'the union of knower and known'. — Wayfarer

Yes, the unity of two as one. But there is no unity without there being two and not just one.

It is interpreted very differently in different cultures — Wayfarer

Indeed. This is what Aristotle calls Plato's "indeterminate dyad, which includes the dyad 'same and other'.

Each side stands both together with and apart from the other. There is not one without the other.
Ultimately, there is neither ‘this or that’ but ‘this and that’.
The Whole is not reducible to One. The whole is indeterminate.

As quoted above Zhuangzi says:

But exhausting the spirit trying to illuminate the unity of things without knowing that they are all the same is called “three in the morning.” What do I mean by “three in the morning”? When the monkey trainer was passing out nuts he said, “You get three in the morning and four at night.” The monkeys were all angry. “All right,” he said, “you get four in the morning and three at night.” The monkeys were all pleased. With no loss in name or substance, he made use of their joy and anger because he went along with them. So the sage harmonizes people with right and wrong and rests them on Heaven’s wheel. This is called walking two roads.

If we’re already one, can I say it? But since I’ve just said we’re one, can I not say it? The unity and my saying it make two. The two and their unity make three. — Fooloso4

In scholastic philosophy, the union of knower and known is seen as the process of assimilation which is foundational for the Thomist view of truth, where knowledge is seen as the conformity between the intellect (the knower) and the reality (the known). — Wayfarer

He gets this from Aristotle.

But the key point is the falling away of the sense of separateness or otherness which characterises the egological attitude. — Wayfarer

Well, that is one way of interpreting it. As you said, it is interpreted very differently in different cultures. In this way one becomes many.

Named, it is the mother of the myriad creatures.

(Daodejing, Book One, Chapter One)

I [take] Zhuangzi's advice, which I should add, is not as simple and straight forward as it may appear to be. We [monkeys] are in need of our monkey trainers.

The brackets [ ] are edits.

We are in need of our monkey trainers. — Fooloso4

I'm often painfully aware of that need.

He gets this from Aristotle. — Fooloso4

Right - and this is the sense in which Aquinas is a representative of the philosophia perennis. Don't let the fact that it is interpreted differently in different cultures obscure the reality that these are differing interpretations of something fundamental to the human condition, and something which I think has largely dropped from philosophical discourse since Descartes.

We are in need of our monkey trainers. — Fooloso4

I came back to edit this. It should be we monkeys ..

Aquinas is a representative of the philosophia perennis. — Wayfarer

That is one way of looking at it, but not the way I look at it. As I see it, unlike Aquinas, Aristotle offers far more questions that answers.

something fundamental to the human condition — Wayfarer

I suspect we have very different ideas about what that might be. Rather than obscure it, I think it shows it.

:100: You'll like this, if you haven't seen it already. — Wayfarer

Great video, thanks

Science is a process of selective limitation.
— Pantagruel
Please clarify. Examples would be helpful. — 180 Proof

The entirety of Collingwood's book Speculum Mentis deals with the sense in which scientific knowledge is a process of selective abstraction from the reality of concrete facts, whose breadth, depth, and meaning all surpass the limits of scientific knowledge. I couldn't really put it any better than he does:

The scientist wants actual fact to behave as if it were a mere example of some abstract law; but it is never simply this, and the elements he has deliberately ignored upset all his calculations. He then calls the fact irrational, or contingent, meaning unintelligible to him because too solid and hard to be forced into his moulds, too heavy for his scales, too full of its own concrete logic to listen to his abstractions.
(Collingwood, Speculum Mentis, p. 227)

Sounds a lot like Adorno's Hegelianism.

↪Pantagruel Sounds a lot like Adorno's Hegelianism. — Jamal

Dialectic of Enlightenment is on my list for this year. I would do it next, but volume 4 of Dilthey's collected works has been calling me for some time. It's centres on Schleiermacher's hermeneutics and makes a great contextual background to the Collingwood I'm just finishing.

:cool:

Scientists study the effects that they are able to cause. — Pantagruel

When scientists measure the acceleration of gravity by letting a ball fall, did they cause that effect?

When scientists measure the acceleration of gravity by letting a ball fall, did they cause that effect? — Lionino

Well, yes, they dropped the ball. Experimentation is fundamentally interactive. Even at the limits of pure observation you have the observer effect.

That seems to be a moot point then. Obviously, whenever we see, touch, or hear anything, we are interacting with it. That seems to evoke some modification of concepts like the noumenon X phenomenon distinction, Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty, and "if a tree falls in a forest". Naturally, everything we investigate is changed by us in the process of doing so, but, besides the change, the effect we investigate also has a cause in the outside world. Science investigates that cause too. If we make a ball collides with another and model its behaviour, we can (and do) predict whenever it happens in nature.

They do. But I am not sure how much of that obvious warrants the claim that "science studies itself".
As for me, I am really not a fan of self-reference. Quite the hater, even.

but, besides the change, the effect we investigate also has a cause in the outside world. Science investigates that cause too. — Lionino

More to the point, science investigates that with respect to the chosen dimensions of the change, which was what I was emphasizing. Science is always an abstract and in some sense restricted perspective on what it knows (since it formalizes the abstraction process) to be a more comprehensive reality. So science should always be skeptically self-aware (at which point it becomes history, and finally philosophy, if you follow Collingwood's reasoning).

↪Lionino Well, I guess be careful not to reference yourself then? :sweat: — Vaskane

I guess that is kind of the point. When I reference myself, I am not truly referencing myself, which includes the act of reference, but "myself" from the past, which is a static entity, as opposed to the present self that is ever changing.

Not like this has much to do with the thread anyway.

More to the point, science investigates that with respect to the chosen dimensions of the change, which was what I was emphasizing. Science is always an abstract and in some sense restricted perspective on what it knows (since it formalizes the abstraction process) to be a more comprehensive reality. So science should always be skeptically self-aware (at which point it becomes history, and finally philosophy, if you follow Collingwood's reasoning). — Pantagruel

Honestly, I can't make sense of what is written here. We have several polysemic words strung together in three sentences, so there are potentially several meanings in what you said, and I can't tell which one it is that you intended.
If you recommend me a reading (that is not a whole book chapter), I would be able to understand it better.

Honestly, I can't make sense of what is written here. We have several polysemic words strung together in three sentences, so there are potentially several meanings in what you said, and I can't tell which one it is that you intended.
If you recommend me a reading (that is not a whole book chapter), I would be able to understand it better. — Lionino

I'm sorry that polysemy is proving such a challenge. Interestingly, Collingwood has something to say about this also:

To suppose that one word, in whatever context it appears, ought to mean one thing and no more, argues not an exceptionally high standard of logical accuracy but an exceptional ignorance as to the nature of language. (Speculum Mentis)

I'm not sure what the nature of the confusion is. The phenomena which form the basis of the operations of science exceed the dimensions of scientific study, a fact which is explicitly part of the scientific process, insofar as it advances by controlled experiment.

Could be. I'm no Nietzsche scholar. His writing always strikes a bombastic chord that distracts me.

I know I was being facetiou — Vaskane

I know, I like to be facetious by seriously replying to facetious comments. You see, it is quite meta.

I'm sorry that polysemy is proving such a challenge — Pantagruel

Well, naturally, if word X can mean A, B or C, and nothing about the context specifies which, and you make a sentence with several words like this, how do I know whether you mean Aβw or Bγz or Cαy?
I don't know what you mean by dimension, formalises the abstration process (itself being an abstract), comprehensively reality, and skeptically self-aware. These don't seem to be specific jargon of a philosophical tradition I am ignorant of; only semantically lax words that mean little.
When I say "The bike is going left" the meaning is more than clear, because we know what bike means and that left here means a direction, not a political affiliation.

To suppose that one word, in whatever context it appears, ought to mean one thing and no more, argues not an exceptionally high standard of logical accuracy but an exceptional ignorance as to the nature of language — Pantagruel

Well, he does not strike me as a linguist. This is clearly calling for ambiguity.

The phenomena which form the basis of the operations of science — Pantagruel

What are these phenomenons?

exceed the dimensions — Pantagruel

What are the dimensions of these phenomenons? Surely you don't mean length and width and depth, which is the typical meaning of dimesnion.

scientific study — Pantagruel

I am guessing that this is not supposed to mean anything different than just "science"?

It's a similar argument to Nietzsche's — Vaskane

You refer to "Truth and lies in a non-moral sense"?

It's a similar argument to Nietzsche's, which is why I can understand it. In fact it seems Collingwood and Nietzsche share many similar positions. — Vaskane

God, I hope not. That would make me much less interested in Nietzsche.

:up:



https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/861285

If we wish to study a thing, we are bound to select certain aspects of it., It is not possible for us to observe or to describe a whole piece of the world, or a whole piece of nature; in fact, not even the smallest whole piece may be so described, since all description is necessarily selective. — Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism

I.e. the poverty of (e.g. Collingwood's) quasi-Hegelian caricature of both history and science.

I.e. the poverty of (e.g. Collingwood's) quasi-Hegelian caricature of both history and science. — 180 Proof

So it isn't that you didn't understand what was being said (as was implied by your requests for clarification) but that you disagree with it. That's a poor way to conduct a dialog, pretending not to comprehend what you don't agree with. Very menial.

You made a claim, I requested evidence for it, not clarification. I understand perfectly well it's empty but gave you the chance to prove me wrong. So far, however, you haven't and, no doubt, you cannot because apparenrly you've no idea what you're talking about.

I characterized a perspective on the nature of scientific knowledge and its relation to philosophical knowledge, which was the explicit theme of the OP. It's a perspective with which you are very evidently well familiar. I think of all the juvenile memes I've ever seen, "prove me wrong" is probably the most juvenile. I'm not here to challenge your beliefs. Challenge your own beliefs.

Thanks for letting your true colours shine through so very brightly.

I'm not here to [think] challenge your beliefs. — Pantagruel

'Challenging beliefs' is what a site dedicated to philosophy terms dialectic. "Your true colors" are quite evident: mere dogma (of an unthinking pedant). I welcome all challenges to my ideas (in order to learn) which you are obviously too insecure (or vapid) to handle. Maybe you'd feel less threatened, Pantagruel, on sites like Reddit or X (Twitter). :sparkle:

I welcome all challenges to my ideas — 180 Proof

Do you though? "Prove me wrong" is a declaration of fixity of belief. It is entirely up to you to challenge your own beliefs. Ironically you yourself have elected to turn this into an ad hominem about yourself.

I stated my position clearly and within the framework of the OP. I have no idea what your position is because you don't state a positive position, only a negative one: prove me wrong. Not surprising, given your post history. Almost fourteen thousand posts and not a single discussion to your credit. You're nothing but a troll.

Reddit & X(Twitter) are calling you, dude.

What are the dimensions of these phenomenons? Surely you don't mean length and width and depth, which is the typical meaning of dimesnion. — Lionino

I'm concerned that you frequently fall back on very simplistic definitions. Any experiment takes place in a "phase space" whose "dimensions" correspond to aspects of the thing being studied and controlled. So a dimension is simply an identifiable aspect of a thing. The energy level of an electron shell of an atom of a particular element is one dimension of that thing.

As to the larger question, I'll again supply a quote: any object considered in abstraction from a mind which knows it is neither material nor mental, but an illusion, a false abstraction. (SM).

It's incontrovertible, undeniable, that scientific experiment explicitly requires the selective abstraction of a limited subset of the aspects of the reality being studied. It's not debatable, that is how it works, literally. In fact, because reality necessarily overflows this idealized characterization, it is often necessary to employ statistical methods to determine whether results which demonstrate variability (due to the possible influence of unknown factors) fall within defined ranges of accuracy.

So what is being studied is an amalgam, a synthesis of the mental and the material. Whatever the material might be in complete abstraction from the mental is a matter of pure speculation, since it will never be known in that way. That is all that this is saying. Which is why science ultimately has to accede to philosophy. Science is only one aspect of a more holistic reality, human existence. The study of the nature of which is philosophy.