I haven't seen any way the normative question can be foreclosed on. And indeed, if it was foreclosed on entirely, and we said there were absolutely no better or worse epistemic methods, that seems to me to be courting a sort of nihilism. But neither does the existence of the normative question require "contextlessness" to address. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is exactly why I moved to anchor the normative question to relations among or transitions between given epistemes (worldviews, frameworks, ideologies, whatever).

People move from St Louis to Kansas City. But if you live in St Louis, how much do you really know about Kansas City? How do you decide? Can you see Kansas City as a native does before you move? Do you need to? It's well known that an outsider might see what's good about a place that the locals take for granted, but an outsider might not see at all what the locals love about a place. Is there available to everyone, no matter where they live, a reliable method of judging the value of a place? Is where you live now relevant at all?

My plan for making the normative question more tractable was, instead of asking whether St Louis is better than Kansas City (or, in analogy to the science issue, whether they are the same kind of city), to ask, if I live in St Louis, should I move or stick? And the same if I live in Kansas City.

Yeah, I think we're falling into Enlightenment categories. I don't think anyone here favors Enlightenment rationality (except perhaps when @J channels Nagel).

The difficulty, given my preferences, is that, while much of later 20th century philosophy is a rejection of the "view from nowhere," it still continues to use it as a sort of dialectical pole, and in fact, to accomplish this, it tends to project the preferences of early-20th century empiricists back onto the whole of philosophical history. So, the position is rejected, but it still "looms large," and it becomes difficult to step out of its shadow. Indeed, I think helpful elements of the past get occluded by this formidable shadow.



Yeah, I probably should have addressed that, I just wanted to clarify the idea behind the initial disjunct of "all narratives are true or not all narratives are true."

I'll have to think about that analogy. I can see how it is apt in some ways, particularly the difficulty of knowing a locale before going there, but I also think that practical reason (better or worse) differs from theoretical reason (more or less true/accurate) in substantial ways, that an analogy might have to reflect.

To be put it very shortly, if knowledge is our grasp of being, truth the "adequacy of thought to being," then I am not sure if the idea of many different cities works. Would this denote many different beings (plural)? (Or I suppose just different places to do your research from, but then there seems to be a "progress" element that we need to account for; the difficulty is that "better" seems to open up cases where something is better for reasons unrelated to epistemology and knowledge).

That is, given the assumption of one being, one world we are all a part of, I might want to adjust it to something like there being many roads to the same location. For instance, driving to the Grand Canyon. But the Grand Canyon is also huge and looks very different from each rim, or from the bottom, or from Horseshoe Bend, etc. So there is both a question of which roads even lead there, which are best to travel on (which might vary depending on your "vehicle"), and which angel you'll be seeing the Canyon from. Presumably, once you are "closer" it should be easier to get to other close views.

Maybe this works, maybe not. I suppose one benefit here is that someone is always somewhere in proximity to the Canyon, although it may be possible to drive in the wrong direction. Because it does seem to me that, in being normative, there has to be a sort of "progress" in any analogy, although I suppose cities being "better" might capture this. The case where all locations are potential destinations would seem to me to suggest a sort of anti-realism, or at least something in conflict with most notions of epistemology as goal-directed along a particular axis. I am not sure about multiple discrete destinations though, what that would have to imply about knowledge.

There is also to consider the Hegel-Fukuyama-"Whig history" descriptive element to consider. More effective epistemologies lead to greater economic, technological, and military success. These promote the survival of the "media" that epistemologies exist in. Certainly, people buy into this. The PRC's decision to allow liberalization in China was based on the idea that it would increase safety by fostering the technological and economic growth needed for a strong military, and thus state and cultural survival.

That's a sort of evolutionary thesis that could also be framed in information theoretic terms. But of course, evolution doesn't preclude the formation of genetic diseases either.

There are problems there, but I think it gets something right.

many roads to the same location — Count Timothy von Icarus

I like the roads. That's nice. But of course the real trouble is that we must choose not knowing where each road leads. They all lead somewhere, but is it where we want to go?

And the two metaphors combine naturally: how do you know if some place is a place you'd like to go until you've been there? Do you decide based on what other people have said about it or what?

A valiant attempt at bringing some reason into the discussion.

The moving cities analogy is interesting. I think we can take it a bit further. Let's consider the question, "What's it like to live in Kansas City?" This frames the issue as if there were only one way to live in Kansas City. but of course what it is like to live in Kansas City is not a thing, but a series of choices and interactions - do you stay in your flat, or do you go out and explore the parks? Do you join a choir, or a bike club? Do you get to know your neighbours, or keep to your old relationships?

The analogy holds when we consider changes in fundamental beliefs. it's not about what is the case, so much as what you do next. As such there is no answer to "What's it like to live in Kansas City?" apart from what one choses to do in Kansas City.

There's another aspect that is quite interesting. I would like to go back to this:

Are you seriously advancing the epistemic position that no one is ever wrong but that the two options would be: "yes I agree," and "I don't know?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

Assuming this is honest, it shows how very, very far Tim is from understanding what I have been suggesting. It would be somewhat extraordinary for someone to suppose that I would argue that "no one is ever wrong", given that almost all my posts are about how folk are wrong! I think many would see it as my modus operandi!

How can Tim be so thoroughly mistaken? Do we supose his case is different to others here, who display less intelligence but more ill-will and aggression? Is Tim in the position of someone in St. Louis trying to describe what it is like to live in Kansas City? Is he just saying that there are better Jazz clubs in St Louis? (Never having been to either, I'm guessing...)

If you are not interested in Jazz clubs, such an observation is irrelevant.

Which city is preferable depends on what you are doing.

So it appears that Tim wants to do something fundamentally different to @J, @Moliere and I. Perhaps he's building from what he supposes are firm foundations, rather than looking around to see how things are.

But our differences might not be about what is the case, and so not the sort that might be brought out by logical analysis. They are rather differences about what we want.

@Tom Storm, more along your lines of psychology rather than metaphysics.

Could be. I haven't been following closely. I'm no connoisseur of metaphysical models like some here. But I have to admit, I no longer really understand what this discussion is about. It seems to be drifting into a culture war of ill will, like so many other threads.

Would you be able to summarise what the two camps are arguing? I'm assuming there's two.

From this perspective, he does not occupy a standpoint but has relinquished all standpoint. — Wayfarer

The view from nowhere? But don't you object to that?

They hold that the Buddha is perfectly disinterested: having eradicated every trace of craving, aversion, and delusion, he sees without distortion or agenda. — Wayfarer

To be disinterested in the suffering of others doesn't appear all that admirable.

I don't think anyone here favors Enlightenment rationality…. — Leontiskos

I do, iff considered as pre-Brentano, re: late 19th century, hardly the apex of the Enlightenment paradigm.

But you probably meant by “anyone here”, conversational participants, rather than just some guy raising his hand from the back of the room.

I haven't been following closely. — Tom Storm

You haven't missed much. No, I won't presume to summarise Tim's views. And yes, the thread is drifting into the culture wars, which is a bit of a shame. But perhaps my point has been made and carried.

The moving cities analogy is interesting. I think we can take it a bit further. Let's consider the question, "What's it like to live in Kansas City?" — Banno

Yes, I like this too. I'll see if I can develop it even further.

Some places we might need to visit, or to give an account of what they're like, will be very different from Kansas City. KC is diverse, big, full of possibilities. No single account is likely to do it justice. But suppose the destination is a narrow series of underground tunnels leading to a hidden treasure. In such a case, the options -- and our reasons for being there -- are much more curtailed. It's not unreasonable to say, "Look, we're here for the treasure, and if there's another 'way it's like' to be here, we probably don't care much about it." Moreover, we might have a treasure map, and to ignore this map, assuming we trust it, would be not "diverse" but foolish, given the circumstances.

So the idea is that there is not only a diversity of possibilities within a given city, but a real diversity of kinds of cities/destinations. Some are ideal for encouraging a variety of interpretations, others all but demand a rigid metric.

The cry of distress, then, is "But how do we tell the difference?! How do we know if our practice or project is more like multifarious KC, or narrow Treasure Tunnel?" I think the answer is, "You may not know beforehand. You may have to look and see. But being unsure is not the same as being utterly in the dark, or forced to act at random. Nor does it mean that, if neither of these extremes is quite suited, we can find no middle ground."

They hold that the Buddha is perfectly disinterested: having eradicated every trace of craving, aversion, and delusion, he sees without distortion or agenda.
— Wayfarer
To be disinterested in the suffering of others doesn't appear all that admirable. — Banno

See the monk with dysentery. The Buddha upbraids the monks for not caring for one of their number who has dysentery and personally attends to him. "If you don't tend to one another, who then will tend to you? Whoever would tend to me, should tend to the sick.”

As far as ‘the view from nowhere’ - there’s a world of difference between scientific objectivity and philosophical detachment, subject of this essay:

The difficulty with the strictly objectivist approach is that it leaves no room at all for the subject— for us, in fact, as human beings. Viewed objectively, instead, h.sapiens is a fortuitous by–product of the same essentially mindless process that causes the movements of the planets; we’re one species amongst many others.

"If you don't tend to one another, who then will tend to you? Whoever would tend to me, should tend to the sick.” — Wayfarer

Then he was not disinterested - wanting someone to look after him.

See the problem?

But being unsure is not the same as being utterly in the dark, or forced to act at random. — J

This seems to be the key. From what Tim has said, he does not agree. I supose he might say that you need to know what you are looking for before you go exploring. But why?

Se the problem? — Banno

Disinterested doesn't mean not caring. It's disinterest in the sense that a judicial officer or doctor is disinterested - has no personal interest.

In fact, the Pāli texts repeatedly describe the Buddha as having abandoned all views — Wayfarer

From this perspective, he does not occupy a standpoint but has relinquished all standpoint. — Wayfarer

Disinterested doesn't mean not caring. — Wayfarer

To care is to adopt a view.

Further, how could one ever know that one sees

“things as they truly are.” — Wayfarer

Perhaps I see things as they truly are, now, without the years of meditation - who's to say? SHould i take your word for it?

Moreover, doesn't your view require that our point of view is always situated, always subjective? I the Buddha's view then, still subjective?

Take pity on us - can you see how difficult it is to reconcile your account with logic? Presumably, the logic must be in error...?

if I live in St Louis, should I move or stick? And the same if I live in Kansas City. — Srap Tasmaner

Nice. This remains unaddressed.

Perhaps it's particulars that decide the issue - a new job, a cheaper house, being near family.

And here maybe the analogy breaks. Not sure.

This seems to be the key. — Banno

And also, the idea that some circumstances do invite a rule-bound, rigorous, deductive approach -- and others do not, and many are in between. I'm even happy with saying that, in some cases, we might know beforehand, or at least have a pretty good idea. And . . . wait for it . . . in other cases we do not!

the Buddha's view then, still subjective? — Banno

'The Buddha' is not an individual person as such. In the Pali texts recounting the Gautama's final days, he talks about how his body is old and worn 'like an old cart'. In those contexts, he refers to himself in the first person 'I am getting old'. But when conveying the teaching, he uses the impersonal term 'tathagatha'. (Quite what the identity of the Buddha is, is dealt with in an encounter with a questioner who demands an answer, 'are you a god' (no) 'a demon' (no) 'a man' (no - I am awakened, i.e. Buddha.))

The point I'm trying to press, is that scientific objectivity is still embedded in an intellectual context, which embodies particular assumptions and axioms, notably about the nature of what can be understood and measured, what is amenable and tractable to precise measurement and quantification. Within that context, the scientist seeks to ameliorate all trace of personal proclivity, confirmation bias, and so on, so as to derive a result or frame an hypothesis which is confirmable by others. It is fundamentally third-person in nature.

Philosophical detachment is different. It shares many characteristics with scientific objectivity but with a crucial difference. While both aim to transcend personal biases and arrive at an understanding of what is truly so, philosophical detachment seeks its goal through self-transcendence rather than by bracketing out the subjective altogether.

To understand this distinction, first differentiate the subjective from the personal. The subjective refers to the structures of experience through which reality is disclosed to consciousness. In an important sense, all sentient beings are subjects of experience. Subjectivity — or perhaps ‘subject-hood’ — encompasses the shared and foundational aspects of perception and understanding. The personal, by contrast, pertains to the idiosyncratic desires, biases, and attachments of a specific individual. Philosophical detachment requires rising above, or seeing through, these personal inclinations, but not through denying or bracketing out the entire category of subjective understanding. And that's because we ourselves are agents, not objects - we're not the species h.sapiens as objects for science, but living beings who are inextricably involved in our lives.

So there's a real distinction there.

Assuming this is honest, it shows how very, very far Tim is from understanding what I have been suggesting. It would be somewhat extraordinary for someone to suppose that I would argue that "no one is ever wrong", given that almost all my posts are about how folk are wrong! I think many would see it as my modus operandi!

How can Tim be so thoroughly mistaken? Do we supose his case is different to others here, who display less intelligence but more ill-will and aggression? Is Tim in the position of someone in St. Louis trying to describe what it is like to live in Kansas City? Is he just saying that there are better Jazz clubs in St Louis? (Never having been to either, I'm guessing...)

What is the point of me exchanging several long PMs on this where I clarified this point to you in detail and asked you for clarification in each of them, refusing to offer up that clarification, and then posting this here?

I am still confused about what your point on undecided statements was. I have explained though precisely why it seemed to me that the counter example you were pursuing was bizarre.

And note that this entire line of posting was started by your conflation of "all narratives are true or they aren't" that is "all x are y or not all x are y," as being equivalent "each x is either y or not-y." That was supposedly "my theory." Whereas, what has offended you, is merely my asking an incredulous question. But I was incredulous because the counter example for having "missed" the undecided option for "all statements are true or not all statements are true," would be the strange objection that one has unfairly ruled out the possibility that "all statements are neither true nor not true." Likewise, even if I had said "each statement is either true or false," the objection that I have missed the undecided option only seems to have purchase in this context if it is inappropriate to leave the door open on their being no false statements.

I don't really know what the point was supposed to have been otherwise, hence my asking.

Becasue none of that explains the mystery of how you could suggest something so distant from what was actually said.

Which you continue to do.

Most puzzling.

A way this thread might have gone would have been to consider hinge propositions and such. Is it that some things must to be held certain, in order to get started? It seems so, and this relates to our conversation about what "counts as..."

That would be a far more edifying approach than the present woful mess.

philosophical detachment seeks its goal through self-transcendence rather than by bracketing out the subjective altogether. — Wayfarer

Sure.

Supose that someone claims to have achieved "self-transcendence". How could we check?

Supose that someone claims to have achieved "self-transcendence". How could we check? — Banno

They'd be the ones charging money for intensives... (sorry, a cheap shot).

I had the same thought...

Perhaps we could look for a point of agreement that would allow a rest.

Do we agree that one can coherently say "I don't know"?

The moving cities analogy is interesting. I think we can take it a bit further. Let's consider the question, "What's it like to live in Kansas City?" This frames the issue as if there were only one way to live in Kansas City. but of course what it is like to live in Kansas City is not a thing, but a series of choices and interactions - do you stay in your flat, or do you go out and explore the parks? Do you join a choir, or a bike club? Do you get to know your neighbours, or keep to your old relationships?

The analogy holds when we consider changes in fundamental beliefs. it's not about what is the case, so much as what you do next. As such there is no answer to "What's it like to live in Kansas City?" apart from what one choses to do in Kansas City. — Banno

If someone asked what it's like to live in Kansas City, I would imagine they're asking what the people are like, what the local culture consists of, the natural environment, etc.

If you answered with: "I drive on a giant highway to get a giant steak and potato" I think your listener would wonder about you. In other words, you'd have to spout out a huge number of personal anecdotes to convey what you could easily express with descriptions.

Yep. One would presumably describe what the interactions involved in what one does, rather than list a series of acts. Your somewhat literal interpretation might miss the point that what a city is like is dependent on what one chooses to do in that city.

Your somewhat literal interpretation might miss the point that what a city is like is dependent on what one chooses to do in that city. — Banno

I just think when a person asks what it's like to live in a city, they're asking how it feels to live there. You'd want to help them connect it to feelings they already know about. Wouldn't you want to describe scenes, rhythms, tastes, colors, etc? Compare and contrast to other locations? Yes, you probably gathered that information by doing things, but that seems incidental. Consciousness is filled with feelings, right?

Why do you think that? The problem is that the "contextualists" presumably do not see their position as precluding realism. — Leontiskos

Is the framework that supports the realism of other minds and their contents context-de/independent?

Your somewhat literal interpretation might miss the point that what a city is like is dependent on what one chooses to do in that city. — Banno

Is there a difference between what something is like and what something is?