply because one believes that it is flawed philosophically -
a conservative disposition might or might not be involved.
>It would seem to be paradoxical that the same
>individuals who accuse pstmodernism of nihilism and arbitariness also
>blame it for being TOO tolerant and accepting, too ethically permissive.
No, there is no paradox here at all. One can quite consistently
maintain that postmodernism is nihilistic and at the same
time hold that it is ethically permisssive etc.
[...]
>The fact is, the sort of philsophical stance which is the most arbitrary
>is that which rests on foundations concealing the greatest irreducible
>mysteries.
What's an 'arbitrary' philosophical stance?
>For example, fundamentalist theologies may appear to subsume
>the universe within the most simple and elegant theoretical system, but
>the overall PREDICTIVE order of such a system is limited by the claimed
>irredubility and impenetrability of its originating terms.
I don't think that there is warrant for saying that fundamentalism
is any 'simpler' or more 'elegant' than any other philosophical
system. These are subjective evaluations by you. Its not clear
either whether fundamentalism is bests described as a philosophical system.
> In such
>systems , human nature is modelled after a description of attributes of
>God. But how well does this blueprint of God help to make sense of why
>others do things which we disagree with, which shock us, which we don't
>understand?
>The limits of its explanatory power, that is, of its ability to
>relate the actions of myself and others, or certain aspects of myself
>with other aspects of myself , is directly expressed in the intolerances
>and severlty of the social and judicial systems derived form those
>theological premises.
Firstly, the explanatory power of a system might manifest itself in
other ways than those that you describe above. Second, it is
nonsensical to say that a lack of explanatory power ( which
would associated with a body of thought) is manifest in the social or
judicial system.
>OF course the same is true even of so-called
>secular systems of belief. Physicists and social scientists whose
>thinking does not embody a postmodern framework may appear to offer a
>more precise language of measurement and methodology than their
>intellectual opponents, but the overall level of predictive order that
>their orientation permits is limited in relation to pomo archtiectures
>of understanding.
I must say that this makes little sense. In what sense is the work
of the scientist who ignores postmodernism 'predictively limited'?
Can you provide an example of a scientific finding which exemplifies this?
Jim Humphreys
Iván Ordóñez
<jimh...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
>[...] Surely, in committing to a particular set of
>(religious)
>articles, the believer does not necessarily have to believe that they are
>*definitely*
>true.
This strikes me as contradictory. For any predicate P, I see the
statements "I believe P" and "I believe P is true" to be equivalent. How
can a person be commited to a belief without being certain of its truth?
In other words, if you are not certain that P is true, how can if be said
in any meaningful sense that you believe P? You may think that P is
likely, that with a little more evidence, good arguments or whatever you
may be convinced of P, but that is not the same as believing P.
> More likely, background knowledge, personal experience etc has been
>taken
> into consideration to form a particular belief , the nature/intensity of
>which may vary
>over time according to life events, new evidence etc. - in other words a
>degree of
>uncertainty may be admitted by the believer.
Again, I am not confortable calling such things "beliefs." Rather, I'd
call them ideas one considers to be likely, but which one is unsure of.
For example, I believe I exist, and I believe you exist. On the other
hand, I think it is likely that there is life planets other than earth,
but I am not sure; hence I cannot say I believe there is life in other
planets.
> Indeed this is why there is
>such a
>vast literature dealing with doubts etc.. So it seems that to characterize
>religious
>belief as invariably involving self-deception ( and hence its being
>irrational)
> is incorrect.
How can there be doubts unless there are contradictory ideas in one's mind?
[...]
>Another objection to your argument is that we may doubt whether there is
> such a psycholgical state as 'self-deception', or at least whether there is
>any way to empirically establish that there is such a state.
You could test this state as follows: if a person believes P, but this
person also is aware of a fact Q that contradicts P, then this person is
in a state of self-deception. Of course, this test could only be carried
out for other people if we had a way to know that they really are aware of
Q, which as you point out below, is not always possible. However, with
some introspection and a lot of honesty we can, at least sometimes, find
self-deception in ourselves.
Self-deception is not necessary an act of will; it can be unconscious, a
result of our emotional nature. Or it can be quite deliberate.
> For example if
>someone says that he believes, in the face of strong contrary scientific
>evidence, in a proposition x, then you will claim that he is engaged in
>'self-deception' and hence is an ' irrational person'.
Actaully, I'd rather say that in this particular instance the person is
being irrational, or that this person has an irrational belief. This
person might otherwise be uite rational.
> However if he
>baldly states that he does not accept the contrary evidence there
>would seem to be no unfailing way to demonstrate that he is
>self-deceived [cf Wittgenstein's private language argument].
Indeed, in such a case we could not really know that this person is really
aware of the conflicting evidence. Only this person can determine that, if
he really wants to.
j...@my-dejanews.com
> Ivan wrote:
> " A person can only be accused of irrationality when he or she engages
> in self-deception. If the delusion is due to such self-deception, it is
> irrational indeed. On the other hand, if it occurs due to failures
> outside the scope of our own will (such as brain damage, color
> blindness, etc.) then there is no irrationality. "
>
> Newer approaches within psychotherapy (constructivism) don't use a
> rational-irrational dichotomy. Instead, the axes of thought would lie
> along lines of relative self-consistency and internal coherence. Do my
> sequential assumptions force me to ride off in two opposite directions
> or is ther a relative continuity from one moment to the next? Emotional
> crises express the experienced chaos and confusion of incoherence in
> my thinking.
I don't think you even have to go that far afield. It seems to me that
the two sides in this eternal debate represent two aspects of personality
that Jungians refer to as Sensate and Intuitive. This has apparently
been developed into a test instrument known as the Meyers-Briggs Type
Indicator (MBTI). I've been thinking it would be a neat trick to
compare the MBTI scores on the S/N axis (Sensate/iNtuitive -- "I" is
already taken for "Introversion") with the "party affiliations" in the
science/pomo wars.
br...@wralaw.com
iord...@a.fake.address.com (Iván Ordóñez) wrote:
> In article <7a6llj$qvb$1...@taliesin.netcom.net.uk>, "Jim Humphreys"
> <jimh...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
> - in other words a
> >degree of
> >uncertainty may be admitted by the believer.
>
> Again, I am not confortable calling such things "beliefs." Rather, I'd
> call them ideas one considers to be likely, but which one is unsure of.
> For example, I believe I exist, and I believe you exist.
lie is at the center of believe...
>On the other
> hand, I think it is likely that there is life planets other than earth,
> but I am not sure; hence I cannot say I believe there is life in other
> planets.
> Self-deception is not necessary an act of will; it can be unconscious, a
> result of our emotional nature. Or it can be quite deliberate.
> > For example if
> >someone says that he believes, in the face of strong contrary scientific
> >evidence, in a proposition x, then you will claim that he is engaged in
> >'self-deception' and hence is an ' irrational person'.
Ir- negates rational... what is rational?
> Actaully, I'd rather say that in this particular instance the person is
> being irrational, or that this person has an irrational belief. This
> person might otherwise be uite rational.
If person is being irrational then they are irrational as a state of
being.
> > However if he
> >baldly states that he does not accept the contrary evidence there
> >would seem to be no unfailing way to demonstrate that he is
> >self-deceived [cf Wittgenstein's private language argument].
JH- your conception of technique is self-deception... 'seem to be
+no+ unfailing'... +seem+ is itself ambiguity, +no unfailing+ is a
double negative, ergo you are stating that there seems(ambigous) to
be a failing way to demonstrate that QQN, is autodecieved.
> Indeed, in such a case we could not really know that this person is really
> aware of the conflicting evidence.
If they state the conflicting evidence we can really know that 'some'
person is aware of contradictory evidence.
> Only this person can determine that, if
> he really wants to.
Desire for self-consistancy depends on if that person is in fact the
truth.
> Iván Ordóñez
Bryn Ayers
br...@wralaw.com
"Jim Humphreys" <jimh...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
> Josh Soffer writes:
> >Many who object to postmodern ideas do so by arguing that such thinking
> >deprives us of the ability to claim patterns, unities , regularies in
> >the world. What kind of a world is it which is composed only of chaotic
> >randomness and alienness, of radical anrachy, of irrationality and
> >impossibility of truth, they wonder?
>
> Which critics can you cite who base their opposition to postmodernism on
> the position you outline here?
observer... and PoMO is overstatement of the profoundness or
revolutionary impact of the Idea...
Deli's..... Thinks POMO is Bullshit artspeak...
Mine... 1. Skepticism, and discontinous realization predates Christ
and does not come after Modern.
2. Imprecise assertions of Ambiguity is nearly meaningless. Par
Example, Quantum Physics states with precision -The numeric
imprecesion of "all high quality laboritory experiments for
Measuring a Particles(or Quantas) Momentum"... -this is known as
Planks Constant -This was described around the 1920's -An example
of a meaningfull assertion of Uncertainty.
I do not hold this criticism for POMO but writers and critics of
Visual art who have chosen to call themselves POMO. POMO is itself
is beyond criticism since it has no definition that is not itself
imprecise and therefore not a defintion but a 'dissertation of
confusion.'
> >I would have no interest in
> >postmodern ideas if this is what they had to offer me. If it was radical
> >lack of order I was after I could just as well choose heraclitan flux or
> >animistic conceptions in which every rock and twig held its own
> >irreducible, arbitrary spirit. I embrace pomo directions because I see
> >in them an overall order more precise and intricate than the
> >explanations of world and mind which preceded them. The key term in pomo
> >thinkng is 'relative'
> Alas, the precision which you claim to be able to find in pomo
> analyses is not evident in your comments. Perhaps
> I should ask you to explain what precisely you find is
> more 'precise' in pomo ideas than the ones which
> preceded them? You claim that the 'key term' in pomo
> thinking is 'relative', but of course relativism predates
> postmodernist thought.
> >To say that aesthetic or scientific ideas are relative to
> >culture, or that one's scientific observations of the 'objective' world
> >is biased by one's pre-existing ideological paradigm, is only to reveal
> >an extraordinarily intimate continuity which links who I am this minute
> >of time with who I was the previous minute and who I will be the next,
> >and links my thinking as a whole with that of my neighbors and the
> >larger society surrounding me.
However you can not prove the Paradigm that there is some force
tricking 'you' into thinking that these things are real while they
are not.
> >To believe in the absolute freedom of the scientist to generate
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Absolute would imply that the scientist has some 'either' infinite
or omnispaning traite. Or to simplify you are stating that scientists
believed prior to POMO that they had some traite of God.
If Atheism falls on ambiguities, how can POMO state that
scientists do not have a omnispaning freedom, or infinite
freedom in the laboritory ... without reference to Ideas that
can not be proven without the assertion of logic, induction,
rationalism, and REalism. -All big no no's! all-absolutist.
Also how do you prove that Scientists believed they had
absolute(infinite or omnispanning) freedom without reference
to induction, realism, etc. all of which imply they didn't!
And by multiplying ambiguity, discontinuities, and fragmantations
we can no longer be certain that scientists are not absolutely
free, or that they ever thought they were.
> >theories independently of the tradition within
> >which he /she operates is to believe in a freedom of a certain
> >psychological arbitariness and unpreditability, which is antithetical to
> >the goals of unity and integration in science.
> Ideas, cultures etc may well influence the direction which science takes,
> but this is not itself an argument for scientific relativism.
> >If one wants to reject the implications of the great variety of pomo
> >views in favor of more traditional views of science, rationalty and
> >truth, it would be far more accurate to say that one does so for
> >consevative reasons, that is, in the belief that the world is LESS
> >ordered than the pomos claim,
YEs! this could true for some. However I would state that the
POMO arguments I have read does 'absolutely' nothing to 'prove'
even weakly that we can move beyond nihilism to POMO or that one
should step back from realism. Also those who defy PoMo might
simply be morally offended by the word-fetish.
Many, Many, Many Scientist reject philosophical +isms+ entirely.
If Hawkings or Einstein wrote with the Word-Fetish of PoSModsm,
other scientists would have rejected their text as one of their
own and not something new as a valuable theory. How does Pomo
reject(or assert is superiority) over scientific positivism(belief
that reality exists relative only to its measurement(human senses
count)) and scientific nominalism(that theories are only good
approximations of reality but not actual reality) and realism(the
belief that there is an independant measurable and consistant
theory that equals reality)? It seems that these viewpoints are
not that bad. And I would like to point out that both Einstein
and Hawkings have written on this subject matter- +both+ state
that they 'do not really know' but...
How is PoMo not a 'theory that approximates reality' (nominal) but
one that is the actual condition of the Universe(realism) as a time
constraint? Doesn't POMO assert realism while denying it and assert
that there are not absolutes while asserting that there is the
absolute that there are none?
Josh Soffer
Rickert, published in
Psycoloquy: 9(51) Social Bias (3)
Volume: 9 (next, prev) Issue: 51 . GIven our conversatins, I would
asumeyou would have no major objection to it, and that your definition
of 'rational' is modest enough to jibe with Rickert's notion of
creativity as a coherent scheme.
INTELLIGENCE IS NOT RATIONAL :
i. Our theories of rationality are normative.
ii. Creative behavior is behavior which is not norm governed.
iii. Creative behavior is at the core of what we value as
intelligent.
It follows from this that intelligent behavior is not rational behavior.
It need not be irrational. It could be arational behavior, not in
accordance with the norms, but not seriously violating them either.
In what follows, it will not be important whether "rationality" is
being used to refer to perfect rationality, or to minimal rationality.
What we shall mainly use is the fact that rationality is judged in terms
of conformity to some set of rules or specifications.
II. CREATIVITY IS NOT RATIONAL
We use the term "creative" to describe a behavior or idea that is
unexpected or surprising. However, we would not normally be surprised at
a decision or an idea that was arrived at by following a set of rules or
specifications. In the circumstances, creative behavior or creative
decision making is likely to be outside the range of what would normally
be judged as rational behavior. That need not make it irrational.
To say that a behavior is irrational is to say that it violates the
norms of rational behavior. To say that it is not rational is merely to
say that it does not follow the norms. There might be circumstances, for
example, in which the norms give insufficient guidance. If I have to
choose between a red wine and a white wine, and if I have no beliefs
which would distinguish them, then choosing the red wine is neither
contrary to the norms of rationality nor does it follow those norms. We
might say that it is arational, to indicate that it is outside what is
specified by the norms of rationality.
13. What we would expect, then, is that in most cases creative behavior
would not be rational, although it might possibly be arational rather
than irrational. It might seem to be only a trivial concern if a
particular creative act were technically arational, but not irrational.
However, the examples of creativity given in the next section will be
ones that do violate the usual norms of rationality.
14. There can be cases we would consider creative yet in accordance with
the norms. This could happen where a problem is computationally
intractable, so there is no practical way of following the norms. Yet a
solution might be found by some other method (perhaps even by guessing)
which is in accordance with the norms. We might expect this to be
possible in cases of high complexity, such as playing chess or solving
complex mathematical problems. Some AI programs for playing chess or
solving mathematical problems might be considered creative in this
sense. However, most creative acts are not of this form, so as a general
rule the principle holds that creativity is not rational.
III. CREATIVITY IS THE CORE OF INTELLIGENCE
15. Here I shall discuss two cases which have been taken as examples of
intelligence. Both were highly creative.
16. For our first case, we examine Einstein's theory of special
relativity. The theory grew out of problems in Maxwell's
electrodynamics. At the time, the standard belief of physicists had been
that light was a wave motion carried by the luminiferous ether. Maxwell,
theorizing about electrical and magnetic fields, had been able to derive
the differential equation of wave motion. Moreover, the computed
velocity of wave propagation was close to the measured velocity of
light. The difficulty was that whereas under accepted theory the
velocity of light was relative to the ether drift, the theoretically
derived velocity of Maxwell's electro-magnetic waves was independent of
the ether.
17. There was a perfectly rational solution to this problem. Physicists
could simply have insisted that light was not electro-magnetic waves.
The norms of logic would have supported them in this belief, on the
basis that electromagnetic waves and light waves had different
properties. However, Einstein instead gave us special relativity. In
order to do so, he had to persuade us to change our concepts of time and
space. After those conceptual changes, the ether was no longer relevant
to the propagation of light and there was no longer any conflict in
assuming that light was electro-magnetic waves. Einstein's creation was
outside the norms of rationality, for those norms make no provision for
conceptual change. And Einstein's solution failed to follow the
perfectly rational solution described above.
18. For a second example, we look to mathematics, and to the Theory of
Distributions of L. Schwartz (1957, 1959). Until that time, physicists
had been doing mathematics in a way which violated the accepted
standards (or norms). For example, they were using the Dirac delta
"function." This "function" was supposed to be zero everywhere except at
0, and to be infinite at 0, in such a manner that its integral was 1.
The trouble was that there was no such function. What Schwartz gave us
was a theory which allowed an extended idea of function, to be called a
"distribution," in which it now became perfectly sound mathematics to do
what physicists had been doing. As with the case of relativity, the
theory introduced significant conceptual change. Once again we see
something highly creative, and yet something that was not possible
according to the accepted norms. It was outside of what was considered
rational, and arguably it was contrary to the accepted norms.
IV. THE EVIDENCE FROM AI
19. It is now almost 50 years since Alan Turing (1950) suggested that
computers could be intelligent. In the interim there has been a great
deal of research on artificial intelligence. Most of the AI research has
been based on rational agency models. Over that time period there have
been many advances in what computers can do, and AI researchers have
been behind quite a few of those advances. Yet the feeling persists that
what computers do is not truly intelligent -- that any intelligence they
display is no more than a demonstration of the intelligence of the
programmers. We still talk of "dumb computers" and describe them as
stupidly following their rules -- rules which are based upon the norms
of rationality -- even when it makes no sense to do so. The AI pioneer
Terry Winograd has come to recognize that the rational agency model is
the wrong one for producing an intelligent system (Winograd & Flores,
1987).
V. CONCLUSION
20. I have argued that intelligence is, in principle, contrary to the
accepted norms of rationality. In the circumstances it is a mistake to
expect that intelligent people will be rational in all of their
activities. It is more realistic to expect them to be creative in their
attempts to solve problems. And if they are creative, we should not be
surprised if occasionally their creative solutions to a problem should
turn out to be wrong. Kahneman et al. (1982) have catalogued examples of
human behavior which have been considered irrational. They might be
better treated as examples of behaviors that were creatively wrong, most
commonly in circumstances where the costs for being wrong were quite
small.
Josh Soffer
categorize Freudian ideas of an unconcsious and its corresponding
mechanisms of repression and denial?
Josh Soffer
Simon Hughes wrote:
"Postmodernism defies definition because it doesn't believe in the
validity of the concept of definition. The question "What is
postmodernism?" is one that has to be answered, "I don't know". And it
is this answer which "defines" the term. "
I can see how descriptions of postmodernism like this one can confuse
people in cognitive sciences like Ivan, but as my previous posts helped
to convince me (well , at least I learn something from my posts if no
one else does!), I don't see them as opposing a certain validation of
logic and 'rational' coherence.
Jim Humphreys
Josh Soffer wrote ...
To Jim Humphreys. Concerning notions of self-deception, how would you
categorize Freudian ideas of an unconcsious and its corresponding
mechanisms of repression and denial?
I would categorize these ideas, like much else in Freud, as utter nonsense.
Jim Humphreys
Jim Humphreys
Ivan Ordonez writes:
>>[jh] Surely, in committing to a particular set of
>>(religious) articles, the believer does not necessarily have to believe
that they are
>>*definitely* true.
>[io]This strikes me as contradictory. For any predicate P, I see the
>statements "I believe P" and "I believe P is true" to be equivalent.How
>can a person be commited to a belief without being certain of its truth?
>In other words, if you are not certain that P is true, how can if be said
>in any meaningful sense that you believe P? You may think that P is
>likely, that with a little more evidence, good arguments or whatever you
>may be convinced of P, but that is not the same as believing P.
Well, I think that the word 'belief' is often used in a different way to the
Tarskian way that you use it here ( I hasten to add that I do not
disagree with Tarski's ideas) For example I may say that I believe
that I will pass an examination next year, or that I believe Bill Clinton
will
not win the next election. Plainly, in these cases I cannot be certain that
the things that I believe will come about. 'Belief' here means that I hold
that it is likely that the events in question will come about. My own view
is that much religious 'belief' is of this kind. The other issue , is that
,
the extent to which I have a particular belief may vary considerable
over time: thus at 10.00 I may feel certain that I am going to pass my
exam, whilst at 11.30 faced with some difficult revision, I may no
longer feel so certain. So I do not think that there need be any
contradiction involved if belief is understood in this way. Naturally,
one may wish to define belief in the way that you do above - there
is nothing wrong with this stipulation. The point is that 'belief' as I
have outlined it ( rather than the narrower stipulation) is what describes
much religious 'belief'. Understood in this way, the claim that
religious belief is irrational, I believe, collapses.
>> More likely, background knowledge, personal experience etc has been
>>taken into consideration to form a particular belief , the
nature/intensity of
>>which may vary over time according to life events, new evidence etc.
>> - in other words a
>>degree of uncertainty may be admitted by the believer.
>Again, I am not confortable calling such things "beliefs."
>Rather, I'd call them ideas one considers to be likely, but
>which one is unsure of. For example, I believe I
>exist, and I believe you exist. On the other
>hand, I think it is likely that there is life planets other than earth,
>but I am not sure; hence I cannot say I believe there is life in other
>planets.
In ordinary conversation at least, I think that we include as 'beliefs'
what you term 'ideas one considers to be likely'. However it is
possible to produce a precising definition of 'belief' as you have
done here - I do not think this matters very much. What I think is
important, and what I believe is the case, is that for many individuals,
'ideas one considers likely' rather than 'beliefs' [ as defined here]
would be an accurate description of their religious outlook.
Furthermore, considering your example above, if one wants
to adopt a position of extreme skepticism then the difference
betweeen 'belief that one exists' and 'thinking that it is likely
that there is life on other planets'becomes blurred or indistinguishable.
>>Indeed this is why there is
>>such a vast literature dealing with doubts etc.. So it seems that to
characterize
>>religious belief as invariably involving self-deception ( and hence its
being
>>irrational) is incorrect.
>How can there be doubts unless there are contradictory ideas in
>one's mind?
Plainly it is possible to doubt something without there
being a contradiction involved - for example if I doubt that I will pass
an examination which I am to sit next week, there need be no
contradiction involved.
[...]
>>Another objection to your argument is that we may doubt whether there is
>> such a psycholgical state as 'self-deception', or at least whether there
is
>>any way to empirically establish that there is such a state.
>You could test this state as follows: if a person believes P, but this
>person also is aware of a fact Q that contradicts P, then this person is
>in a state of self-deception. Of course, this test could only be carried
>out for other people if we had a way to know that they really are aware of
>Q, which as you point out below, is not always possible.
Yes, that is precisely my point - there is no sure way of detecting
whether a person is self-deceived. Hence we are not in a position to
say that the person is irrational.
[...]
Jim Humphreys
Jim Humphreys
Silke-Maria Weineck writes:
>>>[js] Concerning notions of self-deception, how would you
>>>categorize Freudian ideas of an unconcsious and its corresponding
>>> mechanisms of repression and denial?
>>I would categorize these ideas, like much else in Freud, as utter
nonsense.
>[smw]Could you elaborate? Is it just Freud's notion of the unconscious or
is it
>the concept in general that is utter nonsense?
My comments were directed at the Freudian notion. The criticisms of
Freud's work by Popper are well known, and in my view have dire
consequences for it. There is also empirical work which shows that
many of the patients that Freud claimed to have cured retained their
neuroses.
>And does this belief (or
>certainty of yours) base itself on an impartial perusal of the vast
>post-Freudian clinical and nonclinical literature on unconscious
>processes?
I don't think that its necessary to peruse vast amounts of Freudian
literature to evaluate his work, if that is what you mean. Freud's
work is now very much under fire as I'm sure you are aware.
That it remains important in the area of theory, is in my view, not
because it has any particular theoretical merits, but because it
produces novel and interesting interpretations of literature and art.
Jim Humphreys
Dao Jones
iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
> >What's wrong with that? And again, what makes you so sure this situation
> >can be avoided?
>
> You are actually asking what is wrong with a contradictory belief system?
I know what I think. I'm asking what you think. Don't imagine that just
because I ask a question, I don't have an answer.
> >Certainty = sincere belief?
>
> Yes.
Hm. Gather ye Epistemology while ye may.
DJ
Dao Jones
iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
>
> >: You have to classify these things carefully. A person can only be accused
> >: of irrationality when he or she engages in self-deception.=20
> >
> >According to whom?
>
> Why, according to me, of course.
That is fatuous. If I define Computer Science as The Study of Purple
Elephants, and refuse to budge on the topic, that doesn't make me
anything more than annoying and possibly deluded. Nor does it make you a
zoologist.
> Were you expecting an appeal to
> authority?
It would at least have established you as having some basis for what you
say.
> I am proposing a definition of rationality and irrationality on
> the basis of logical consistency and clarity of concepts.
Proposition rejected - why would anyone alter perfectly good words to
suit your 'intellectual' prejudices?
> I want to
> distinguish errors commited from ignorance from errors commited from
> self-deception; I think it is unfair to attach irrationality to the
> ignorant.
Then make up a word. Don't try to hijack one which means something else.
The term 'rational' as I have noted before, has a number of very specific
meanings as well as a more general one. Your usage is not amongst them.
It is therefore futuile to argue with you about it - you're speaking
your own private version of English.
> No, I only refer to it if I believe it to make sense.
That is not logically consistent. It is facile.
> >This is going nowhere, I'll say goodbye.
Indeed. You have argued definitions with each other, and the result has
been frustration on both sides. As I said, this misses the point. The
suggestion was far more important than a precise formulation of the
language used - especially where one person insists on using non-
standard English.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
says...
> : I'm curious - what certainties are put in place of the old ones?
>
> In brief, I'm referring to the entire emancipatory strain that refers
> itself to a concept of justice, as they all do.
That's brief, all right. I'm still not getting you.
>
> : I
> : think people continue to function *as if certain* but are aware at some
> : level that they are *acting out* certainty. Hence all those existential
> : troubles...
>
> What's supposed to be new about that?
The permeation of doubt as the only sure thing in almost all areas of
life. Or perhaps it isn't so complete yet. But the power and ubiquity
of the uncertainty seems new to me.
DJ
Dao Jones
> it's terribly original. Radical skepticism has been around for thousands
> of years.
That's possible. Evidence would be nice. But in any case, it doesn't
invalidate what I said. I suggest that what is unique about now is the
degree to which doubt and the awareness of doubt have entered every area
of what used to be certain, from self-identity to sport to government to
art to music to war to news to science to work.
Is that historically humdrum? I don't think so.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
says...
>
> If one wishes to maintain that "Only those claims which are verifiable are
> rational", then one has to be able to verify this claim itself
> ( otherwise the claim will itself not be rational). You have
> not stated how this is to be done ( I do not believe that it can).
> In my view the 'rational=verifiable' definition should be rejected
> positivist criterion for meaningfulness], but the price to pay for this
I think you would have to take the definition as an axiom here, rather
than as something to be proven. It would be a definition, a speaking
into existence of a concept, rather than a claim about the world.
Verifying it would be like trying to measure the Metre Rod.
> >>My point is that you are merely asserting that religious belief is
> >> irrational.
[...]
> >>Furthermore you neglect to make the distinction between having a belief
> >>and not (personally) being able to provide rational support for it, and a
> >>belief which may be 'intrinsically' irrational.
For the sake of argument, if you are unhappy with just using Silke's
definition for the purposes of argument, you could adopt the Weberian
concept of rationality - actions which have clear reasons behind them,
and which are internally coherent, are rational. Actions performed out
of habit, or without thought, are not rational. Religion contains both
kinds of action. I think it's quite a useful distinction.
> I don't see the issue in terms of 'different dictionaries'.
I've just given you another dictionary to play with. Ivan's using one
all his own.
> I have shown
> clearly, I believe, that the definition of 'rational=verifiable' is
> untenable, unless one is prepared to allow that that claim itself is
> not rational or else equivocates over 'verification'.
Belief is error. In this instance it is moreso than elsewhere.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
Tom.C...@CHEEZbtinternet.com says...
> Indeed? Surely doubt is not only permeating every aspect of identity but the
> concept of identity in the unified (semi-Cartesian) way itself?
Absolutely. That just makes it worse. Not only is individual identity
under threat, but the very concept is being undermined.
Tell me that isn't going to give people the willies.
DJ
Dao Jones
> >> [...] From a pomo standpoint, to grossly overgeneralize, an
> >> >assertion which negates itself is one which transcends itself
> >> >qualitatively, that is, one whose definition changes in the instant that
> >> >one would nail it down.
> >>
> >> If that is true, the pomo point of view does not make any sense. If such
> >> statements are allowed, then the entire human model of reasoning becomes
> >> inconsistent, and everything would be true and false at the same time.
> >> Knowledge would be impossible, and we could as well blow our brains up.
[A few comments: I have no problem with a theory which tells me that the
entire human model of reasoning is inconsistent. As long as it is
capable of functioning, that's fine. Most of the things we believe are
true, in the sense that they are broadly functional descriptions of the
world or the part of it in which we live, and false, in that they are not
accurate overall, not universal, or not precise.
'Knowledge' in the sense of certain knowledge of the nature of things
outside our own heads, probably is impossible. Why should it be a
problem for you?]
The exchange I quoted being the basis for your comments and mine, I would
reply to you as follows:
> >'Allowed' is interesting. What makes you think such a situation is
> >logically avoidable?
>
> There are no contadictions in reality. You know, not (A and not A) and all
> that.
You need to make a distinction between the physical and the theoretical
spheres. This is a discussion about how theory can be done, how langauge
can be used, and how definitions are made. Nothing here requires the
universe to behave in the way we use our language.
> >And the consequences are not as dire as you suggest.
>
> Yes, they would be. Now you are the one who needs to do some research.
I'll assume that is intended to be helpful. Please tell me what kind of
research you think I should engage in. Can I take it from this that you
acknowledge the need to do some research and will act on this
understanding?
> > Only the illusions
> >are gone. Functionality remains.
>
> On the contrary. In a world where contradictions exist, machines would
> work and not work at the same time, stuff would exist and not exist at the
> same time. Such a world would have no coherence at all, and nothing could
> function (or rather, it would both function and not function). But such
> world does not exist.
See above. Just because a philosophy restates the way we should
understand the world, this does not mean the world suddenly ceases to
work. In any case, you over-generalise with this somewhat histrionic
example. It is possible that machines might be designed to work under
these conditions, or even that the nature of the changing conditions
might be such as to perpetuate the functionality of the machines. You do
not know. You have added a set of biased, unstated rules to your
hypothetical changing universe, and I reject them.
> Anyway, I see that there are two positions forming: one, which is Silke's,
> is that postmodernism is not really about contradictions. The other,
> apparently yours, is that it is, but that there's nothing wrong with
> contradictions. Of course I like Silke's position a lot more, except I
> don't think she's gotten rid of the contradictions.
Silke's position and mine may be closer together than they appear. We
have not explored each other's thinking very much. I'm not terribly fond
of contradictions, I just reject your contention that they are fatal to
theory.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
says...
> You don't see an emancipatory agenda in much of what has been called
> postmodern thought, or you don't see how an emancipatory agenda would have
> to refer itself to a concept of justice?
I see the agenda, I see that it might refer itself to a concept of
justice. I don't see that that concept need be regarded as an absolute
or 'real' thing. I'd need specifics to argue with you - I don't want
to insult you by attributing to you a position you would (probably
rightly) consider infantile in an effort to second guess you on whose
ideas you think make appeals to such a concept.
> :> : I
> :> : think people continue to function *as if certain* but are aware at some
> :> : level that they are *acting out* certainty. Hence all those existential
> :> : troubles...
> :>
> :> What's supposed to be new about that?
>
> : The permeation of doubt as the only sure thing in almost all areas of
> : life.
>
> I don't come across a lot of doubt in the lives people live; and I come
> across a lot of doubt reading pre-postmodern thought. So perhaps you could
> clarify who or what is affected here.
<shrug> Either you know people who are either more secure or more blind
than those I know, or you need to scratch the surface of their lives and
poke around for a bit of Zukunftangst.
As for doubt in the past - absolutely. However, I don't think - and
I may well turn out to be wrong, this is a new idea I'm floating here -
that there has been such a massive intrusion of doubt into every layer of
life before - even if that doubt is not expressed, it is there to be
discovered by anyone who cares to look. And it is expressed - people
fear the rapid changes of technology (cloning is a prime example) and the
more subtle alterations of the arrangement of the nuclear family, of the
routine of shopping (as chain stores encroach on local small shops) and
on the nature of Self-Identity itself.
Dao Jones
Jim Humphreys
Dao Jones wrote:
Dao Jones writes:
>>[jh] If one wishes to maintain that "Only those claims which are
verifiable are
>> rational", then one has to be able to verify this claim itself
>> ( otherwise the claim will itself not be rational). You have
>> not stated how this is to be done ( I do not believe that it can).
>> In my view the 'rational=verifiable' definition should be rejected
>> [it sounds, incidentally, very similar to the discredited, logical
>> positivist criterion for meaningfulness], but the price to pay for this
>> maybe that religious belief would not count as being irrational.
>I think you would have to take the definition as an axiom here, rather
>than as something to be proven. It would be a definition, a speaking
>into existence of a concept, rather than a claim about the world.
>Verifying it would be like trying to measure the Metre Rod.
I don't follow your thinking here. If one stipulates the definition above,
then
one has simply produced a definition which suffers from the defect
( that it fails to meet its own criterion for rationality) as outlined
above.
This seems pointless - like saying "Well I know that this definition is
inadequate, but lets just ignore that".
> >>My point is that you are merely asserting that religious belief is
> >> irrational.
[...]
> >>Furthermore you neglect to make the distinction between having a belief
> >>and not (personally) being able to provide rational support for it, and
a
> >>belief which may be 'intrinsically' irrational.
>For the sake of argument, if you are unhappy with just using Silke's
>definition for the purposes of argument, you could adopt the Weberian
>concept of rationality - actions which have clear reasons behind them,
>and which are internally coherent, are rational. Actions performed out
>of habit, or without thought, are not rational. Religion contains both
>kinds of action. I think it's quite a useful distinction.
Religious observance quite clearly has a clear reason behind it.
Arguably, carried out properly, religious actions are not performed
without thought. Further everyday actions like eating breakfast are
often done without a much thought and as a matter of habit ( or
at least they do not involve more thought/less routine than
religious observances). Is eating breakfast then to be
classified as irrational? I think not.
> >I don't see the issue in terms of 'different dictionaries'.
>I've just given you another dictionary to play with. Ivan's using one
>all his own.
I fear that your dictionary is, like the earlier ones, outdated.
Jim Humphreys
Jim Humphreys
Silke-Maria Weineck wrote:
>>>[smw]Could you elaborate? Is it just Freud's notion of the
>>>unconscious or is it the concept in general that is utter nonsense?
>>My comments were directed at the Freudian notion. The criticisms of
>>Freud's work by Popper are well known, and in my view have dire
>>consequences for it. There is also empirical work which shows that
>>many of the patients that Freud claimed to have cured retained their
>>neuroses.
>Yeah, yeah, but how does that relate to the concept of the unconscious?
There is little empirical evidence for the unconscious as conceived by
Freud.
Its use to explain dreams is plainly pseudoscientific. Perhaps you should
state why you consider that it is a viable notion ( I presume that that is
your view)?
>>>And does this belief (or certainty of yours) base itself on an impartial
>>>perusal of the vast post-Freudian clinical and nonclinical literature
>>.on unconscious processes?
>>I don't think that its necessary to peruse vast amounts of Freudian
>>literature to evaluate his work, if that is what you mean.
>_Post_-Freudian, it said.
I see that it did. However, this makes very little difference to the point
I was making - surely you are not suggesting that, for example, Lacan
has remedied the defects inherent in Freud's work?
Lacan's work is just as pseudoscientific as Freuds.
>>Freud's
>>work is now very much under fire as I'm sure you are aware.
>> That it remains important in the area of theory, is in my view, not
>>because it has any particular theoretical merits, but because it
>>produces novel and interesting interpretations of literature and art.
>yaddayadda, your claim concerned the unconscious, denial, and repression.
>YOu claimed all of these were "utter nonsense." How are they utter
>nonsense and how do you know they are?
In a nutshell Freudian psychology is not scientific ie it is not
falsifiable.
There have also been powerful criticisms of Freud's clinical work by
Grunbaum and others.
Jim Humphreys
Puss in Boots
>:Of course I can, thank you. Ok, here's my take on the idea: I don't think
>:it's terribly original. Radical skepticism has been around for thousands
>:of years.
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones):
>That's possible. Evidence would be nice.
2500 years ago or thereabouts Gorgias said (at least he's said
to have said) that nothing exists, that if it existed it couldn't
be known, and that if it was known it couldn't be communicated. You
can't get much more skeptical.
DJ:
>But in any case, it doesn't
>invalidate what I said. I suggest that what is unique about now is the
>degree to which doubt and the awareness of doubt have entered every area
>of what used to be certain, from self-identity to sport to government to
>art to music to war to news to science to work.
And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out;
The Sunne is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit
Can well direct him, where to looke for it.
And freely men confesse, that this world's spent,
When in the Planets, and the Firmament
They seeke so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out againe to his Atomis.
'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone;
All just supply, and all Relation:
Prince, subject, Father, Sonne, are things forgot,
For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a Phoenix, and that there can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he.
Donne, from "The First Anniverserie" (1611)
> Is that historically humdrum? I don't think so.
Humdrum, no. Just not a novelty.
-- Moggin
Iván Ordóñez
joshs...@webtv.net (Josh Soffer) wrote:
>Ivan , I was wondering what you might think of this view [...]
I mostly agree with it, with a caveat: the thesis that creativity is not
norm-directed is only true at the highest level, and in a rather shallow
fashion. While it is true that creative does not follow any explicitly
formulated rules, nor does if obey any prescribed norms, it is still
governed by rules, the rules that govern the function of our minds.
Iván Ordóñez
<jimh...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
[...] I think that the word 'belief' is often used in a different way to the
>Tarskian way that you use it here ( I hasten to add that I do not
>disagree with Tarski's ideas) For example I may say that I believe
>that I will pass an examination next year, or that I believe Bill Clinton
>will
>not win the next election.
Indeed, this word is used in that way in many contexts.
[...] Understood in this way, the claim that
>religious belief is irrational, I believe, collapses.
Indeed it does. But when I said that I was using the more formal meaning
of the word "belief."
[...] if one wants
>to adopt a position of extreme skepticism then the difference
>betweeen 'belief that one exists' and 'thinking that it is likely
>that there is life on other planets'becomes blurred or indistinguishable.
I disagree. It is logically impossible to doubt one's own existence. How
could I even doubt if I didn't exist? A position of extreme skepticism
that crosses the line and doubts absolutely everything becomes logically
inconsistent.
[...]
>>How can there be doubts unless there are contradictory ideas in
>>one's mind?
>
>Plainly it is possible to doubt something without there
> being a contradiction involved - for example if I doubt that I will pass
>an examination which I am to sit next week, there need be no
>contradiction involved.
I'm afraid I confused a bit the use of the word "doubt." What I meant is
uncertainty due to contradictory evidence; what you are pointing at is
uncertainty due to insufficient evidence. I shoul;d have used a more
specific word, but I couldn't find any.
[...] - there is no sure way of detecting
>whether a person is self-deceived. Hence we are not in a position to
>say that the person is irrational.
I agree, but that is not the same as saying that irrationality cannot be
established. As I said before, at the very least we can find it in
ourselves, at least in some occasions.
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
[...] A few comments: I have no problem with a theory which tells me that the
>entire human model of reasoning is inconsistent. As long as it is
>capable of functioning, that's fine.
The point is precisely that no inconsistent theory is capable of functioning.
> Most of the things we believe are
>true, in the sense that they are broadly functional descriptions of the
>world or the part of it in which we live, and false, in that they are not
>accurate overall, not universal, or not precise.
>
>'Knowledge' in the sense of certain knowledge of the nature of things
>outside our own heads, probably is impossible. Why should it be a
>problem for you?
Only one problem: the concept of "certain" knowledge, the one of the
impossible kind, is a strawman. When people talk of knowledge they talk
about the kind you refer to in the previous paragraph.
[...]
>I'll assume that is intended to be helpful. Please tell me what kind of
>research you think I should engage in.
How about some propositional logic, for starters?
The problem with inconsistencies is this: let's say that a theory asserts
both P and ~P (where "~" stands for "not"). Now, an axiom of propositional
logic is
P -> (~Q -> P)
where "->" stands for "implies." If you are unconvinced of the validity of
this axioma, you can verify it using a truth table. Now, from the premise
(P) and the axiom, it follows that
~Q -> P
and by inversion of the implication,
~P -> Q
But one of the premises is ~P, so, in conjunction with the above, we have that
Q
is true.
You see how dire this is? There was no bound placed on what Q means, and
yet it was derived. The meaning of this is that in an inconsistent theory,
*anything* can be derived; any proposition, no matter how absurd, can be
proved. In such a theory, there is no distinction between truth and
falsity.
[...]
>> On the contrary. In a world where contradictions exist, machines would
>> work and not work at the same time, stuff would exist and not exist at the
>> same time. Such a world would have no coherence at all, and nothing could
>> function (or rather, it would both function and not function). But such
>> world does not exist.
>
>See above. Just because a philosophy restates the way we should
>understand the world, this does not mean the world suddenly ceases to
>work. In any case, you over-generalise with this somewhat histrionic
>example.
As I proved above, my "histrionic" example is not histrionic at all; it is
a perfectly accurate description of the kinds of things we could prove
with an inconsistent theory.
> It is possible that machines might be designed to work under
>these conditions, or even that the nature of the changing conditions
Ah, but inconsistency is *not* about changing conditions. It is about
conditions that are *simultaneously* true and false.
>might be such as to perpetuate the functionality of the machines. You do
>not know. You have added a set of biased, unstated rules to your
>hypothetical changing universe, and I reject them.
Which is why you need to understand the logic. I should add model theory,
which shows that it only makes sense to build models of consistent
theories.
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
>In article <iordonez-120...@cvl219084.columbus.rr.com>,
>iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
>> Of course I can, thank you. Ok, here's my take on the idea: I don't think
>> it's terribly original. Radical skepticism has been around for thousands
>> of years.
>
>That's possible. Evidence would be nice.
Consider, for example, the beliefs of Gorgias or Pyrrho, both circa 400 BC.
> But in any case, it doesn't
>invalidate what I said. I suggest that what is unique about now is the
>degree to which doubt and the awareness of doubt have entered every area
>of what used to be certain, from self-identity to sport to government to
>art to music to war to news to science to work.
I still think that's very old. See the above two guys.
sayan bhattacharyya
>Dao Jones <dao_...@disinfo.net> wrote:
>: As for doubt in the past - absolutely. However, I don't think - and
>: I may well turn out to be wrong, this is a new idea I'm floating here -
>: that there has been such a massive intrusion of doubt into every layer of
>: life before - even if that doubt is not expressed, it is there to be
>: discovered by anyone who cares to look. And it is expressed - people
>: fear the rapid changes of technology (cloning is a prime example) and the
>: more subtle alterations of the arrangement of the nuclear family, of the
>: routine of shopping (as chain stores encroach on local small shops) and
>: on the nature of Self-Identity itself.
>
>I don't see much there that isn't amply covered by the perennial nostalgia
>for the times when one man could throw a stone ten men can't lift today.
>On what basis do you assert that the anxiety wrt cloning is stronger than
>the anxiety concerning the earth's relationship to the sun?
Well, for one, this kind of anxiety is certainly more _widespread_ today
(in terms of say, percentage of population suffering this anxiety) than
it was in former times. `More widespread' could be taken as one sense of
`stronger'. For example, what proportion of people in Italy at Galileo's
time were worried about the earth's relationship to the sun? A very small
one, I'd think -- not the average Italian Joe who did not read Latin and
was neither scientist nor churchman. Yet, today it is not unusual to
find an average Joe (or Jane) in the USA who is worried about cloning,
based on what she has heard on the TV news, say.
Iván Ordóñez
bhat...@skynet.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya) wrote:
[...] For example, what proportion of people in Italy at Galileo's
>time were worried about the earth's relationship to the sun?
Very few, since most were probably more concerned with paying their taxes
or doing whatever was necessary to remain alive and torture-free.
> A very small
>one, I'd think -- not the average Italian Joe who did not read Latin and
>was neither scientist nor churchman. Yet, today it is not unusual to
>find an average Joe (or Jane) in the USA who is worried about cloning,
>based on what she has heard on the TV news, say.
The only reason people can have "anxiety" about such things as cloning is
that their lives are pretty much anxiety-free, at least compared with
ancient times. No matter how easy their lives, people will always find
something to worry about.
Jim Humphreys
Silke-Maria Weineck wrote:
>>There is little empirical evidence for the unconscious as conceived by
>>Freud.
>There is? I've seen quite a bit over the years. You might want to check
>into the work of Howard Shevrin here at the UofM.
I have not read this work, but an surprised to hear that there is empirical
support for the Freudian unconscious. This conclusion would certainly
differ from that of most other workers in the field.
>>Its use to explain dreams is plainly pseudoscientific. Perhaps you should
>>state why you consider that it is a viable notion ( I presume that that is
>>your view)?
>I don't want to discuss dream interpretation -- it's a hermeneutic, not a
>science, I agree.
But Freud's work on dreams relies on the unconscious as an explanatory
mechanism - and you maintain above that there is empirical support
for such an unconscious. Why then do you feel unable to argue for
Freud's work on dreams being scientific?
>>I was just struck with the ease with which you threw out
>>precisely those Freudian notions which remain rather viable in
>>contemporary clinical discourse. Negation is another one -- there is
>>plenty of evidence now, I understand, that Freud was dead on when
>>he claimed that there was no negation in the unconscious.
The unconscious may remain to some extent viable, but this concept
did not originate with Freud nor is there scientific evidence for a
Freudian unconscious.
Jim Humphreys
Jim Humphreys
Ivan Ordonez writes:
>>[...] if one wants
>>to adopt a position of extreme skepticism then the difference
>>betweeen 'belief that one exists' and 'thinking that it is likely
>>that there is life on other planets'becomes blurred or indistinguishable.
>I disagree. It is logically impossible to doubt one's own existence. How
>could I even doubt if I didn't exist? A position of extreme skepticism
>that crosses the line and doubts absolutely everything becomes logically
>inconsistent.
I think there is a sense in which it is possible to doubt that one exists.
This is if one doubts that there is a separate "I " or ego - one might
believe that one is merged with other "I"'s - however bizarre this belief,
it
seems logically possible.
[...]
>I agree, but that is not the same as saying that irrationality cannot be
>established. As I said before, at the very least we can find it in
>ourselves, at least in some occasions.
Yes, but I was arguing against the view that religious belief was
irrational.
Jim Humphreys
Josh Soffer
this does not mean that the conventions of symbolic logic will always
be necessary for the operations of 'computing' systems.
Ivan Ordonez wrote:
"I'm not sure what you mean here. You can program computers to do fuzzy
logic, non-monotonic reasoning, qualitative reasoning, or to write
poetry, but on the bottom level you will always find code that is
strictly logical, and is prefectly well described by a first-order
system. The same is true of our brains, by the way: nomatter how
convoluted our ideas, how illogical our thoughts, they are ultimately
the result of the activity of our neurons, which are perfectly logical
little machines. "
Yes, I know, McCulloch and Pitts and all that. Piaget was one of the
first to trumpet the signficance of their discovery that neural
processes are binary. But Piaget was also notable for offering a model
of mental organization which revealed that simple formal propositional
logic is not irreducible, but rather is based on a more fundamental
organizational principle of thought, of neurons, of living systems
generally. His notion of assimilation states that all meanings that we
construct are dichotomous; they are aligned siultaneously in terms of
similarity and diffeernce. More specifically, to construe an object is
to recognize it in relation to ones conceptual store, but
simultaneously to alter that conceptual store subtly and slightly as one
accomodates ones own knowledge to the object. This is an important
point, for it demands that each and every experience, either as
informal perception or 'formal' logical premise , consist of an aspect
of slight surprise, decentering , qualatitative novelty.
There would be no such thing as a simple duplication in thought. The
self-sameness of intervals in a number system is an abstraction which
hides the fact that sequential thought is characterized by a coherence
which is non-duplicating, and that it would be meaningles to attribute
to anything anywhere in the real world such self-identity. There is no
pure identity in thought, only similarity. Understand that the myriad
organizational functions of thought: categorization, conservation of
properties of a conceived object throughout transformations, reciprocal
relations, transitivity, do not require a notion of absolute identity.
The basis of the precision and determinacy of logic has to be seen as
originating in the concept of belonging to a group, that is , of
inculsion structures and their comparson.
To say that a and b are identical is to point to an aspect or
dimension of commonality between them, but it is also to intriniscally
imply a an aspect of difference. Even to state that A is identical with
itself is to state a sequential proposition whose two terms require a
differentiation that subverts any absolute identity. To repeat is to
reconstrue, and to reconstrue is to alter , in some small but important
fashion, even as we conserve a relation which could be of the closest
kind. We always move outside of our vantage, always escape pure
redundancy, in moving through the sequential propositions of cogitation,
regardless of how constrained the objects of our awareness. Note that
non-identity is not the same thing as saying that sequential
perceptions or meanings must contradict each other.
These observations do not have a profound effect on the doing of formal
logic, but they point to a future of empirical notation which overtly
expresses the non-duplicative nature of meaning, which the abstractions
of logic miss, whether such abstractions are applied to philosophical
statements or the description of neurons or atoms. To say that our
neurons operate like pure logical machines is to already impose on our
observations of neuorons the abstractions of logic. It is not that this
startement is false, but that it is a derivative of a more rigorous,
because more fundamental, dynmaic undrling foraml descriptions.
Dao Jones
says...
> : I see the agenda, I see that it might refer itself to a concept of
> : or 'real' thing.
>
> follows its implications with any rigor. Perhaps in the realm of feminism,
> to narrow your choices a bit.
As I said, since we're arguing on your ground, you pick the text.
> :> :> : I
> :> :> : think people continue to function *as if certain* but are aware
> :> :> : at some
> :> :> : level that they are *acting out* certainty. Hence all those
> :> :> : existential
> :> :> : troubles...
> :> :>
> :> :> What's supposed to be new about that?
> :>
> :> : The permeation of doubt as the only sure thing in almost all areas of
> :> : life.
> :>
> :> I don't come across a lot of doubt in the lives people live; and I come
> :> across a lot of doubt reading pre-postmodern thought. So perhaps you could
> :> clarify who or what is affected here.
>
> : <shrug> Either you know people who are either more secure or more blind
> : than those I know, or you need to scratch the surface of their lives and
> : poke around for a bit of Zukunftangst.
>
> Oh, come on. Angst vor der Zukunft is written into the human condition
> from which only Socrates escapes.
No argument - except how does Socrates excape?
> Do you see a decline in public moral
> discourse?
I'm not sure of the relevance of this to my position on doubt and
identity. For what it is worth, I see the nature of public moral
discourse changing, inevitably, to include and element of self-doubt.
> What do you make of the polls that claim that 96% of the US
> population believes in God?
A large proportion also believe in UFOs. I think that they are looking
rather desperately for something to believe in. Take (for example) the
crises in the Church of England recently over such issues as the
ordination of women. The Church is expanding, but it is also
Balkanising. Ditto the Russian Orthodox Church.
Doubt and uncertainty have always driven people to the Churches. In this
era, that unfortunately makes things worse, as the Churches themselves
are fractured by doubt. It's like a horror movie - the one place which
is safe, and has all the big impressive locks, is where the killer is
waiting for you.
> : As for doubt in the past - absolutely. However, I don't think - and
> : I may well turn out to be wrong, this is a new idea I'm floating here -
> : that there has been such a massive intrusion of doubt into every layer of
> : life before - even if that doubt is not expressed, it is there to be
> : discovered by anyone who cares to look. And it is expressed - people
> : fear the rapid changes of technology (cloning is a prime example) and the
> : more subtle alterations of the arrangement of the nuclear family, of the
> : routine of shopping (as chain stores encroach on local small shops) and
> : on the nature of Self-Identity itself.
>
> I don't see much there that isn't amply covered by the perennial nostalgia
> for the times when one man could throw a stone ten men can't lift today.
Because now, no one believes the one man ever existed. When I was
growing up, they all claimed to have bought him a beer.
> On what basis do you assert that the anxiety wrt cloning is stronger than
> the anxiety concerning the earth's relationship to the sun?
I don't. I assert that cloning is one of a large number of issues which
assail the concept of identity directly. The Earth-Sun relationship is a
good example of the same thing a few hundred years ago - but it has its
own parallels now in quantum mechanics and dark matter and all the rest.
The point is not that any one thing causes greater anxiety. The point is
that a large number of discoveries and philosophies have been produced in
a short dpace of time which attack basic tenets and 'givens' of life.
The usual escape routes are cut off - it is impossible to say 'well,
yeah, ok, the Earth goes round the Sun, but it's still God's design and
anyway my family still love me and I still live in the greatest country
in the World', because those concepts are also under discussion. Belief
and faith are openly questioned in the Synod, traditional family values
(whatever those are) are in question as new structures provoke new ways
of living, and as for living in the greatest country in the world...well,
nowhere's perfect, now is it?
Every aspect of self-perception is under fire, including the concept of a
discreet identity.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
says...
> >>[jh] If one wishes to maintain that "Only those claims which are
> >> verifiable are
> >> rational", then one has to be able to verify this claim itself
> >> ( otherwise the claim will itself not be rational). You have
> >> not stated how this is to be done ( I do not believe that it can).
> >> In my view the 'rational=verifiable' definition should be rejected
> >> [it sounds, incidentally, very similar to the discredited, logical
> >> positivist criterion for meaningfulness], but the price to pay for this
> >> maybe that religious belief would not count as being irrational.
>
> >I think you would have to take the definition as an axiom here, rather
> >than as something to be proven. It would be a definition, a speaking
> >into existence of a concept, rather than a claim about the world.
> >Verifying it would be like trying to measure the Metre Rod.
>
> I don't follow your thinking here. If one stipulates the definition above,
> then
> one has simply produced a definition which suffers from the defect
> ( that it fails to meet its own criterion for rationality) as outlined
> above.
> This seems pointless - like saying "Well I know that this definition is
> inadequate, but lets just ignore that".
It depends on whether you view the *definition* as a claim. If you say
'only that which is verifiable is rational' and mean by this that you
have a concept of rationality in your head and verifiability is a
necessary condition for achieving that exalted state, then you do indeed
need to be able to verify your claim - and you can't. If what you are
saying, however, is that the word 'rational' refers to 'things which are
verifiable', you are defining terms, not making claims. As I said, it's
the difference between regarding it as an axiom or a theorem.
> > >>My point is that you are merely asserting that religious belief is
> > >> irrational.
> [...]
> > >>Furthermore you neglect to make the distinction between having a belief
> > >>and not (personally) being able to provide rational support for it, and
> a
> > >>belief which may be 'intrinsically' irrational.
>
> >For the sake of argument, if you are unhappy with just using Silke's
> >definition for the purposes of argument, you could adopt the Weberian
> >concept of rationality - actions which have clear reasons behind them,
> >and which are internally coherent, are rational. Actions performed out
> >of habit, or without thought, are not rational. Religion contains both
> >kinds of action. I think it's quite a useful distinction.
>
> Religious observance quite clearly has a clear reason behind it.
> Arguably, carried out properly, religious actions are not performed
> without thought.
I would not disagree. Weber would not disagree. Congratulations - a
two-for-one deal.
> Further everyday actions like eating breakfast are
> often done without a much thought and as a matter of habit ( or
> at least they do not involve more thought/less routine than
> religious observances). Is eating breakfast then to be
> classified as irrational? I think not.
As I said, it is a *definition*. It does not make claims, it is there
for the pirposes of discussion. The term 'rational' has been used by a
large number of people to mean a large number of things. I specified the
Weberian usage, and I explained it. For Weber, eating breakfast probably
would be irrational, but he attaches no stigma to irrationality - he
sees it as part of our lives. His thought pre-echoes recent research on
non-verbal knowledge and what used to be called 'muscle memory'.
How would you define 'rational' by the way?
> > >I don't see the issue in terms of 'different dictionaries'.
>
> >I've just given you another dictionary to play with. Ivan's using one
> >all his own.
>
> I fear that your dictionary is, like the earlier ones, outdated.
Thank you for your concern. You may sleep easy, however; it is
unfounded.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
mog...@mindspring.com says...
> Humdrum, no. Just not a novelty.
>
Thanks, Moggin. I love Donne. It doesn't alter what I was saying by one
iota, however - see my recent discussions with Silke. Gorgias is
interesting, and I take the point, but at the same time that kind of
radical doubt has a hidden element of 'well, I'm not going to live like
this after I finish today's session' and also, because it throws out
family and world and so on doesn't threaten them so much as put them on
hold. In a way, it is strangely comforting, because the one thing it
clings to is the self - which is what I am claiming is threatened by
the PM situation.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
iord...@a.fake.address.com says...
> It is logically impossible to doubt one's own existence. How
> could I even doubt if I didn't exist? A position of extreme skepticism
> that crosses the line and doubts absolutely everything becomes logically
> inconsistent.
This depends entirely on one's concept of 'self'.
DJ
Dao Jones
Functioning how? Theories about social action which say that all social
action is derived from structural situations can function happily
alongside theories which state that individuals are the source of social
action. Where one theory descrives one thing and another theory
describes another, and they are contradictory, we use them at the same
time. So what?
> > Most of the things we believe are
> >true, in the sense that they are broadly functional descriptions of the
> >world or the part of it in which we live, and false, in that they are not
> >accurate overall, not universal, or not precise.
> >
> >'Knowledge' in the sense of certain knowledge of the nature of things
> >outside our own heads, probably is impossible. Why should it be a
> >problem for you?
>
> Only one problem: the concept of "certain" knowledge, the one of the
> impossible kind, is a strawman. When people talk of knowledge they talk
> about the kind you refer to in the previous paragraph.
That kind of knowledge doesn't have a problem with contradiction.
> >I'll assume that is intended to be helpful. Please tell me what kind of
> >research you think I should engage in.
>
> How about some propositional logic, for starters?
Thank you for your suggestion. Predicate calculus and propositional
logic are fascinating ways of talking about predicate calculus and
propositional logic. I very much enjoyed studying both while I was an
uindergrad, and I have no intention of going back and spending even more
time playing amongst the brackets. I see your objection, and I accept
that, as far as it goes, it makes sense. You generalise from this small
arena where consistency is required by the rules to everywhere else.
There is no basis for that.
Dao Jones
Dao Jones
>
Seen 'em. You miss the point. It's not that radical doubt is new, it is
that doubt attacking every aspect of identity is new.
DJ
j...@my-dejanews.com
> The problem with inconsistencies is this: let's say that a theory asserts
> both P and ~P (where "~" stands for "not"). Now, an axiom of propositional
> logic is
>
> P -> (~Q -> P)
>
> where "->" stands for "implies." If you are unconvinced of the validity of
> this axioma, you can verify it using a truth table. Now, from the premise
> (P) and the axiom, it follows that
>
> ~Q -> P
>
> and by inversion of the implication,
>
> ~P -> Q
>
> But one of the premises is ~P, so, in conjunction with the above, we have that
>
> Q
>
> is true.
>
> You see how dire this is? There was no bound placed on what Q means, and
> yet it was derived. The meaning of this is that in an inconsistent theory,
> *anything* can be derived; any proposition, no matter how absurd, can be
> proved. In such a theory, there is no distinction between truth and
> falsity.
How desperately you leap at your unproven conclusion. You start out
taking faltering blind steps, and next you are leaping off cliffs
flapping your little wax wings. Start slower.
The fact that a person may demonstrate to himself that he does exist
and also that he may not exist is hardly grounds for blowing up our
brains. It also doesn't mean he should walk out of windows, making
the assumption that he has proven that phenomena lack all form.
The lesson that separates the rank beginners from the beginners is about
the differences between contradiction and incoherence, between ambguity
and meaninglessness, between conflict and inconsistency, and between
irrationality and falsity. The indication that you are still cowed by
these distinctions is given in your demonization of the former in terms
of the latter.
> >> On the contrary. In a world where contradictions exist, machines would
> >> work and not work at the same time, stuff would exist and not exist at the
> >> same time. Such a world would have no coherence at all, and nothing could
> >> function (or rather, it would both function and not function). But such
> >> world does not exist.
> >
> >See above. Just because a philosophy restates the way we should
> >understand the world, this does not mean the world suddenly ceases to
> >work. In any case, you over-generalise with this somewhat histrionic
> >example.
>
> As I proved above, my "histrionic" example is not histrionic at all; it is
> a perfectly accurate description of the kinds of things we could prove
> with an inconsistent theory.
"Histrionic" is mild. I'd call it hysterical.
> Which is why you need to understand the logic. I should add model theory,
> which shows that it only makes sense to build models of consistent
> theories.
Sounds pretty useless if one is interested in modelling conflicted
theories.
Jeff Inman
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Dao Jones
says...
>
> Well, no -- you are claiming that postmodernity has produced such texts as
> the norm. You ought to be able to come up with at least one, no?
There's no two ways about it, we're not communicating in this half of the
thread. From my perspective: you've told me that there's an
emancipatory agenda in postmodern thought, and I've said I don't see that
there is. You have to give me something to look at before we can argue
about it.
> :> What do you make of the polls that claim that 96% of the US
> :> population believes in God?
>
> : A large proportion also believe in UFOs.
>
> There goes that wide-spread loss of certainty.
Hardly. If you're prepared to go so far in quest of certainty, your
traditional certainties must be under heavy fire. I didn't say 'belief'
was gone, I said there was widespread deep doubt. People can go looking
for faith as much as they want - and the belief in UFO's is a twofold
proof of my point, partly fuelled by a gorgeous paranoid theory (failure
of trust in government) in which there is a Truth Out There which the
government/the MIBs keep secret, which is an inverted kind of certainty:
'I can't know, but they do' i.e. someone knows the Answer - but this
does not alter the deep-rooted doubt. As to whether people worry about
cloning specifically unless you stir them up, perhaps not. But there are
plenty of stirring forces out there. It's impossible to divorce 'the
media' from 'the people' as if one just acted on the other. And even
without the media, there are pressure groups who stir up thinking about
these issues. I gather, to take another example, that Jerry Falwell
(sp?) has denounced one of the teletubbies as a homosexual. I'm sure no
one was thinking about that either, but now huge chunks of America's
Bible Belt will never be quite sure...either that Tinkywinky isn't a
'dangerous pervert' or that Falwell isn't a loon.
Dao Jones
sayan bhattacharyya
>
>You think? I'm under the impression that the cloning-scare is entirely
>media-made and that people do not, in fact, worry about it at all, unless
>you ask them about it and bring it to their mind.
Incidentally, there's a British academic called Frank Furedi (who's associated
with the very interesting, if wacky, `Living Marxism' group in Britain) who's
written on this kind of media-disseminated anxiety. His view is that this kind of
thing strengthens the status quo by making people anxious about every new
advancement and thus undermining in people's minds the general idea of progress
as a Good Thing. This position has made Furedi and his followers take some
very interesting stands (one of which is a knee-jerk suspicion all kinds of
environmentalism) which paradoxicaly end up having them sound like the right
even though they are speaking from the left, or at least claim to.
sayan bhattacharyya
>
> And new philosophy calls all in doubt,
> The element of fire is quite put out;
> The Sunne is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit
>
>
What's your point, Moggin? Donne and his circle were not representative
of the Elizabethan and Jacobean population -- for Pete's sake, Donne's
poems were circulated privately among friends during his lifetime and
not even printed! Was the common man exercised over the loss of the Sun?
Not likely! The elites were -- the common people just went about their
business as usual.
Jim Humphreys
Silke-Maria Weineck wrote:
>>[jh]I have not read this work, but an surprised to hear that there is
empirical
>>support for the Freudian unconscious. This conclusion would certainly
>>differ from that of most other workers in the field.
>Whose work?
>Almost any psychologist who is not a Freudian.
>And which aspect of the unconscious do you have in mind? We've
>made some progress, though, since you're now talking about the
>"Freudian unconscious," not the unconscious per se.
If you look at my original reply you can see that I was always referring
to the Freudian unconscious.
[..]
>>But Freud's work on dreams relies on the unconscious as an explanatory
>>mechanism - and you maintain above that there is empirical support
>> for such an unconscious. Why then do you feel unable to argue for
>>Freud's work on dreams being scientific?
>I never claimed that any of Freud's work was scientific according to
>contemporary standards.
If it is not scientific according to contemporary standards, then surely
it is not scientific at all - what other standards are we to apply?
Should we judge Freud's work ignoring the empirical work in psychology
which has taken place since his time?
>I'm merely pointing out the obvious --
>non-scientific work can lead to correct conclusions and
>observations. In the case of dreams, for instance, we have no
>clue whether Freud was right or wrong along the major lines (i.e.
>dreaming as wish-fulfilment).
We know that there is little or no evidence to support the idea that
dreams involve wish-fulfilment. What need then to consider such a
spurious theory? It would be possible to construct any number of
theories about dreams for which it would also be impossible to
obtain empirical support- why should we not also entertain those?
>>>I was just struck with the ease with which you threw out
>>>precisely those Freudian notions which remain rather viable in
>>>contemporary clinical discourse. Negation is another one -- there is
>>>plenty of evidence now, I understand, that Freud was dead on when
>>>he claimed that there was no negation in the unconscious.
>>The unconscious may remain to some extent viable, but this concept
>>did not originate with Freud nor is there scientific evidence for a
>>Freudian unconscious.
>None that you know of, you mean.
Not at all -Segal, for example, has made a rather
feeble attempt to defend Freud's work.
>But we weren't discussing where it
>originates, we were discussing why it is "utter nonsense." It's become
>clear that your original verdict is based not on the viability of the
>concept but on your attitude towards Freud. I think we could play this
>same game wrt denial and repression, but it would be merely a repetition.
But you have not been able to demonstrate that Freudian psychology
is viable.You have admitted that his work doesn't meet scientific
standards and that there is no evidence for his work on dreams.
All that you have been able to claim is that non- scientific work
generally *may* reach 'correct conclusions'and that his ideas
*may* be viable. So you have not been able to show that his
work is not absurd. The fact of the matter is that, as I remarked
earlier, many of the patients that Freud claimed to have cured were
not in fact cured. Grunbaum points out that Freud himself cited
therapeutic success as a key criterion for evaluating psychoanalysis.
He goes on to show that many psychoanalytic "cures" are in fact
attributable to a placebo effect or to spontaneous remission.
Nowadays few psychologists adopt a psychoanalytic approach to
neuroses for the obvious reasons that it is simply a failed approach
to therapy. Naturally , if one wants, one can try to salvage a few ideas
from Freud - perhaps attempting to place them on a more secure
scientific footing, but in general one has to reject most of Freud's
theoretical apparatus.
Jim Humphreys
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
[...] You miss the point. It's not that radical doubt is new, it is
>that doubt attacking every aspect of identity is new.
Maybe I do. The problem is that I don[t think I really understand what you
mean by "every aspect of identity" and how it differs from the positions
taken by the sophists.
Iván Ordóñez
dao_...@disinfo.net (Dao Jones) wrote:
[...] You generalise from this small
>arena where consistency is required by the rules to everywhere else.
>There is no basis for that.
Actually, there is a very clear basis: first order logic contains
propositional logic, and every other form of thought or reason contains
first order logic. Therefore any conclusion reached in propositional logic
is universally valid. This is just a fact of life, and if you want to
contest it, you will have to present a counterexample.
Iván Ordóñez
>How desperately you leap at your unproven conclusion.
How desperate your construction of strawmen. I am arguing against the idea
that it makes sense to have inconsistent theories. Nothing more, nothing
less.
Iván Ordóñez
<jimh...@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote:
>I think there is a sense in which it is possible to doubt that one exists.
>This is if one doubts that there is a separate "I " or ego - one might
>believe that one is merged with other "I"'s - however bizarre this belief,
>it seems logically possible.
You mean solipsism? I am everything and everybody, and stuff like that?
Yes, it's logically viable. However, it does not amount to the ability of
doubting the self; in such scenario, the self is the *only* thing that
exists. What such beliefs allow you to do is to doubt the existence of the
Other.
Iván Ordóñez
joshs...@webtv.net (Josh Soffer) wrote:
[...]
>Yes, I know, McCulloch and Pitts and all that. Piaget was one of the
>first to trumpet the signficance of their discovery that neural
>processes are binary.
It's not that they are binary; in fact, I don't think they are. The
perceptron is a far, far too simplistic model of the neuron. The point is
that neurons are logical, which means that their function can be described
by a finite, consistent, first order axiomatization.
[...]
>To say that a and b are identical is to point to an aspect or
>dimension of commonality between them,
I think it just means that "b" is another name for "a."
> but it is also to intriniscally
>imply a an aspect of difference. Even to state that A is identical with
>itself is to state a sequential proposition whose two terms require a
>differentiation that subverts any absolute identity.
You'll have to run that by me again, with an example. Let's see: number 3
is identical to number 3. Where's the subversion of identity?
[...]
>These observations do not have a profound effect on the doing of formal
>logic, but they point to a future of empirical notation which overtly
>expresses the non-duplicative nature of meaning, which the abstractions
>of logic miss, whether such abstractions are applied to philosophical
>statements or the description of neurons or atoms.
You mean temporal logic? It's also a superset of regular logic.
> To say that our
>neurons operate like pure logical machines is to already impose on our
>observations of neuorons the abstractions of logic. It is not that this
>startement is false, but that it is a derivative of a more rigorous,
>because more fundamental, dynmaic undrling foraml descriptions.
I don't think I understand that very well.
Jim Humphreys
Iván Ordóñez wrote in message ...
>>[jh]I think there is a sense in which it is possible to doubt that one
exists.
>>This is if one doubts that there is a separate "I " or ego - one might
>>believe that one is merged with other "I"'s - however bizarre this belief,
>>it seems logically possible.
>
>You mean solipsism? I am everything and everybody, and stuff like that?
>Yes, it's logically viable. However, it does not amount to the ability of
>doubting the self; in such scenario, the self is the *only* thing that
>exists. What such beliefs allow you to do is to doubt the existence of the
>Other.
>
The case that I am considering is not the same as solipsism (
where one imagines that ones own self and the contents of
ones consciousness are all that exist) - rather here one imagines that
one does not exist as an individual unity or "I". In other words if you
were
in this condition of doubt, you might imagine that you were not
some individual ego "Ivan Ordonez" but were in fact part of some
greater unity, made up of numerous individuals.
Jim Humphreys
sayan bhattacharyya
>
>Many concepts arrived at by non-scientific inquiry are not "utter
>nonsense" -- why are his, and how do you know?
Concepts arrived at by non-scientific inquiry are nonsense
if they involve causal explanation of phenomena.
Thus, concepts in poetry or literature (which do not involve
causal explanation, which seek to describe rather than explain)
are not nonsense at all, but very important and useful. Hermeneutical
means of inquiry is perfectly legitimate for poetry.
However, when you take non-scientific inquiry and use it to
generate causal explanations, you get nonsense. For example,
consider astrology. A *very* hermeneutic discipline, yet
utter nonsense because it seeks to *explain* worldly events
on the basis of planetary influence.
So the question is, is Freudianism as a theory explanatory or
descriptive? If the former, then it is nonsense. If not, it can
be useful, but cannot be used for building causal explanations
with.
Josh Soffer
"Nowadays few psychologists adopt a psychoanalytic approach to neuroses
for the obvious reasons that it is simply a failed approach to therapy.
Naturally , if one wants, one can try to salvage a few ideas from Freud
- perhaps attempting to place them on a more secure scientific footing,
but in general one has to reject most of Freud's theoretical apparatus.
"
As a good Kantian, you would have to reject not only Freud, but the
entire history of 20th century psychology and social science which ,
along with Freud, emanates from Hegel's critique of Kant . This includes
the radical implications of Darwinian evolutionary theory, which forces
us to abandon the notion of ethical universals. I know one can find an
occasional individual calling him or herself a social scientist who
clings to pre-Hegelian moral and metaphysical universals , but their
take on the influence of authors like Freud tends to be out of step with
that of the community of scholars which has assimilated the most
fundamental discoveries of Freud.
Sure, behavioral , cognitive , humanistic and constructivist
approaches to psychology have all felt that they 'left Freud behind' to
some extent, but I would assert that they have done so precisely to the
degree that they have moved even further awy from your own orientation
than Freud did. What do you think of Skinner's 'Beyond Freedom and
Dignity'? Not thrilled with it, I'm guessing. What about Gergen's 'The
Saturated Self' , which throws out the idea that there is such a thing
as a coherent self? Or Steven Pinker's 'How the Mind Works' which posits
natural selection as the source of moral motivation? You must have
treasured that one. Then again we could peruse the neuropsychological
literature on split brain syndrome , showing that differerent parts of
the brain don't communicate directly with others, such that one could
deny that one's left hand is writing even though it is.
Such research confirms Freud's notion of an unconscious to an extent,
even though not necessarily as a motivated defense mechanism.
Dissociation states, like hypnosis and multiple personality , are hard
to explain without recourse to something like an unconscious.
The typical criticism of Freud is not that his work is unscientific,
because it is not a particulary difficult task to translate his notions
into testable terminology (a number of researchers have done just this,
such as Miller and Dollard's 'behavioral' psycholanalysis). The
objections to Freud from post-Freudian circles are that his metaphors
depend too closely on 19th century mechanistic scientism (the mind as
hydraulic system) . It is not that Freud is unscientfic, but that the
version of science that framed his work was too close to the model of
science that you prefer, that of physics and Popper rather than Kuhn.
Jim Humphreys
Silke-Maria Weineck wrote:
>Could you give me a few names and spell out where exactly
>they take issue with Freud (apart from method, since we l
>argely agree on this point)?
In fact I provided the name of a leading critic of Freud's clinical
work in my last post. I cited Grunbaum who notes that Freud
himself was happy to accept therapeutic success as a key
criterion for evaluating his work. In "Foundations of Psychoanalysis:
A Philosophical Critique"(1984) he shows that so-called psychoanalytic
"cures" are often attributable to a placebo effect or to spontaneous
remission. In the UK Hans Eyesenck has also criticised Freud extensively.
It is well known, and has been commented on extensively, that many
of Freud's patients whom he claimed to have cured were later
discovered to have retained their neuroses.
[...]
>What distinction do you have in mind when you distinguish between the
>Freudian unconscious ("utter nonsense") and non-Freudian concepts of the
>unconscious?
Broadly, the Freudian unconscious is conceived of as being the location
of that which has been repressed by the superego, whereas in
non-Freudian concepts no 'repressing superego' is posited.
Needless to say there is no evidence that there is such a thing
as a repressing superego.
>>>>But Freud's work on dreams relies on the unconscious as an explanatory
>>>>mechanism - and you maintain above that there is empirical support
>>>> for such an unconscious. Why then do you feel unable to argue for
>>>>Freud's work on dreams being scientific?
>>>I never claimed that any of Freud's work was scientific according to
>>>contemporary standards.
>>If it is not scientific according to contemporary standards, then surely
>>it is not scientific at all - what other standards are we to apply?
>Non-contemporary ones. Freud published in scientific journals who accepted
>his work; hence, his contemporaries seemed to have a different view
>concerning his 'scientificity.'
But *why* should we apply 'non-contemporary standards' to Freud's work?
This seems to me a most odd suggestion. In fact, come to think of it,
what are 'non-contemporary standards' and *how* do we employ them?
>But to repeat, that's besides the point.
Why is it 'besides the point'? Do you wish to argue that it is
unimportant that Freud's work is unscientific? If so why?
If you reject scientific criteria - how then should we evaluate
his work? Clearly some criteria are necessary.
[...]
>>>I'm merely pointing out the obvious --
>>>non-scientific work can lead to correct conclusions and
>>>observations. In the case of dreams, for instance, we have no
>>>clue whether Freud was right or wrong along the major lines (i.e.
>>>dreaming as wish-fulfilment).
>> We know that there is little or no evidence to support the idea that
>> dreams involve wish-fulfilment.
>We do? Where did we find it?
I don't understand the question here- plainly if there is a lack
of evidence, then we have not found anything.
[...]
>>>But we weren't discussing where it
>>>originates, we were discussing why it is "utter nonsense." It's become
>>>clear that your original verdict is based not on the viability of the
>>>concept but on your attitude towards Freud. I think we could play this
>>>same game wrt denial and repression, but it would be merely a repetition.
>>But you have not been able to demonstrate that Freudian psychology
>>is viable.You have admitted that his work doesn't meet scientific
>>standards and that there is no evidence for his work on dreams.
>I haven't set out to demonstrate that Freudian psychoanalysis is viable.
>I've tried to get some information from you concerning your statements on,
>specifically, the unconscious, denial, and repression. To remind you, you
>called all three "utter nonsense." I still wonder why. General handwaving
>in the direction of cure rate and scientific method do nothing to address
>this question.
I called them utter nonsense because they are located in a
system which is pseudoscientific ( if the concept itself is not
pseudoscientific). For your part you have acknowledged that
Freudian psychology is unscientific *and* does not work as
a therapy - I should ask you, then, what you consider *is* of
value in Freud's work. I should also ask you to explain your
suggestion that we should evaluate Freud's work according to
'non-contemporary' standards.
Jim Humphreys