Reads like instructions for going to the outhouse.

What matters is what makes you alive, and not just material, but emotional, intellectual and spiritual sustenance. It is not enough to merely be alive, we need to feel alive. If you feel alive your feelings, thoughts and actions will also be lively.

Each individual is unique, human diversity is great; so there are no universal rules governing what matters. The way and its struggle is different for each person, but the formula closest to being able to claim universality I can think of would be Nietzsche's "become who you are".

Well, yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. What does "but I'm not certain" actually mean? It might be that when we tease this out we are confronted with the conclusion that "I'm not certain" actually means "I don't know", in which case our initial assumption that we can have knowledge without being certain is mistaken, and that such cases were simply successful guesses (with or without some degree of justification). — Michael

Much earlier in this thread (I think it was this thread) I purported to draw a distinction between being certain and feeling certain, My thinking was that if knowledge is thought of as being JTB, then if I am justified in my belief, then my belief must be certain, and I said this because a justification must be true (that is truly a justification) or else how could we say that it counts as a justification? But then how can we know that a belief is justified, or on this view the same thing, certain?

In answer to that we might say that justification is a matter of feeling certain because I have ticked the conventional boxes when it comes to "having no good reason to doubt" or something like that, But then I could not be justified without feeling certain that I am justified, which doesn't see to allow for cases where I am justified in that sense of "having no good reason to doubt" but nonetheless do not feel justified. There doesn't seem to be any way to arrive at a clear conception of just what it is that constitutes justification.

Since all of this seems unsatisfactory, then perhaps that invokes the possibility that JTB is not a good formulation of what constitutes knowledge after all.

Are you saying it is hard to tell if there are multiple interpretations regarding a given concept? — Tom Storm

I hope you don't mind me interjecting here. The way I read it @fdrake seemed to be suggesting that there might be a true interpretation among all the others, but that it is difficult to tell which one is true or even if there is one that is true; which means it is difficult to tell if concepts are unstable in interpretation or not.

I was aware of the 'cast-iron-plant' persona, and tendency to inhabits dark lobbies, of the Aspidistra, but the rest is novel. some interesting thoughts.

You can recurse the procedure, asking if it's true that it's accurate, — fdrake

You can equally ask if it's accurate that it's true. It seems that all those terms; true, accurate, representative, right, "a good interpretation" all presuppose an actuality against which they represent the general idea of assessment. If there were no actuality there would nothing against which truth, accuracy, representation, rightness, and interpretations could be assessed.

Right, thanks, I haven't ever heard of it...until now. For me the Aspidistra is an attractive understory plant; I'm not that big on it as an indoor plant, in fact I don't much like indoor plants.

:ok:

Thanks for clarifying; it's a very long time since I read 1984 and to be honest even having being reminded, I don't remember the aspidistras...

It's funny how plants come in and out of fashion. I remember when the rubber tree (ficus elastica) was everywhere in the 1970's. It vanished for decades and suddenly came back (here anyway) as a kind of retro-chic-artisanal-hipster-indoor-irony-decoration. — Tom Storm

The disasters happen when they get too big for indoors and people put them outside in their pots near the house and forget about them. They transform into a giant tree with roots than can lift the footings and crack brick walls. Over the time I was operating as a landscaper I was contracted to remove a few different kinds of figs that had transcended the indoor environment.

"A kind of retro-chic-artisanal-hipster-indoor-irony-decoration" I like it! :lol:

I used to incorporate Aspidistra in some of my garden designs...they used to be readily available from wholesale nurseries. Now the "Cast Iron Plant" seems to be out of fashion, but I have no doubt there are many gardens that still sport them. They look awful if they get more than a modicum of sunlight, so be careful where you plant them if outdoors. I figured that since they must yet feature in many gardens, they must still be available privately, so I searched and bingo:
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-home-garden/nsw/aspidistra+plants/k0c18397l3008839
so if you are serious about acquiring one, then you can do so easily...

The idea of post-truth is so ambiguous because it can just be an excuse for the acceptance of falsity and dishonesty. — Jack Cummins

I don't see the idea of post-truth as ambiguous, but rather I see it as incoherent. Nietzsche somewhere said that thinking what enhances the richness of life is more important than thinking what is true. They don't need to be the same; some truths may be debilitating.

In any case this idea of life-enhancement has nothing to do with so-called "post-truth". The thing about truth is that in all but the most prosaic cases we don't know what is true, but only what seems most plausible in light of what we already believe.

These days even the notion of an expert is highly contentious. And setting aside philosophical questions about epistemology for a moment, it does seem that people chose the experts or commentators who provide the scaffolding in support of their preexisting biases or beliefs. — Tom Storm

I think this is probably right, but it also seems to be the case that there are "official" expert spokespeople in the mainstream media, at least. It seems to be mainly in the areas of economicx and (of course) politics and political issues that conflicting views get presented there, and people align their choices with there preferred political views. It doesn't seem to be so much the case in science.

I am still wondering about factors like QAnon and how it is that this emerging religion and untruths told in its wake seems to be attractive to people. Is it what happens when people no longer trust a mainstream narrative? Or is it a concatenative end result of economic and social factors, like diminished education, lack of opportunity, primitive forms of Christianity and a spread in magical thinking as a kind of protest against scientism? — Tom Storm

I think it's probably generally a mixture of all the factors you mention here,with some or others of them being predominate in individual cases. Although I would say it is more a case that there is an element of protest against science than scientism, since I think most of the people caught up in QAnon and other conspiracy theories probably wouldn't have a clear idea of the distinction between science and scientism.

That said, there are probably those who do get the distinction, but think that science as an institution is so corrupted by vested interests that it cannot, as it is presented to the public, be trusted. And I would say there is an element, but only an element, of truth in that. The tendency of those who think without nuance is to totalize the recognition of some corruption to think in terms of absolute corruption; it's facile thinking, that is it's the common mode of "tribal" thinking ("you're either for us or agin us").

But when I think about this post-honesty/post truth issue I find myself wondering more and more about the average person and what they believe and why. Is the accuracy of reporting a criterion of value anymore? Is evidence important? Does something have to comport with actuality in order to be believable? For a lot of people the answer seems to be no. Are people more credulous now than they were in the mid or early 20th century? Is there some other factor going on in relation to what people will believe? — Tom Storm

These are interesting questions. My initial thought is that in relation to almost everything we call knowledge and information people do not have access, or at least easy access, to the evidence. Scientific knowledge is a prime example, but also what is presented in the media as news. We have an attitude of reliance on the informedness and honesty of the "experts" in the various fields of inquiry, knowledge and information.

" Does something have to comport with actuality in order to be believable?". I think this is the nub of the issue; in most cases we simply don't know and cannot find out, for example, whether the news we are served up is true. Probably people believe what they want to believe or what is presented by those whose ostensible values they identify with, or maybe they believe someone because they like the look of their face, they think they look honest or down to earth, and so on.

Or in the case of conspiracy theorists, they don't believe anything mainstream, because they don't trust any authority and they think everything it presents must be false due to the whole system being rigged and corrupt; but they believe one another just because they share the distrust and rejection of authority. So absurd memes proliferate in the petri dish of disaffection with establishment.

"Are people more credulous now than they were in the mid or early 20th century? Is there some other factor going on in relation to what people will believe?".

Possibly there is more anti-establishment sentiment around these days.

I don't understand how you see truth as being so simple because I see it as complicated in most instances. I am interested to know how you define truth, because it may be that we define it differently. — Jack Cummins

The common, perhaps it could be said universal, understanding of truth is simply "accordance with actuality". That's the basic idea, but of course in practice it's not always and everywhere so easy to see just what is and is not in accordance with actuality.

I think the notion of "post-truth" is a bit misleading; it's more a case of post-honesty, of promoting beliefs which have little or no justification, or of just plain lying in order to sway or deceive others to serve an agenda.

Oh damn. I never once noticed that, until you just brought it up. What a dumbass.
(Note to self: make more effort to distance braincase from anal cavity) — Mww

:lol:

The rest...all good. — Mww

:cool:

Easy part first....cross-sensory collaboration is a physiological impossibility, and inter-subjective collaboration is impossible within the reference frame of its occurrence. We do inter-subjectively collaborate, which is at that point merely a euphemism for post hoc relative agreement. — Mww

I think I can see your reasoning in the rest of your post not quoted above. If I understand you aright, you are saying that since our very notion of intuition (intuition in the Kantian sense, of course) is constructed from reflection on sensory experience, it would thus be contradictory to attempt to apply the notion of intuiton in a context, pure thought, where it would lose its sense. Something like that?

Regarding what is quoted above, I was talking about inter-subjective and cross sensory corroboration, not collaboration. So, my idea is that our sensory intuitions can be corroborated by others, and it is on the basis of that corroboration, that we posit the existence of external objects, and are able to distinguish between perceptions of real objects and hallucinations. Cross sensory corroboration also allows us to confirm our sensory intuitions. Say, for example I think I see a tree; I can walk up to it and touch it, put my arms around it, tap it and hear its dull resonance, climb it, cut a limb off and so on, none of which would be possible if the tree were an illusion.

Neither of these procedures would be possible with so-called intellectual intuitions; they would thus have the same status, epistemologically speaking, as hallucinations. So, to get back to the OP, truth seems to be an essentially inter-subjective idea involving common experience of what is external to us. Even our a priori understandings come only from reflection on, and only have their sense in, our culturally mediated experience of a common world.

As to the distinction between the ding an sich and the noumenon, I see a distinction in that the ding an sich is the empirical object, which is known only by images and impressions, and thus never wholly, but only in glimpses, so to speak. In that sense I understand the ding an sich to be a kind of formal or logical collective representation. That is we think that the external object, which we know only through sensory contacts, and thus only partially and as it appears to us, must also have its own existence; an existence of which we cannot form any substantive conception. I think it is in this sense of the external object as being, in its own existence, wholly alien to our experience, that we think of noumena.

So, it's not a matter of my not being convinced by your explanations, but of my failure to understand clearly where your explanation differs from mine, as outlined above. I think you understand Kant much more thoroughly than I do, so there must be something I'm not getting. I also acknowledge that what I outlined above is more my own thoughts than it is an attempt to correctly interpret Kant (a task which, judging from the disagreements among Kant scholars I have encountered in my fairly limited reading, is not so easy).

You meant “don‘t constitute evidence” right? — Srap Tasmaner

Right, they don't constitute evidence for anything, if the premises are not certain to be true, but they do constitute proof within the context of the premises or provided the premises are true, although they don't prove anything beyond what the premises do in any case, but merely unpack what might at first not be obvious..

You just observe evidence with no inference? — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course evidence is such on account of inference; inductive or abductive inferences are not certain, and hence do not constitute proof. Deductive inferences if valid are certain, so they do constitute proof.

I don't see that you have a point. Justified, in general does mean proven. — Metaphysician Undercover

Justified cannot mean proven. When it comes to empirical beliefs, nothing we consider ourselves justified in believing can be proven. The provenance of proof is in logic and mathematics, not in inductive reasoning.

As I said, I do not respect this separation. Knowing-that, or propositional knowledge is just a special form of knowing-how. Using language and logic is a type of acting, so this is a type of know-how. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven't disputed that, but it does not follow that all kinds of know-how are forms of knowing-that, which is why I have been trying to point out to you that there are kinds of know-how that have nothing to do with justification, truth or even belief.

I cannot find anything to disagree with there, but I still cannot say that I'm entirely clear on your view of just what the distinction is, according to Kant, between noumenon and ding an sich. Maybe I'll have to go back to reading the CPR again (when I can find the time).

Regarding the rejection of the idea of intellectual intuition, would you say that is on account of the impossibility of inter-subjective and cross-sensory corroboration?

I follow the traditional formula, knowledge is a particular type of belief, justified and true. Justified is having been proven, and true is honest (that's my difference, how I define "true). Generally, being intentional shows knowledge, because we do things in set ways (justified beliefs), and we honestly believe in what we are doing. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think you can claim to follow the traditional formulation, because your understanding of what constitutes justification and truth is not in accord with the usual understanding. The usual understanding does not demand "proof" to underpin justification, and does not consider truth to be dependent on human intentions, honest or dishonest.

Knowing -that is a type of knowing-how, just like knowledge is a type of belief. — Metaphysician Undercover

JTB is a definition of propositional knowledge, not know-how. Even if propositional knowledge could be, at a stretch, considered to be a kind of know-how; there are many other kinds of know-how which have nothing to do with truth or justification.

Anyway....this is far too complex to get into here, because the concept is spread out over so much stuff. And sorry this doesn’t help much. — Mww

Thanks, grist for the mill; and I don't expect anything to be cut and dried when it comes to Kant. It seems to me the transcendental/ empirical dichotomy opens up paths for whole suites of different ways of traversing the territory. What more could we ask of good philosophy than such fertile ambiguity? Unless we are one of those seeking a sterile clarity.

That's a good passage, very much in accord with how I view it. I bought Rouse's book, but haven't found time, or space in my reading agenda, to begin it yet. I'm looking forward to it. :smile:

Then, how do, or could, we know that something is knowledge, according to you? (A concise, short-winded answer will do just fine). — Janus


Your question is misleading. We do not judge if something is knowledge or not, because we do not see, or sense things which might be judged as knowledge. What I think is that "knowledge" is something which we infer the existence of, through people's actions.

As I said earlier. "knowledge" consists of principles used for willed actions. If a person acts intentionally then the person has knowledge. What is required is to judge actions, and if they are judged as intentional, then the person has knowledge. — Metaphysician Undercover

When I wrote "something" I did not have sense objects in mind; I think that should have been obvious. So your objection that "we do not see, or sense things which might be judged as knowledge" is irrelevant.

My question was concerning how to distinguish between belief and knowledge. Beliefs can be understood to be "principles used for willed actions". So "being intentional" cannot be a sufficient criterion for saying that someone has knowledge as opposed to merely having belief.

Bear in mind I am not concerned with "know-how" but with 'knowing-that' (knowing how to do anything does not seem to have anything to do with justified true belief). So, do you have a way to distinguish between knowledge and belief, or do you reject the distinction?

Close enough. To get closer, change “if not” to “but not”. — Mww

OK, if I understand you correctly, then you would say the ding an sich, being the empirical object, is empirically real? The usual interpretation seems to be that it, like the noumenon, is thought by Kant to be transcendentally ideal.

It has occurred to me in the past that there seems to be a sense in which the empirical object, from our point of view, understood to be a whole and unified entity, and since it is not known as such by us, but is known only as sensorially acquired images and impressions (themselves empirically real), is transcendentally ideal. The flip side being that the noumenon would be transcendentally real (in itself, but not to us, obviously).

By Andrew's definition, we can't honestly call anything knowledge, because we can't really know whether it actually is knowledge or not. I don't agree, that's why I argued against that. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then, how do, or could, we know that something is knowledge, according to you? (A concise, short-winded answer will do just fine).

Thanks, if I can find the time, I'll take a look at the David Lewis paper.

@Isaac @Moliere

I believe there is a Kantian distinction between the "thing in itself" and noumena; the former is a purely formal or logical requirement to the effect that if there is something as perceived there must be a corresponding thing as it is in itself. .'Noumena' I take to signify the general hidden or invisible nature of what is affecting us pre-cognitively such as to manifest as perceptual phenomena. — Janus


Thanks. So 'noumena' might be closer to hidden states in that respect, but I'd be interested to hear what you think of what Moliere says about the problem of causality. Hidden states are definitely considered causal. — Isaac

I think it is an inescapable entailment in Kant's philosophy that the noumenal gives rise to the phenomenal. or it could be said that phenomena are supervenient on noumena. Can we avoid thinking of this supervenience as some kind of being-caused? Even in relation to phenomenal experience, causation is postulated, not ever directly experienced except perhaps in the case of our own bodies acting upon and being acted upon, and even that seems arguable.

As I understand it Kant believes the idea of causation is essential to making sense of what we experience, and since that is the proper ambit of its applicability, he sees it as being incoherent to seek to apply it to what we cannot experience.

Thanks, I'm not sure I'm following everything you're saying about the difference between a noumenon and a ding an sich, but you do appear to be saying that intuition of the objects of the senses (considered as wholes) is impossible, which would seem to suggest equating the empirical object with the ding an sich, if not the noumenon?

So infallibility is not a condition of knowledge, whereas truth is. Another way of putting it is that Cartesian certainty isn't a condition of knowledge. — Andrew M

But isn't truth infallible in the sense of its being incapable of being false? Your reference to Cartesian certainty suggests to me that we may be talking at cross proposes, so I'm not proposing that possessing knowledge means that one knows one is infallibly correct, but that the knowledge we possess, if it is to be knowledge, must be infallible.

I have wondered whether it ought to be said that we possess knowledge in cases where we cannot be certain, that is when we do not know that we know, but that is a whole other can of worms.

Ok. I would rather think the ding an sich as merely an ontological necessity; if there is an affect on us by a thing, the thing-in-itself is given immediately by it. The only difference between a thing and a thing-in-itself.....is us. So your notion of formal and logical requirement is too strong, methinks. — Mww

I seem to remember reading Kant where he says that if there are representations, then there must be something that is represented. I had interpreted this as being seen by Kant as a logical entailment. You seem to be saying it is an ontological entailment, so I'm wondering if there is a difference.

It doesn’t hurt anything to think noumena as you say, but that wouldn’t the Kantian distinction. Simply put, phenomena arise legitimately according to rules. Noumena arise illegitimately by overstepping the rules. Noumena are possible iff what we consider as rules by which our intelligence works, are themselves unfounded, which is of course, quite impossible to prove. Which leaves them as entirely possible to another kind of intelligence altogether. Who knows....maybe that stupid lion thinks in terms of non-sensuous intuition, such that for his kind noumena are the standard. Too bad we can’t just ask him, huh? — Mww

This is quite a novel way (for me at least) to think of noumena, If the ding an sich is an "unknowable X", unknowable in the sense that what it is in itself cannot be known, then I had thought of noumena as simply the general unknowable. This because the thing in itself is still thought as a thing, but a thing considered not as it is for us, but in itself, whereas I took noumena to signify what is unknowable, beyond even being thought of as thing or things. However, I am no Kant scholar, merely someone who has read some of his CPR and secondary sources about it; and it's also been a while. I'm more trying to tease out what are the implications of Kant's ideas, what we might think is implicit in them rather than explicit.

So, I am struggling to understand what you mean by this: "Noumena arise illegitimately by overstepping the rules. Noumena are possible iff what we consider as rules by which our intelligence works, are themselves unfounded, which is of course, quite impossible to prove."

It is too bad we can't ask him!

Infallibility isn't a condition of knowledge, as ordinarily defined and used. — Andrew M

f it is later decided that your "knowledge" was wrong, then that just is to decide that you didn't have knowledge, as ordinarily understood. Thus we have a translation between ordinary usage and your way of speaking. — Andrew M

There seems to be a contradiction here. The second quoted passage seems to be saying that if what we thought was knowledge turns out not to be true, then it was never knowledge in the first place. Doesn't it follow that knowledge (as distinct from what we might think is knowledge) cannot be false; and thus that it is infallible?

No, you do. Or at least I don't feel I've won anything.

No, it isn't. — Banno

Yes it is. See I can play that stupid game too.

Neural networks do not use propositions. Hence, some explanation will be needed if they are "description-dependent". — Banno

Now this is in agreement with the idea of noumena, which are understood to be affecting us, but not in any way dependent on descriptions (conceptualization), nor in any way amenable to being described.

Fair enough; you've so little else to work with. — Banno

Yes, you have given so little to work with when it comes to just what you are wanting to say, beyond bare assertion and aspersion, Remember I've claimed no expertise regarding what the idea of "hidden states" entails. That's what I'm trying to find out in order to compare it with what I know the idea of noumena entails; which is basically that we are pre-cognitively affected, and that we have no conceptual purchase on what constitutes that pre-cognitive affect. The "hidden" in 'hidden states' seems to be suggesting a similar idea.

As such they can be an implication of a data model, whereas any thing-in-itself would be ontological? But as I say, I'm not sure as I don't have a deep understanding of noumena. — Isaac

@Mww

I believe there is a Kantian distinction between the "thing in itself" and noumena; the former is a purely formal or logical requirement to the effect that if there is something as perceived there must be a corresponding thing as it is in itself. .'Noumena' I take to signify the general hidden or invisible nature of what is affecting us pre-cognitively such as to manifest as perceptual phenomena.

I can't speak for Isaac, but I think you have my position pretty much right, except that I would say that we cannot help in ordinary discourse having the hidden state count as a, for example, kettle. Whether we call it a kettle, a hidden state or a noumenon, though, is a matter of what "language game"; we happen to be playing and is a matter of stipulation, not of fact.

What does seem to be a fact is that we are pre-cognitively affected and that we have, and can have, no conceptual grasp of that process. This is where I lose patience with Banno; as he seems to be simply asserting, ad nauseum, that it is a matter of fact that it is a kettle. But then I'm not sure what is behind his apparent position, since he offers no detailed reasoning.

Why the insults? — Banno

I find it amusing to supplement passive insult with active?

If your use here of "hidden states" is supposed to be the same as Isaac's, then is seems you have made a category error. — Banno

With no explanation of what you take Isaac's conception of "hidden states" to be...see the problem? I'm trying to draw you into examining your ideas...

It's funny; I pictured you crying in your beard, but no matter, as the saying goes: "ignorance is bliss".

:up:

You have nothing to say to my response?

As to whether or not the hidden states are hidden from perception, I would say that depends on how you define perception. If we are affected pre-cognitively would those affects count as perception? If you say yes, then surely you would have to then draw distinction between those pre-cognitive "perceptions" and conscious concept-mediated perception, no?

The "hidden state" being "hidden" doesn't necessarily make the claim that the hidden state's "content", whatever it is, is "hidden" from perception or symbolisation since it's used in those processes AFAIK (that needs to be demonstrated or interpreted out of it). That's like placing a semantic or perceptual veil over reality. — fdrake

How we model whatever we are sensorially affected by is hidden, since there is no way to definitively link our conceptualizations with what is pre-conceptual. There would only be a "veil" if we assumed that our models are somehow distorting what they are modeling; which would be an entirely unwarranted conclusion, since we have no way of comparing our models with what is being modeled.

Can you explain the similarities?

One is a mathematical simplification, the other a philosophical confusion. — Banno

Yeah, I didn't think you could explain it; just a tendentious characterization, which is the sort of thing I've come to expect from you. It's a shame; you could probably do so much better.

The "hidden state" has nothing to do with noumena. But that confusion is where this thread has wandered. — Banno

Easy to assert: can you explain the difference?

By the way; you're jumping to conclusions as usual: I haven't claimed they are the same; I'm asking about the difference.

Yeah. I think there is a distinction between the two; the neural models interact with the kettle, the noumenon is either a limit on possible thought or a cognitive grasp of an object. I imagine our suspicions are the same! — fdrake

This doesn't seem to be saying anything cogent; can you explain further?

It would be an easy, yet baleful mistake if philosophers were to take the developments of neural science and simply interpret tham in Kantian terms. I suspect that this is what is happening here. — Banno

What do you see as being a significant difference between the "hidden states" that give rise to our models or collective representations, and the noumena that are represented as phenomena? Or perhaps @Isaac, if he agrees with you, can answer that question in a more informed way than you can.