Firstly, in what sense do you mean inclusive or exclusive?

Secondly, it appears that I'm guilty of loose terminology. There's rationality - a frame of mind - which recommends skepticism/doubt and there's logic - a method to truth which supposedly gets you there without fail. Rationality advises us to be skeptical and logic attempts to reduce error - the difference between what we think is the truth and what the truth actually is. — TheMadFool

Well, it was a question.

To me it is clear that "rationality" is a much larger concept than logic, and one which operates at both the individual and the social level. And there are many kinds of truths. Social truths can be factually inaccurate, yet still functional. As the history of humanity testifies.

So is the nature of reason predominantly inclusive, or exclusive?

If what makes a man is a dick, does having a huge dick make you a non-man? — TheMadFool

I think the argument is that the ivory-tower intellectual is not actually being mindful because he or she is neglecting critical components of practical reality. So this form of "heightened rationality" is ipso facto actually irrational.....

don't know if people realize this or whether it's being forced down our throats by countless media representations but zombies aren't considered persons - you can, in fact you're supposed to, kill them and there are no consequences for doing that.

What's missing in zombies that make them non-persons? They're mindless. It's odd then to accuse someone, say a philosopher, of living in an ivory tower when he's actually being mindful. :chin: — TheMadFool

I do not get it.

If humans are objects, then having subjective experiences is being real as an object. It would be a defining property of a the object, human. — Harry Hindu

Yes, of the object "human". Not of the object "rock" or "atom" or of objectivity per se.If subjectivity is a uniquely emergent property, then you can't say that experience is a feature of objectivity as such.

↪Pantagruel Evasion and deflection make you look foolish. Spinoza (my guy!) took down Descartes' philosophical arguments (e.g. MBP) over three centuries ago for which I've been grateful for a few decades now. I get it, Pg, you didn't get the memo and no amount of prompting you to acquaint yourself with counter-Cartesians like Hume, Peirce, Dewey, Wittgenstein, Merleau-Ponty, Haack, Deutsch, Metzinger, et al will convince you of the Monsieur's errors (Damasio); so let's agree to disagree. Pax. — 180 Proof

Well, one final.

Doubt is clearly a species of belief: I doubt x is true. I believe x is true.

You do not require reasons for belief. As soon as you add a requirement for a reason for belief, you have crossed the line from belief to knowledge. This was the glaring problem with Dennett's argument that there are "no good reasons for believing in god". Maybe no good reasons for him. He has absolutely no basis for disputing anyone else's belief in anything that isn't trivially and manifestly false. Same thing with doubt.

Finally, Descartes' doubt is an integral methodological component of his philosophy, and figures directly in his arguments. So it is supported by the coherence of the body of the whole. Thus the integrity or credibility of his doubt(belief) is evidenced by the quality of his conclusions. Cogito ergo sum is a monumental achievement that rang true for an age and rightly contributed to the well-earned title and position of the "father of modern thought." You are free to dispute him, but you cannot deny him.

I think those points are probably substantive by anyone's standards.

Oh, and for the record, Dewey is a genius and one of my current top picks. Have you read Nature and Human Conduct? Moving. I'll be reading Democracy and Education when I finish with Marx in a week or so.

The "ivory tower" abode of philosophers is a different kettle of fish. I believe it's when philosophers remove themselves from reality and isolate themselves in a world of abstractions and thus absorbed give an air of aloofness to those not similarly occupied.

That said, taking into account the notion of zombies, I don't see how people who thinks zombies make sense (that's all of us I think) can ever accuse anyone of being in an "ivory tower" of abstract thought. Zombies aren't persons, right? What do you have to say about that? — TheMadFool

Yes, when philosophers believe that they can abstract reason from it's practical applications, Ivory tower is applicable.

I'm not sure what your zombies comment means? Can you elaborate?

You find Cartesian Doubt genuine, not merely idle, and answering the question above would go a very long way to demonstrating why I/we should agree with you, Pantagruel, that it's not "faux-doubt". — 180 Proof

Descartes' reasons are explained through his arguments.

Accusing Descartes of "faux doubt" means that you are not accepting the content of his arguments. So essentially, you and/or CTW are perpetrating an ad hominem against a dead man. I guess an easy target for you.....

There must be a real and living doubt, and without this all discussion is idle. — C.S. Peirce

And upon what do you base the assertion that Descartes did not experience this as a real and living doubt? He said he did. So you just do not believe him? Now it is a question of credibility.

I doubt that you can make me doubt the sincerity of Descartes' metaphysical doubt.

Oh shit, you guys are right! Why didnt I just ponder the wonders of modern technology to get me through! I see the errors of my ways, and now I rather do everything!! Its all changed! Its a whiole new world. — schopenhauer1

Isn't the power of choice a wonderful thing? :up:

He was engaging in an extended game of "let's pretend." It isn't clear to me that the result of the game was in any way useful. — Ciceronianus the White

As I said, the same could be said of any belief of any person, including yours, unless you can demonstrate that you're committed to it in an existential sense (which is the force I take to be behind your argument). So if you want to discount any beliefs that aren't "existentially impactful" I'll just as casually ignore your comments about Descartes.

Computers are fun. Would you rather keep track with pen and paper meticulously jotting everything down letter by letter and hand-delivering it? — Outlander

I really like this idea of setting up a pseudo-dialectic between a poor way of doing something and a better way of doing something. You're right, we have a lot of positive choices in our lives and things really could be a lot worse for a lot of people. And it is about a lot of little things, not just one big yes or no. Like life. :clap:

Now my question is what does the absence of freedom mean for ethics and how can our actions be judged if we cannot really control them. — Leiton Baynes

For me this is pretty straightforward. How can you be held responsible for something for which you are not responsible? Since we do attribute responsibility to people for actions it is pretty clear that we do ascribe free-will to them also.

Reason is that faculty that discovers, isolates, and prescribes methods/ways of thinking that are either guaranteed to lead you to the truth or, at the very least, take you as close as possible to it. — TheMadFool

Ok, that would be an idealist conception of reason as a critical faculty. However reason is also the capacity to communicate with other individuals whose orientation may range from antagonistic to co-operative in the pursuit of survival. In that context, truth may very well take a back seat to expediency, propitiation, or any number of other constraints. This is I think a good example of the "ivory tower" criticism often leveled at philosophy.

Sorry, I don't understand the construct.
The subject is an object. Yes, things which are subjects (have subjective experiences) are also objects. But having a subjective experience (which is specifically how subjectivity was being characterized, "being real for a subject,") is explicitly different from "being real as an object." Your construction lacks specificity.

Can we divorce the preference for sleeping from the pleasure of waking up feeling refreshed? Or the comfort of snuggling up in bed while trying to go to sleep? — Judaka

Very poetic notions and true...for some. Having had insomnia for several years I can attest that even sleep can be a burden.

No. A subject is an object. — Harry Hindu

I'm pretty sure I said being real for a subject is not the same thing as being real as an object. I'm quite sure I did not say a subject is an object.

I think population management is eminently sensible, given that overpopulation either causes or exacerbates the most serious problems facing humanity. I think the notion of restricting population growth based on financial status is despicable.

I would say we cannot truly doubt everything because by living we don't doubt everything. In fact, we rely on everything, for the most part unreservedly. Thus we eat, drink, walk, build things, interact with each other and the world at large every minute. We wouldn't if we had any real doubt. We doubt, really, when we have reason to in specific circumstances. — Ciceronianus the White

If Descartes' doubt is faux doubt, then equally anyone's commitment to any belief could be characterized as faux belief...unless it led to a serious commitment in actual circumstances. Unless you are practicing faux philosophy, please don't minimize one of Mssr. Descartes' central tenets. :)

faux doubt indulged in by Descartes — Ciceronianus the White

Specifically what about Descartes' proposition of radical metaphysical doubt qualifies it as being faux doubt?

Yes, they are two different things. Isn't that what I said?

I think that's what a lot of Marxist literature does, no? Filling in the gaps and using the same categories to analyse other issues. Did you have a particular thing in mind? — fdrake

lol! Yes, of course.

I've been wanting to leverage neural net modelling capabilities since I started reading cybernetics in the 90s. Now it has become pretty plug and play. NetLogo is the new standard, multi-agent based modelling and it's free. It's just about conceptualizing the model. Capitalism is rife with contradictions, and these seem like logical focal points to me.

I don't think that's possible without filling in/inventing lots of extra-textual details. Some of his arguments are relatively easy to put into a theorem-proof form though. The latter's what I'm attempting. — fdrake

Yes, it would have to be an extrapolation. What I'd really like to do is attempt to integrate a lot more social dimensions, flesh out his class-conflict in light of the intervening 150 years of history. It's a major undertaking for sure.

Are you a mathematician?

Capital Vol. 1 - Marx (reread (more mathematicising the value theory)) — fdrake

I'm nearly done all 3 volumes - I'd love to see a full blown global economics simulator based on Marx's principles.

Starting Structure of Social Action Volume II: Weber, by Parsons

Focusing on what you can change and changing it is not at all the same thing as accepting your fate. You are misconstruing and mischaracterizing stoicism. Stoicism is the exact opposite of passivity.

Illusions are real. They cause us to behave differently. They are a misinterpretation of sensory data. What they are interpreted as isnt real until you interpret it as an illusion. — Harry Hindu

Indeed. So it would seem that being real for a subject is independent of being real as an object.

Aren't the concepts "real" and "Illusory" inherently exclusive? If something is an illusion, then it is by definition "not real". So saying reality is an illusion essentially just denudes the meaning of both reality and illusion. Like saying, circles are squares.

If reality is an illusion then, to the same extent, illusions must be real.

Maybe read some Bhagavad-gita?

“The Blessed Lord said:
No doubt, you are right, O mighty Arjuna, that the mind is hard to control, wavering and restless, but by repeated effort and dispassion it can be done.”

Sounds perfect. Parsons has made a few references to Piaget and I've been looking for something. On the list. Thank you! :grin:

As the brain evolves it enables more of the mind to become manifest in a physical context. — EnPassant

:up:

Jean Piaget - Structuralism — StreetlightX

Interested to hear what you think of this.

That's why I get up early in the morning.

Again, if I don’t accept that criterion, the problem as stated doesn’t exist for me. Just because a paradox can be proposed and accepted as such doesn’t mean one is trapped. It means one is demonstrably better off considering the alternatives. — apokrisis

Precisely. This problem isn't for any kind of a pragmatic epistemology. :up:

You mean to say that Carl Linnaeus knew, beforehand, what mammals/birds/reptiles/amphibians are? But the characteristic defining qualities (the criterion) of what these various classes of animals are were developed after he took note of how these classes of animals were alike and unlike. — TheMadFool

Linnaeus did not create the taxonomic structure, he only described it. And he could be wrong. Alternate taxonomies may also apply.

When Carl Linnaeus classifed animals into mammals, bird, reptiles, amphibians, etc. it wasn't the case that he knew, beforehand, what these various classes of animals were - he began by collecting specimens, studying them, looking at anatomical characteristics that were similar or dissimilar and these classes of animals emerged from that study. Carl Linnaeus didn't possess a criterion for the various classes of animals before he classified them - the criterion emerged from his studies of animals. — TheMadFool

The criterion didn't emerge, the definition of each animal was expanded to include the species. How is this example different in principle from saying, for example, if X is red then X is coloured? If X is a bear, then X is a mammal? At best, I think you've injected the problem of the ontological status of universals (abstract categories) into what you've presented as an epistemological dilemma.

I stand by the transcendental argument that, since knowledge is self-evidently a reality, it cannot be impossible to achieve knowledge. Knowledge means you believe something and what you believe is true. If a belief is false, then it is refutable. If it is not false, then it is not refutable.

If so consider the argument contained in The Problem Of The Criterion. It entails, for reasons you already know, the fact that nothing can be known. Basically, The Problem Of The Criterion justifies the inadequacy of any and all logical justification i.e. knowledge is impossible but it all hinged on you having knowledge of The Problem Of Induction. In other words, logic isn't self-validating as you would've liked. In fact it's self-refuting in this context. — TheMadFool

Ok, every thing that thinks has some knowledge, right? Everyone on this board knows something. I know my name. If a being is able to survive, it must have knowledge. If a being is able to communicate, it must have knowledge. So knowledge is possible. Ergo the "problem of the criterion," whatever it does establish (if anything) does not refute the possibility of knowledge. Like I said, it's confusing knowledge simpliciter with knowledge about knowledge.

Self-validation. Ok. I can go with that but what I want to know is does The Problem Of The Criterion make sense to you? It can only make sense to you if you know what it is but that's impossible because The Problem Of The Criterion says that you can't know anything at all, including The Problem Of The Criterion itself. So, if you know The Problem Of The Criterion then you can't know it - contradiction. What led to this contradiction? The Criterion which allowed us to make sense of (know) The Problem Of The Criterion. Something's off... — TheMadFool

Yes, I think that the problem of the criterion arises from comparing knowledge in two different senses, what we know (which is always specific) and how we know it (which is a question about knowledge in general, at the meta-level). So the second question, "How am I capable of having knowledge at all" is really a red herring. I do have knowledge; you have knowledge; my do has knowledge.

Maybe we cannot account for how we know, any more than we can account for how we think. It is just a faculty. To me, it makes more sense to investigate the causes of error....

This is beside the point thought. What I'm actually interested in is what the criterion for knowledge/truth we're using in this conversation is. — TheMadFool

Then a generalized criterion of validity for propositional knowledge would be that it is (potentially) capable of self-validation. So depending on the nature of the proposition, it would fit within a larger scientific-coherent framework, a la Karl Popper.

That's not what I said. There was, had to be, a criterion. How else would you know a proposition is true/false? We just didn't make that explicit for reasons that are obvious - nobody was bothered by it. — TheMadFool

Propositional knowledge is a particular subset of knowledge and not its primary form for organic beings. All kinds of creatures "know" things. So saying that a special feature of propositional knowledge "knowing that it meets a criterion" is a limitation on knowledge per se is invalid. It is like saying that all matter must be wet because water is wet. The "criterion" of knowledge in its most general form is its successful application, as I suggested.

If A knows X then X has some practical ramifications, such that acting in concert with the knowledge X will have different (and intended) consequences versus acting without the knowledge X.

Not so. People were logical before Aristotle developed formal logic. However, that doesn't mean the principles of logic were different before and after Aristotle. — TheMadFool

Exactly. So having knowledge does not depend on having a criterion of knowledge. Knowledge must be self-validating.

A newborn infant cries as a reflex. At some point, however, it learns that crying summons its mother. Now it knows that crying equals summoning mother. So instead of just crying automatically, it can choose to cry. So what its knowledge has done is endow it with the power of choice, i.e. will. So the fundamental criterion of knowledge is its successful application. Which is essentially pragmatic I suppose. The infant does not need to know anything about its own knowledge in order to have that knowledge. That would be "meta-knowledge". Which is really what epistemology boils down to.