epistomological discussion

[Aradia]

1. I think my understanding of this field of study is weak.

You just said that your purpose for improving your understanding is to improve your understanding. =/

What benefit will a stronger understanding have?

2. I enjoy it.

I can certainly empathise with this

 

[Silenus]

You can have all three, but you can´t have them simultaneously. We must define a common ground in order to be able to discuss each question meaningfully. We can´t discuss question #2 meaningfully without having defined a common ground on question #1 (and even if only by means of me agreeing with your premise for the sake of becoming able to discuss #2), and we can´t discuss #3 meaningfully without having common ground on #2 and #3.

We'll then let's start with the assumption of external reality, since that seems easiest since we are dealing with my ponderings.

nyways, in my experience there is a correlation between beliefs of society and beliefs of children. Causality would be hard to determine, though. And even if we could show that a lot of beliefs are conditioned into children societally this would still not allow your conclusion that this is the only way beliefs are acquired by children. In context of this question children like Kaspar Hauser would be an interesting subject to research: Do children who do not grow up in a society acquire beliefs nonetheless? If so (which I am actually convinced of without having studies to support it), your point would be refuted.

I would say that children do acquire beliefs and, if we could find a child who grew up without contact with outside influence, that would be an ineteresting result to study. However, if i understand some studies I think i read a long time ago, children who don;t recieve contact with humans during their early years die. Social contact seems essential for development. I don;t quote that too confidently, this is either a memory of a study or a discussion, and memories of dicussions can be hazy. The source might not be a reliable authority. However, it seem sobvious to me that children get their higher metaphsyical beliefs (religeon, ethics, etc) from whom they assume is an authority and, as critical thinking develops, many begin to rely more on their own deliberations. however, these deliberations are taking place in an already formed, and not formed completely by their own criticial thinking since its not beginning to developed according to many studies, until middle school. Are they the only way? Possible not, but i don;t think it would be a stretch to use the word the predominant way . . .

what other ways do you see these structures developed in children?

owever, one of my most basic objections (even under the assumption that an „objective external reality exists) is your idea that a subjectively experiencing being like me has access to this objective reality. This is a contradiction in terms. All I perceive, experience is by definition subjective, as soon as I perceive it it becomes my idea of it, and that´s that.
Under the premise of an „external reality“ I think it is reasonable to postulate that we interprete it in the way that is meaningful, useful to us. IOW: every statement about something in this external reality beyond „It is what it is“ is not a statement about how this reality objective is, but about what I want or need it to be. This external reality becomes more than just being „what it is“ by virtue of me giving it meaning.

I'm not sure how i see the relationship of subject and object nessessitates the postulation that this subject having access to objective reality is a contradiction in terms . . .

don´t see how it is necessary to assume we are „locked in our own realties“ in order to come to the conclusion that we can´t judge between noetic structures.

I think that e.g. your own submission that all our beliefs are either foundational beliefs (without deductive or inductive justification) or beliefs that we are taught by society or beliefs that are deduced or induced from these two leads necessarily to the conclusion that we can not judge between noetic structures. For that we would have to discuss the justification of foundational beliefs, and this is – by virtue of the very way you have defined them – impossible.

This brings me back to unaffirmability or undeniability. If these noetic structures proved to be one or the other or lead to conlusions that were one or the other . . . then it might be possible to do so. That is the idea I'm playing with, could a noetic strcuture lead to or be found to do this? Also, as the thread has gone on (although not stemming from this thread at all) I've been concidering another criteria to unaffirmability and undeniability, and that is some sort of existential judgement abotu the livability of the conlusions of the noetic structure (it is hard, however, to see how that livability could be determined, being that the judgements made to determine it would be according to a noetic structure, so I do see the delemma)

Mm, ok. „Objective“ comes with a lot of different meanings

blame Searle . . . the first thing I thought when I read him is he's moved the goal post and claimed the match.

Objective“ and „true“ defined as basically synonyms for „intersubjective“ or „generally agreed upon“ are fine with me. I still would prefer the terms „intersubjective“ and „agreed upon“ over „true“, simply for the purpose of avoiding misunderstandings and conflations with other meanings of „true“.

I don't know why he chose to redefine, but I got the feeling it was because he was asserting that this has been the way it always was, from the beginning of epistemological questioning, and now we've just started to admit it.

 

[Silenus]

You just said that your purpose for improving your understanding is to improve your understanding. =/

What benefit will a stronger understanding have

I like to strengthen perceived weak points. As for what benefit, I'll let you know.

 

[quatona]

Ahoi, Silenus, and sorry for the belated response.

We'll then let's start with the assumption of external reality, since that seems easiest since we are dealing with my ponderings.

Ok.
However, let´s keep in mind, that – if trying to be very precise and accurate in our considerations - even though working from this preconception we still can not make any assumptions about the properties of this external reality.
Like, when in the paragraph below you talk about children, society, parents etc., you are already working from another preconception which unfortunately is exactly that which you are trying to conclude: Namely, that your (our) idea of reality is reliably accurate.
IOW: Your intended conclusion is forced by your premise. You are actually begging the question.

I would say that children do acquire beliefs and, if we could find a child who grew up without contact with outside influence, that would be an ineteresting result to study. However, if i understand some studies I think i read a long time ago, children who don;t recieve contact with humans during their early years die. Social contact seems essential for development. I don;t quote that too confidently, this is either a memory of a study or a discussion, and memories of dicussions can be hazy. The source might not be a reliable authority.

In view of the importance the answer to this question has to your line of reasoning, I think it would be a good idea to find a reliable source for the theory that children without human contact necessarily die.
Of course, I could simply accept it as another big preconception. However, since your approach is based on the idea of detecting (and possibly even challenging) your preconceptions) I feel that with an increasing number of preconceptions you are working from your approach is increasingly lacking consistency.

However, it seem sobvious to me that children get their higher metaphsyical beliefs (religeon, ethics, etc) from whom they assume is an authority and, as critical thinking develops, many begin to rely more on their own deliberations.

Colour me mildly surprised, Silenus. I wasn´t even aware that we were already speaking about „higher metaphysical beliefs“, so shortly after we have only presumed that an external physical reality exists.
Anyways, what you presume here is not obvious to me. Self-consciousness seems to necessarily come with the need and drive to find explanations, patterns and to try to make sense of that which we observe . I don´t see a reason to not think that a human all on his own will do exactly that (within the frame of those basic preconceptions that you assume to be already there from the beginning). Of course, if the environment that calls for explanations and sense to a great degree consists of „society“, societal influences will play a great part in that which the child will attempt to explain and in the way it will explain it.

however, these deliberations are taking place in an already formed, and not formed completely by their own criticial thinking since its not beginning to developed according to many studies, until middle school.

I´m not sure I know what exactly you mean by „critical thinking“. In the most common sense of the word it signifies the investigation of the validity of already held notions presented to you, and in this sense it naturally can only happen in a societal context. If there is nobody around to express any ideas, you can´t critically investigate such ideas. So, yes, critical thinking by definition requires „society“.

Are they the only way? Possible not, but i don;t think it would be a stretch to use the word the predominant way . . .

As said above, in an environment that predominantly exists of „society“ its impact on the noetic structure of the child will naturally play an equally dominant part. Doesn´t mean that society is a prerequisite for developing noetic structures.

what other ways do you see these structures developed in children?

They simply try to make sense of what they observe. I suspect that the explanations they will arrive at would be much simpler if there aren´t already complex explanations offered (by others) as part of that which one observes.

I'm not sure how i see the relationship of subject and object nessessitates the postulation that this subject having access to objective reality is a contradiction in terms . . .

Well, „having access“ may have been careless wording.
There will, by definition, always be a difference between „what is“ and „what my perception tells me“ (the very difference between „objective“ and „subjective“). Basically the same difference that will always be there between an object and a photography of it. It is my mind that generates the meaning of objects, by virtue of it seeking meaning within the frame of my needs, preconceptions, noetic structure and the resulting categories and abstractions. If substracting the meaning I generate, all that´s left is „what is“ in its immediacy.

This brings me back to unaffirmability or undeniability. If these noetic structures proved to be one or the other or lead to conlusions that were one or the other . . . then it might be possible to do so. That is the idea I'm playing with, could a noetic strcuture lead to or be found to do this?

Any investigation of this sort would – as I think follows from your preassumptions – have to be based on a noetic structure itself. The problem is painfully obvious: This noetic structure on which we would base these considerations upon would merely prove its own preconceptions (exactly that which you are attempting to avoid). Unless you propose a way of starting without any preconceptions, I don´t see how any consideration can reasonably be exempted from this mechanism. You will always end up judging a noetic structure on basis of another noetic structure. All you will be able to conclude – at best - is that the preconceptions are irreconcilable.

Also, as the thread has gone on (although not stemming from this thread at all) I've been concidering another criteria to unaffirmability and undeniability, and that is some sort of existential judgement abotu the livability of the conlusions of the noetic structure (it is hard, however, to see how that livability could be determined, being that the judgements made to determine it would be according to a noetic structure, so I do see the delemma)

Yes. Add to that that „livability“ is about as subjective as it can get, and certainly dependent on the preconceptions one starts from.

I don't know why he chose to redefine, but I got the feeling it was because he was asserting that this has been the way it always was, from the beginning of epistemological questioning, and now we've just started to admit it.

Well, I don´t know the context of the quote, but I guess you may well be correct, and would I tend to agree with him. Imo, however, simply redefining terms in the middle of an ongoing discussion in a way that those terms that originally were used to signify antagonistic concepts become almost identical is imo not a good idea, in the interest of successful communication.

 

[Gottservant]

I am opening this thread with the intent of starting a dialogue to improve my understanding of epistemology.

No offence but all knowledge exists in a context. Until you define a context for the knowledge you want to examine, it is unlikely you will gain any authority, defeat semantics or be truly satisfied.

Be brave and pick a context that is relevant to you.

 

[Silenus]

No offence but all knowledge exists in a context. Until you define a context for the knowledge you want to examine, it is unlikely you will gain any authority, defeat semantics or be truly satisfied.

Be brave and pick a context that is relevant to you.

not sure what you're looking for here . . . I gave five statements of discussion that I am pondering . . .

 

[Silenus]

Greetings quatona, and sorry myself for the belated response . . . grading papers and starting a new unit on my teaching plate.

However, let´s keep in mind, that – if trying to be very precise and accurate in our considerations - even though working from this preconception we still can not make any assumptions about the properties of this external reality.
Like, when in the paragraph below you talk about children, society, parents etc., you are already working from another preconception which unfortunately is exactly that which you are trying to conclude: Namely, that your (our) idea of reality is reliably accurate.

I'm not sure how it is possible that we could have perceptions of an objective reality that are not reliabley accurate but, to keep it real, because I think you cover this later in the post and I'm tackleing section by section that you think I am operating now under three unproven axioms instead of two . . .

1) objective relaity exists
2) I can reliable understand it
3) logic judges cognitive consitancy

correct? Are there any you think need to be added.

Anyways, what you presume here is not obvious to me. Self-consciousness seems to necessarily come with the need and drive to find explanations, patterns and to try to make sense of that which we observe . I don´t see a reason to not think that a human all on his own will do exactly that (within the frame of those basic preconceptions that you assume to be already there from the beginning). Of course, if the environment that calls for explanations and sense to a great degree consists of „society“, societal influences will play a great part in that which the child will attempt to explain and in the way it will explain it.

okay, yes I think i am willing to admit that statement 1 is an overzealous attempt to characterize the extreme difficulty of indivuiduals to break free of preconceptions learned early in life from percieved authority sources. I do, however, wish to retain as a fundamental characteristic of an adequate epistomology the need to consider facts and beliefs through the lens of different preconceptions because of this very difficulty.

Well, „having access“ may have been careless wording.
There will, by definition, always be a difference between „what is“ and „what my perception tells me“ (the very difference between „objective“ and „subjective“). Basically the same difference that will always be there between an object and a photography of it. It is my mind that generates the meaning of objects, by virtue of it seeking meaning within the frame of my needs, preconceptions, noetic structure and the resulting categories and abstractions. If substracting the meaning I generate, all that´s left is „what is“ in its immediacy.

I have to confess that I still don't see the difficulty you are expressing here. You went from the perception of an object to the meaning of the object . . . that's a big jump. My emotional response to a perception, and its difference between someone else percieving the same object, doesn't suddenly mean are perceptions are suddenly divergent, even if our emotional responses are. How is language even possible, if what you say is true? furthermore, I think you are taking the fact that reality is excessive in the sense that I can never assertain all of it, and therefore, concluding that truth is elusive somehow or that certainty is not plausible It seems to be the throwing of the baby out with the bathwater. Something you said earlier has been running through my mind.

However, I have already in my first post left no doubt that I can´t offer anything that helps with the idea of epistemology, and that all I can do is offer an alternative approach to that which to me appears to be a pointless mindgame. Add to that, for the time being, apparently nobody else is interested in discussing epistemology with you. So I´ll just take my chance.

the way I took this statement was that claiming objective truth was a pointless mind game because reality will always be excessive to perception and cognition. I don't see that as following. If I look at the way my perception and even some of my cognition works, they don;t seem to be simply the result of my mind working in concert with itself. perception always has aboutness. I think I may have gone far afield here fro the purpose of my thread, so I apologize if I did . . . just wanted to get some thoughts down.

Now, back to the statements.

2) Despite the fact that our initial presuppositions are not completely chosen, we have a critical and ontological capability to transcend our social constructed noetic structures.

3) There are self-evident, undeniable beliefs

4) The senses cannot be denied without using them

5) No facts or beliefs can be interpreted without a noetic structure.

I think i can take one and two down and simply say it is nessessary for any person who wishes to gain truth or consistancy to attamept to juggle between the noetic structures he or she encounters.

3) I believe that logic is an undeniable test of consistance. You seem to at least agree that logic is a useful test of consitancy. I'm wondering if there are any other things that can said to be undeniable?

4) I still haven't seen anything in the discussion to dislodge this. It seems to me the moment I distrsut the senses, i distrsut the thing doing the distrusting.

5) I think we agree here.

Quote: This brings me back to unaffirmability or undeniability. If these noetic structures proved to be one or the other or lead to conlusions that were one or the other . . . then it might be possible to do so. That is the idea I'm playing with, could a noetic strcuture lead to or be found to do this? Any investigation of this sort would – as I think follows from your preassumptions – have to be based on a noetic structure itself. The problem is painfully obvious: This noetic structure on which we would base these considerations upon would merely prove its own preconceptions (exactly that which you are attempting to avoid). Unless you propose a way of starting without any preconceptions, I don´t see how any consideration can reasonably be exempted from this mechanism. You will always end up judging a noetic structure on basis of another noetic structure. All you will be able to conclude – at best - is that the preconceptions are irreconcilable.

Well, that actually is one of my speculations, especially concerning properly basic beliefs, are there any universal unavoidable foundations of thought and existence? And, if you suspend belief in one structure to temporarily adopt another (is this possible?), could you discover inconsitancies or discover adaptations which would increase or disallow beliefs? It seems, at first glance, to be no.

I'd think it'd be helpful for me, if you'd care to indulge to elaborate on these statements from a previous post . . .

2. You work from the false dichotomy „objective reality vs. solipsism“. (There are a lot more possibilities)
3. We would first need to establish how we determine that something „can not be in controlled of the subject“ (as opposed to, for example: „something that I have at a given point in time no interest in altering“).

what are some of the possibilities between objective reality and solipsism?

for 3, I'd think you;d assume that there would be no way to determine between the two?

on a side note, i do think that, because I am doing my thinking by participating in the thread, not before I participate, i may unintentionally muddy things a bit . . . if you think that is the case, feel free to highlight a section and ask a clarifying question or for more clarification or thought before you respond. I understand my approach right now might be frustrating . . .

 

[quatona]

Hi Silenus, and thanks for your response.

Last thing first:

on a side note, i do think that, because I am doing my thinking by participating in the thread, not before I participate, i may unintentionally muddy things a bit . . . if you think that is the case, feel free to highlight a section and ask a clarifying question or for more clarification or thought before you respond. I understand my approach right now might be frustrating . . .

No, I´m not frustrated. However, I must admit that I am not sure I can follow your train of thought throughout your last post (meaning: I am not always sure I understand why you say what at a certain point).
Another thing that increasingly concerns me about this discussion: As we have established right from the start, we are working from very different positions. I.e. before I could actually meaningfully participate in a discussion about methods of „epistemology“ (which I understand is your purpose in this thread), I would have to be convinced of a couple of preassumptions of yours that I do not share. I have agreed to accept one or two of the basic ones for the sake of the argument, but the course of the discussion seems to show that the next obstacle for discussion your topic meaningfully (i.e another preassumption of yours I don´t share) is always just waiting. The effect appears to be:

-either I agree with even more of your preassumptions for the sake of the argument (which means I end up so far from my actual position that I feel I could as well accept your final conclusions for the sake of the argument. IOW everything I feel needs to be discussed isn´t discussed)
-or I insist that you substantiate each of your preconceptions (which would be an entirely different discussion than you actually pursued in creating this thread).

Bottom line: I am sensing that it might be a good idea to leave the field to someone else – someone who at least agrees with you in that „epistemology“ is a worthwhile approach. Or, in other words, I have the nagging suspicion that I can´t contribute anything useful to solving the problem you perceive. I don´t even see the problem.

I'm not sure how it is possible that we could have perceptions of an objective reality that are not reliabley accurate

Well, if it would be that simple „epistemology“ wouldn´t even be an issue, would it?
If we can´t have perceptions of an objective reality that are not reliably accurate, we will simply rely on our perceptions and can be sure we have it right.

but, to keep it real, because I think you cover this later in the post and I'm tackleing section by section that you think I am operating now under three unproven axioms instead of two . . .

1) objective relaity exists
2) I can reliable understand it
3) logic judges cognitive consitancy

correct? Are there any you think need to be added.

I´m sorry – I don´t seem to understand the grammatical structure of the introductory sentence (and hence the meaning). I think you are asking whether the three points are those preassumptions that I am conceding for the sake of the argument – is that correct?
If so:
1) yes. I have agreed to concede this for purposes of this discussion.
between 1 and 2 there is one missing (1A):
It isn´t even established that you can connect to this „objective reality“ at all. It might as well exist out there – in its immediacy untouched by any of the things you feel connect you to it. Despite „objective reality“ existing everything that´s in my head might still be dream theater and have nothing whatsoever to do with this „objective reality“.
2.) Yes, and in particular with my objection above: If we understand „objective reality“ reliably, there can´t be any disagreements and epistemological discussions would be moot. This assumption of yours appears to be in direct contradiction to the problem you are attempting to solve: It wouldn´t even exist.
3) Not sure about that one. Logic is an axiom I wouldn´t know how to do without in a discussion like this – so this axiom wouldn´t be a problem between us. (Isn´t that great? )

okay, yes I think i am willing to admit that statement 1 is an overzealous attempt to characterize the extreme difficulty of indivuiduals to break free of preconceptions learned early in life from percieved authority sources.

Just to remind you: In order to discuss this part I would have to agree with 1A and 2.
If doing so, I would agree that there are basic preconceptions learned early in life (I would, however, not conclude that they are necessarily learned from perceived authority sources).
Ideas that have been explicitly taught are not the greatest issue, imo: What has been taught and argued for, can comparatively easily be questioned and argued against.
Even more basic (and way harder to detect and question) are those preconceptions that have forced themselves upon us as self-suggesting (a good example for this would be the very assumption that there is an objective reality out there that is reflected by our mind. ;-) )

I do, however, wish to retain as a fundamental characteristic of an adequate epistomology the need to consider facts and beliefs through the lens of different preconceptions because of this very difficulty.

I do understand this desire, but
a. I am not convinced that we can ever reach down to those most basic preconceptions, and I am not convinced that this would be desirable. I suspect we would be entirely lost. There is a reason why this discussion would be impossible without me following your preassumptions.
b. In order to finally judge which of the preconceptions we have looked at things through is worth keeping (and better than the others) we would have to utilize even deeper preconceptions. We can´t do anything without preconceptions, least judge the validity of preconceptions.
c. In order to determine that something is a „fact“ (for the purpose of considering it) we have to work – again - from preassumptions.
All that said, here is a new thought (that I admittedly haven´t thoroughly thought through, though): Logic at best enables to determine that an idea or concept is wrong, inconsistent. The fact that something is not illogical doesn´t allow the conclusion that it is therefore accurate (or „truth“, if you will). It just tells us that there are no contradictions between the premises(preconceptions) and the conclusions. Thus, even though it might be possible to exclude certain preconceptions because the lead to logical problems and are irreconcilable with other preconceptions and with certain conclusions, I fail to see the tool to determine a preconception to be positively correct. IOW: Logic may (at best) be a tool for falsifiying certain preconceptions (based on other preconceptions), but it will never help us verify a preconception.

I have to confess that I still don't see the difficulty you are expressing here. You went from the perception of an object to the meaning of the object . . . that's a big jump. My emotional response to a perception, and its difference between someone else percieving the same object, doesn't suddenly mean are perceptions are suddenly divergent, even if our emotional responses are.

I think the big jump is your equation of „meaning“ and „emotional response“ rather than my equation of something being perceived/identified/discerned/conceptualized/categorized and it having meaning. I fail to see how we can possibly even notice something without the process of giving it meaning. What we don´t succeed in giving meaning will go unnoticed.

How is language even possible, if what you say is true?

Notwithstanding my deep suspicion that language indeed does not work I fail to see how the part you have quoted poses a problem for language. Could you explain?

furthermore, I think you are taking the fact that reality is excessive in the sense that I can never assertain all of it, and therefore, concluding that truth is elusive somehow or that certainty is not plausible

Yes, we necessarily reduce this allegedly existing reality to that which is significant to us. The result is something that reflects our needs, desires, preconceptions, filters, perception rather than the object itself. We make it what we need. A guitar is a guitar because I want it to be a guitar. If I want it to be piece of wood to heat my flat with it is a piece of firewood. Beyond my needs, wishes, desires, preconceptions it is just „what is“. This is not a problem for a subjectivist or a constructivist, but certainly for the idea that our minds recognize what is objective truth out there. We create meaning, we create our realities.

It seems to be the throwing of the baby out with the bathwater.

Not sure what the baby is that you would like to save.
I find the result perfectly satisfactory. No baby missing here.

Something you said earlier has been running through my mind.

However, I have already in my first post left no doubt that I can´t offer anything that helps with the idea of epistemology, and that all I can do is offer an alternative approach to that which to me appears to be a pointless mindgame. Add to that, for the time being, apparently nobody else is interested in discussing epistemology with you. So I´ll just take my chance.
the way I took this statement was that claiming objective truth was a pointless mind game because reality will always be excessive to perception and cognition. I don't see that as following. If I look at the way my perception and even some of my cognition works, they don;t seem to be simply the result of my mind working in concert with itself. perception always has aboutness. I think I may have gone far afield here fro the purpose of my thread, so I apologize if I did . . . just wanted to get some thoughts down.

Well, this paragraph seems to revisit the discussion of your preconception 1, 1A and 2. I doubt it is a good idea to go back there at this point, at which I have – with a bit of teeth gnashing though – already argued a lot based on the assumption that they are valid. I´m afraid it would be too confusing.

I think i can take one and two down and simply say it is nessessary for any person who wishes to gain truth or consistancy to attamept to juggle between the noetic structures he or she encounters.

I can´t seem to make sense of the wording „encoutering noetic structures“. From all we have said so far it seems to me that „noetic structures“ are the very ground on which we encounter something rather than something we encounter.
On another note and as a caveat I would like to emphasize the difference between the concepts "consistency" and "truth".

3) I believe that logic is an undeniable test of consistance. You seem to at least agree that logic is a useful test of consitancy. I'm wondering if there are any other things that can said to be undeniable?

Well, since I think there is a long, long way between „useful“ and „undeniable“ I can´t seem to relate to this question. Maybe it´s just my problem with the wording „logic is undeniable“ – I am not sure what it means. If anything, I would say that logic is unalienable.
I can´t think of anything that is unalienable in the way logic is. Any ideas?

4) I still haven't seen anything in the discussion to dislodge this. It seems to me the moment I distrsut the senses, i distrsut the thing doing the distrusting.

I fail to see how this follows. For distrusting my senses I just need my reasoning abilities. My senses clearly suggest there to be an oasis, whilst for the suspicion that it might be a Fata Morgana I don´t utilize any of my senses.

5) I think we agree here.

Yup.

Quote: This brings me back to unaffirmability or undeniability. If these noetic structures proved to be one or the other or lead to conlusions that were one or the other . . . then it might be possible to do so. That is the idea I'm playing with, could a noetic strcuture lead to or be found to do this? Any investigation of this sort would – as I think follows from your preassumptions – have to be based on a noetic structure itself. The problem is painfully obvious: This noetic structure on which we would base these considerations upon would merely prove its own preconceptions (exactly that which you are attempting to avoid). Unless you propose a way of starting without any preconceptions, I don´t see how any consideration can reasonably be exempted from this mechanism. You will always end up judging a noetic structure on basis of another noetic structure. All you will be able to conclude – at best - is that the preconceptions are irreconcilable.
Well, that actually is one of my speculations, especially concerning properly basic beliefs, are there any universal unavoidable foundations of thought and existence? And, if you suspend belief in one structure to temporarily adopt another (is this possible?), could you discover inconsitancies or discover adaptations which would increase or disallow beliefs? It seems, at first glance, to be no.

I´m pretty sure that even upon further investigation the answer will remain no.

I'd think it'd be helpful for me, if you'd care to indulge to elaborate on these statements from a previous post . . .

Sure.

2. You work from the false dichotomy „objective reality vs. solipsism“. (There are a lot more possibilities)
3. We would first need to establish how we determine that something „can not be in controlled of the subject“ (as opposed to, for example: „something that I have at a given point in time no interest in altering&#8220.

what are some of the possibilities between objective reality and solipsism?

Radical constructivism, for example.
Or the assumption that an objective reality exists – completely independently of the dream theater we encounter.
Or the idea that objective reality is just „what is“, and every idea about it is just what we make of it – IOW the idea that that which is objective about reality is absolutely use- and meaningless to us. The interesting, important and relevant part is what our minds make of it.

for 3, I'd think you;d assume that there would be no way to determine between the two?

[FONT=&quot]Yes, that´s my point.[/FONT]

 

[Silenus]

either I agree with even more of your preassumptions for the sake of the argument (which means I end up so far from my actual position that I feel I could as well accept your final conclusions for the sake of the argument. IOW everything I feel needs to be discussed isn´t discussed)
-or I insist that you substantiate each of your preconceptions (which would be an entirely different discussion than you actually pursued in creating this thread).

Perhaps you are right, although there are some things I think you would consider a presupposition that I might not, but since I havn't gone through the rigor of fleahing these out in their entirity, I won't claim that this is the case. Plus it would be somewhat atithetical to what I'm trying to do for myself at this point. There have been somethings that have been nagging in the back of my mind throughout our conversation, certain things that seem obvious to me to be example of incoherence in what you say, yet to you they seem completely in line with your thought. I don't neccessarily think this is becaus eof certain noetic starting points. So, at this point, I'm going to ask some more questions and statement, if you don't mind, to see if I'm on the right track. Some of these are redundant, so I'll keep those short . . .

1) you are not concerned with truth, but with validity.

2) beliefs are valid in that they are conceputally coherent and abile to predict or explain outcomes or phenomina (I think the technical term is instramentalism or instramentally accurate?)

3) How do you account for theory and belief change?

4) How do you account for the origin of language?

5) Do you believe that perception is perception of something?
If i have understood you, you think that it is perception of something, but that something could be inside or outside of the brain.

6) Do you think perception is wholly determined by conceptual structures?

7) Can you respond to post 20 in this thread?

If we can´t have perceptions of an objective reality that are not reliably accurate, we will simply rely on our perceptions and can be sure we have it right.

that's what i mean by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Perceptions being reliably accurate and exhaustive inclusive and accurate are not the same thing and the absence of the latter doesn't invalidate the former.

Even more basic (and way harder to detect and question) are those preconceptions that have forced themselves upon us as self-suggesting (a good example for this would be the very assumption that there is an objective reality out there that is reflected by our mind. ;-) )

could you explain what you mean here . . . I'm intreged. what makes reality self-suggesting?

I am not convinced that we can ever reach down to those most basic preconceptions, and I am not convinced that this would be desirable. I suspect we would be entirely lost. There is a reason why this discussion would be impossible without me following your preassumptions.

doesn't the fact that we are having this discussion show that we would not be entirely lost . . . I feel what I am doing is difficult, but far from frustrating and I feel in no way lost . . . more exhiliated.

I think the big jump is your equation of „meaning“ and „emotional response“ rather than my equation of something being perceived/identified/discerned/conceptualized/categorized and it having meaning. I fail to see how we can possibly even notice something without the process of giving it meaning. What we don´t succeed in giving meaning will go unnoticed.

but you above statement has just suggested that the fact and the meaning can be separated cognitivly.

Notwithstanding my deep suspicion that language indeed does not work I fail to see how the part you have quoted poses a problem for language.

for language to work there must be some degree to which nomencalture used matches concepts shared.

A guitar is a guitar because I want it to be a guitar. If I want it to be piece of wood to heat my flat with it is a piece of firewood. Beyond my needs, wishes, desires, preconceptions it is just „what is“. This is not a problem for a subjectivist or a constructivist, but certainly for the idea that our minds recognize what is objective truth out there. We create meaning, we create our realities.

again, you just demonstrated that the meaning you attached to the thing can be separated from the thing itself and that, even if I didn't conceive of a guitar as firewood, I can conceive of you conceiving it as such.

 

[quatona]

1) you are not concerned with truth, but with validity.

This is meant to be a question, right?
I find that hard to answer. "Concerned" in which position/situation? As a person living his every day life or as a „philosopher“?
In regards to the first I am mostly concerned with my ideas being workable.
In regards to the second I am concerned with the logical coherence of conclusions.
I´m not sure I understand what „concerned with validity“ means here. „Valid“ by virtue of which criteria? It seems to me that „validity“ –without further specification - is just another word for „truth“.

2) beliefs are valid in that they are conceputally coherent and abile to predict or explain outcomes or phenomina (I think the technical term is instramentalism or instramentally accurate?)

If hard pressed to make a statement using the words „beliefs“ and „valid“ I would say:
„Beliefs are valid if they fulfill their purpose.“

3) How do you account for theory and belief change?

I know, Silenus, that it takes a lot of your patience when I express problems with understanding almost each of your questions. Rest assured that my questions are not motivated by the desire to bother you or to evade the questions. I simply don´t know how to answer them meaningfully.
What exactly do you expect me to do in order to „account for“ belief changes and theories? What is the problem you would like to see explained or done away with – what is the problem you think belief changes and theories pose for my view more than for any other?

4) How do you account for the origin of language?

What exactly do you want me to explain about it? Where do you see the particular need of my approach to explain the origin of language more (or differently) than any other approach?
For the time being (and until you will have specified your question) I will answer:
I want to express my mental constructs.

5) Do you believe that perception is perception of something?
If i have understood you, you think that it is perception of something, but that something could be inside or outside of the brain.

I think that „perception“ is by definition the „perception of something“. This is one of the cases where the common language determines the conceivable. In my view it is not established that there is something like „perception“. Yet, in order to communicate sufficiently meaningfully I see no other option than to use this word. An alternative would be „dream theater“, but just like „perception“, it presupposes something (in fact: the opposite of „perception“). As far as I know there isn´t a neutral word that doesn´t express either of those preassumptions.

6) Do you think perception is wholly determined by conceptual structures?

If there is such a thing as „perception“ (see above) it can not be entirely determined by conceptual structures. However, the conceptual structure might
a. limit that which we perceive
b. determine how we interprete our perceptions.

7) Can you respond to post 20 in this thread?

Oh...thanks for notifying me. This post has completely gone unnoticed.
Sure.

I always thought that the scientific method had its metaphysical underpinnings in, for one thing, a view that reality exists independent of the subject and that truth could be ascertained, and that the scientific method was a way to verify the truthfulness of postulations about reality . . . the very things you denied.

1) do you think my appraisal of the underpinnings of the scientific method is accurate?

No.

2) How does your radical-constructivistic (I'm using this word choice because, if i understood you correctly, that's how you labeled yourself) "epistemology" view the scientific method?

It´s extremely useful.
(On a sidenote, you are aware that „radical-constructivistic epistemology“ is an oxymoron, aren´t you?)

that's what i mean by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Perceptions being reliably accurate and exhaustive inclusive and accurate are not the same thing and the absence of the latter doesn't invalidate the former.

Agreed. That´s why I won´t make any such statement. I am just pointing out that even your epistemological approach is motivated by the problem of distinguishing those perceptions that are reliably accurate from those that aren´t. Thus, the blanket statement „our perceptions are reliably accurate“ stands in contradiction to the problem you feel needs to be solved.
I, on the other hand, see no such problem, since I don´t care about ideas like „reliably accurate“, but suggest to replace it by „pragmatically useful“. It takes the idea of „objectivity“ out of the equation, yet allows for subjectively workable approaches.

could you explain what you mean here . . . I'm intreged. what makes reality self-suggesting?

You mean „objective reality“? The fact that the idea of „truth“ is very hard to get out of one´s head. It´s simply an observation of mine. IOW: the idea of „objective reality“ seems to be one of the most basic preconceptions in most everybody´s noetic structure.

doesn't the fact that we are having this discussion show that we would not be entirely lost . . .

No, it doesn´t. It´s not like this discussion is free of preassumptions.

I feel what I am doing is difficult, but far from frustrating and I feel in no way lost . . . more exhiliated.

“exhilarated“? (sorry, I am not trying to be a spelling nazi – it´s just that not being a native speaker comes with particular problems when exposed to a word I don´t know and can´t find in a dictionary).

but you above statement has just suggested that the fact and the meaning can be separated cognitivly.

Err, no, I don´t think I have. It´s more like I have suggested that „fact“ is just another word for „meaning“.

for language to work there must be some degree to which nomencalture used matches concepts shared.

That entirely depends on what criteria you have for language to „work“. The illusion that a certain word used means the same to me and you would already be enough to supply us with the illusion of „working language“. In fact, I suspect that this is a very fundamental problem for certain concepts of communication.

again, you just demonstrated that the meaning you attached to the thing can be separated from the thing itself and that, even if I didn't conceive of a guitar as firewood, I can conceive of you conceiving it as such.

That´s because in order to give you an idea of what I wanted to say I had to use words that I feel have meaning to you, and for simplicity´s sake I chose a very trivial and concrete example. As long as the course of the conversation suggests that we attach sufficiently congruent concepts to certain words we will simply assume this is so. We have an interest in communicating, after all. However, we also face the problems: Whenever the person opposite draws a conclusion that we disagree with, we have two options: Either the person opposite is arguing illogically, or he merely attaches a different meaning to the words used.
Since cases of disagreement are the only ones in which there is any need for concepts like „epistemology“, the problem should be obvious: We can´t tell which of the options is the case. We don´t know whether we disagree or merely use a different terminology. This also goes for the opposite: We can´t know whether we agree or just use the same words for different concepts.

 

[quatona]

Silenus, I will try to approach the issue and explain the basics of my views from yet another angle, if you don´t mind. Not sure it will help to get it across, though.
I can´t promise that my terminology will be entirely consistent. The longer we talk the more I get aware how deeply the preconception that there is an outer reality and that it is reliably discernable (or: the that there is a „truth“ that can be found epistemologically) is seated in our vocabulary and terminology, to a point where it almost makes it impossible to express different views. Thus, my terminology might require further work and fine-tuning.

Firstly, when looking for a „neutral“ term for our inner images (i.e. a term that doesn´t express a preconception as to how and where they come into being) I completely forgot that I already had a good term for that in my first exhaustive post: „my reality“. It doesn´t make any statements about possibly existing other realities, about a possibly existing „objective reality“ nor about how all these possibly relate to each other. So, if you don´t mind, I´ll return to using this term.
„My reality“ is something that everybody undoubtedly has. Would you agree that we are justified in postulating this axiomatically?

Please note that for purposes of this post I will follow your preconception that there is an „external reality“, and that our senses and brainfunctions in one way or the other „perceive“ this external reality (which doesn´t say anything about the degree of accuracy, though).

This post will circle around a couple of concepts/terms that I find relevant where I don´t find the idea of „epistemologically approaching the truth“ relevant. These terms are:
significance (it will replace what I so far called „meaning“); agreement; desire for agreement (in which „agreement“ also includes putative agreement).

Significance is the arbiter of my reality. Significance is the relation between me (my mind) and the external reality. Significance, however, is determined by me: whether something has significance for me in no way depends on the question how the something feels about it. A rock may become significant for me or it will remain insignificant (not even perceived as a „rock“ or not even perceived, detected, identified, categorized at all) – depending on my needs. A rock somewhere on the other end of the world the existence of which I don´t even know of is an example for the latter, a rock that blocks my doorway an example for the first.
My reality is governed by significance, and significance is governed by my mind. The hypothetical „fact“ that those two rocks are exactly alike is irrelevant for me. Relevant is that one of them is significant to me and has therefore become real in my reality. The other one isn´t even a rock in my reality. It remains in the immediacy of „what is“. No significance, no concept, no term for it.

The following will attempt to address your questions regarding perception and language.

Words point to concepts (not to things). Concepts are preconceptions; they consist of patterns that we desire to detect. We create our concepts and determine that the external world matches them (or doesn´t) because that´s what we need. Something isn´t a guitar all by itself. It becomes a guitar to me when it matches my concept „guitar“ sufficiently. My concept makes it a guitar. In the my reality of a person who holds no concept „guitar“ (by whatever name) there are no guitars. There can´t be. That what is a guitar for in my reality will remain just „part of what is“ (possibly not even identified as a distinct object) in his my reality. Insignificant, thus not gaining reality.
Agreement on a particular statement does not warrant that we agree upon a particular trait of the external reality, even less that we have discerned it accurately. In my view this isn´t a problem.

Allow me to picture a couple of hypothetical scenarios.

Would a blind person growing up in isolation develop a concept „colour“ (by whatever name)? It´s safe to assume he won´t. There is no colour in his reality, neither is there any significance for any other visual concept, and this fact is not determined by the outer reality, but by the nature of his senses. The question whether in the objective external reality things have colours has no significance whatsoever for him. It doesn´t matter. It doesn´t even come up. His my reality is determined by the way his senses work, and everything has the significance that his my reality allows and requires. Colours don´t exist, for all practical purposes.
Now, we put this same guy into a society of persons in whose my realities colours have significance and hence exist. These persons have significance in the blind man´s my reality , hence the fact that colour has significance and exists in their reality becomes significant for the blind man, too. He needs to deal with their my realities although there is no match for it in his my reality. We might call that „second hand significance“. In any case, the concept „colour“ that he will develop is not determined by his senses, but by the desire for agreement. His my reality will remain colourless, but it is populated by persons who have a my reality in which colours exist. Whether in the external reality colours exist and his perception is „wrong“ or whether no colours exist and the colours the others perceive are for example merely introduced by their senses or a delusion produced by their brains is completely irrelevant for all practical purposes. There are different my realities and these realities match that which can have significance to the individual persons, and we are best off to simply acknowledge that. Determining which is an accurate reflection of the external reality (even if that would be possible, which is highly doubtful) helps with nothing. The my reality is all that counts for everyone.

With growing age my eye sight gets worse. What do things objectively look like – the way they looked to me twenty years ago or the way they look to me now, or the way they look to me when I wear one of my various glasses? Does this question matter in any way? No, not to me. My reality is that the track list on a CD gives me no information, it has no significance to me. By comparison, though, I can decide that another my reality (the reality I had twenty years ago, or the reality through the filter of glasses) was more desirable, in that it

• provided me with more significances
  b. helped to gain agreement with the my realities of others.

Our eyes peform a complex processing of the incoming data. Flexibility of muscles, the amount of cells, yada yada, determine what we see, determine our my realities. They all do something to the external reality, they filter it, process it, and I wouldn´t know how to determine which of the mulitple results is the objectively accurate one. All that counts is whether it is useful. Which again depends on what my reality allows for.

Another hypothetical. Let´s say that everything that looks blue to you looks to me what would be red to you (and vice versa). Would we ever notice it, would it ever become a problem for our communication? No. Quite apparently at least one of us operates from an inaccurate reflection of the external reality, but it has no disadvantages whatsoever for all practical purposes and effects. We can communicate effectively, although the words we use point to completely different concepts.
Now, even if we assume that that which you see as blue and I see as what you call red objectively looks like what you (or both of us) would call yellow, there still wouldn´t be any problem whatsoever. The objective reality is irrelevant for all practical purposes. Relevant are significances and agreements,. both of which are our making.

Look at this picture:

We both see A as a light field and B as a dark field. Both of us don´t have the slightest doubt about it, and to both of us this has significance, makes perfect sense and matches the patterns that we seek to detect. Our my realities match sufficiently in order to communicate meaningfully. Now, what do we gain if learning that these two fields are demonstrably (i.e. in a „more objective reality“) the exact same shade of grey? Will it change my reality? No. I used a graphics program to put those fields side by side and analyse their shades of grey, and, yes, it told me they were identical. However, despite this information, if looking at the picture again A is still a light field and B is a dark field. My senses and/or my mind determine me to see it that way. Apparently my desire for significance and patterns is greater than my interest in supposedly „objective reality“, to a point where supposedly „objective reality“ becomes irrelevant. With A being a light field and B being a dark field this picture makes sense, without it it wouldn´t. Therefore I am even unable to see it that way. My mind determines my reality, and this is exactly the reason why it gains me good results. And since our my realities match, we can conveniently work from this agreement without caring for „objective external reality“.
The question is not so much "is this true?", but "is this a useful way of looking at it?", and which of the notions (same shades of grey vs. different shades of grey) are considered useful entirely depends on the situation.


Even when we look at a sheet full of randomly generated pixels, we will succeed in finding significances and patterns. Because that´s what we need and want and desire.
When looking at a photo with a couple of persons on them, my reality will file it as another photo with persons on it. Despite the fact that to someone else it will gain great significance because his sister is on it. In his my reality will be a photo of his sister in a crowd. Which of our my realities is objective? Does it matter? For what? Under which circumstances? Isn´t determining reality by significances much more reasonable and useful?

 

[Silenus]

I think I’m going to stop exploring this in terms of my epistemology questions and respond to which statements don’t seem coherent or accurate for a second, just because it’s helpful for me to express to you why I don’t find some of your statements suitable explanations. Basically, I’m thinking out load and since, as you have expressed it, epistemology is contingent on an outside reality, I’m going to try to insist on it in an attempt to think out loud. Then maybe I can work my way back to modifying my statements.

What exactly do you expect me to do in order to „account for“belief changes and theories? What is the problem you would like to see explained or done away with – what is the problem you think belief changes and theories pose for my view more than for any other?

When I say account for, I mean what do you see as causing a change in belief. If all phenomena are self-constructed, how does a phenomena occur which causes my beliefs to change? Such a phenomena wouldn't occur because all phenomena are generated internally by my noetic structure. It is hard to conceive how a phenomena could occur which would cause a change in noetic structure or belief if all phenomena are constructed by my noetic structure.

If there is such a thing as „perception“ (see above) it can not be entirely determined by conceptual structures. However, the conceptual structure might
a. limit that which we perceive
b. determine how we interprete our perceptions.

I'm not sure you answered the question . . . am I to take it that you might believe phenomena can be entirely determined by conceptual structure? From the statement you made before the one I quoted, it seems you would answer that you don't know?

I am just pointing out that even your epistemological approach is motivated by the problem of distinguishing those perceptions that are reliably accurate from those that aren´t. Thus, the blanket statement „our perceptions are reliably accurate“stands in contradiction to the problem you feel needs to be solved.
I, on the other hand, see no such problem, since I don´t care about ideas like „reliably accurate“, but suggest to replace it by „pragmatically useful“. It takes the idea of „objectivity“out of the equation, yet allows for subjectively workable approaches.

no, I wouldn't say that epistemology is too concerned with perception as such. It’s concerned with interpretation of perception and what is and is not reliably accurate and how do you know? It has to do with coherence, instrumental accuracy, and the ability to explain and predict and be certain that those explanations and predictions are correct.

On a side note, I don't know if substituting in “pragmatically useful” is much of a help. Don't you then have the question of how do you know whether it is useful or being employed in a manner that is useful . . . in the end it seems that, once you admit that perception or dream theater is not entirely determined by conceptual structures, that seems to be the ballgame on the reality question.

That entirely depends on what criteria you have for language to „work“. The illusion that a certain word used means the same to me and you would already be enough to supply us with the illusion of „working language“. In fact, I suspect that this is a very fundamental problem for certain concepts of communication.

But it seems to me the reason you assume that this illusion may exist is based on your view of constructivism . . . a prima face appraisal of language shows it working on a daily basis. I employ a sentence and get an appropriate response. It happens every day at the supermarket. It seems to me your belief in the illusion of language is based on your desire to avoid having to use objective and subjective categories, not on any certainty or instrumental evidence for that belief.

Words point to concepts (not to things). Concepts are preconceptions; they consist of patterns that we desire to detect. We create our concepts and determine that the external world matches them (or doesn´t) because that´s what we need. Something isn´t a guitar all by itself. It becomes a guitar to me when it matches my concept „guitar“ sufficiently. My concept makes it a guitar. In the my reality of a person who holds no concept „guitar“ (by whatever name) there are no guitars. There can´t be. That what is a guitar for in my reality will remain just „part of what is“ (possibly not even identified as a distinct object) in his my reality. Insignificant, thus not gaining reality.
Agreement on a particular statement does not warrant that we agree upon a particular trait of the external reality, even less that we have discerned it accurately

I’m having trouble determining whether I agree with the first sentence. To me, it seems that this is the case some of the time (as in guitar) but not all the time. Sometimes I think words do point to things. In fact, I don’t think it is antithetical to say something refers to a concept and also to a thing.

Our eyes perform a complex processing of the incoming data. Flexibility of muscles, the amount of cells, yada yada, determine what we see, determine our my realities. They all do something to the external reality, they filter it, process it, and I wouldn´t know how to determine which of the mulitple results is the objectively accurate one. All that counts is whether it is useful. Which again depends on what my reality allows for.

I just don’t see the difficulty you see here, you are saying that, because reality is excessive, it is unattainable, the fact that we can be aware of all these things and still identify and conceptualize objects with accurate intersubjectivity and can interact with them successfully makes this a no problem. We can know how the things we see are without knowing how they ultimately are. In other words, an apple sits in the shade and so looks slightly different to you than it does to me when I view it in the sunlight doesn’t create any difficulties in us both describing it as red. Nor does it mean we suddenly become unaware that we are viewing it in the shade and that this has an effect of perception. I feel like this is not a bid deal.

Now, what do we gain if learning that these two fields are demonstrably (i.e. in a „more objective reality“) the exact same shade of grey? Will it change my reality? No. I used a graphics program to put those fields side by side and analyse their shades of grey, and, yes, it told me they were identical. However, despite this information, if looking at the picture again A is still a light field and B is a dark field. My senses and/or my mind determine me to see it that way. Apparently my desire for significance and patterns is greater than my interest in supposedly „objective reality“, to a point where supposedly „objective reality“ becomes irrelevant. With A being a light field and B being a dark field this picture makes sense, without it it wouldn´t. Therefore I am even unable to see it that way. My mind determines my reality, and this is exactly the reason why it gains me good results. And since our my realities match, we can conveniently work from this agreement without caring for „objective external reality“.

Again, we are also both aware that there is a field of shade affecting our perception. We don’t need to stop being aware of it . . . and this is where the concept of instrumental accuracy comes into play . . . the program that tells me they are identical . . .

Instrumental accuracy, however, in your view seems to be incoherent. To admit the concept of instrumental accuracy, again, admits that phenomena aren’t fully determined by conceptual structures.

This is the difficulty with simply always using vision examples. Knowing we see things differently isn’t really a problem for me. Color is a counterpart of vision; it doesn’t exist independently of it. So to say, is it really that shade of red or this one is a red herring. Really color, objectively, is a statement of how our eyes perceive certain wavelengths. The ability to predict how people perceive certain wavelengths as a certain color shows the instrumental accuracy of our definitions that certain colors match certain wavelengths. Instrumental accuracy is important for this reason. This is admitted by the fact that you brought in an instrumental reading to tell me that they are, in fact, the same shade. So they are objectively that same shade? What happened to that my reality, your reality? My particular exploration into Epistemology is based on my interest in asking how can we determine if abstractions are true and accurate. Can I say that evolution is true? Can I say that stars are a thousand light years away . . . how do I know? Will a lawn gnome ever speak to me in Arabic? In your view, it’s not whether we actually evolved, but whether such a concept is useful for my structure. The more I look at your view of things the more it seems like you want to stand up and assert your own non-contingency. Then your whole being exists on its own. Because, once you become contingent, the question is asked, upon what things?

When looking at a photo with a couple of persons on them, my reality will file it as another photo with persons on it. Despite the fact that to someone else it will gain great significance because his sister is on it. In his my reality will be a photo of his sister in a crowd. Which of our my realities is objective? Does it matter? For what? Under which circumstances? Isn´t determining reality by significances much more reasonable and useful?

[FONT=&quot]And neither of these “realities” are at variance with each other. My reality includes that fact that this picture has more significance for him because his sister is in it . . . I don’t see how objectivity has anything to with this example. Objectivity would have to do with, does that picture contain his sister, yes or no. Obviously we both would answer yes . . . If I don’t know the dude or the picture and you ask me does that picture contain some strangers sisters, I’d have to say I don’t know. That doesn’t suddenly disqualify the fact that it does or does not contain his sister and that they both aren’t accurate descriptors. [/FONT]

 

[Silenus]

With the my reality thing . . . are you saying, to some degree, that since we cannot know the full excess (granted realities existence) of reality, we can never truly know whether we are right. That we always must hold to a state of agnosticism. Therefore, to speak of my reality, is to admit that my experience of this ultimate reality is truncated . . . and therefore to speak of objective truth is a unattainable pipe dream. Therefore, since we don't access an excessive reality, let us talk of what we believe in terms of usefulness because that is how we access "truth" anyway.

So say I agree that we can't know things truly, do you think we can know if something is false with some definitiveness?

 

[quatona]

I think I’m going to stop exploring this in terms of my epistemology questions and respond to which statements don’t seem coherent or accurate for a second, just because it’s helpful for me to express to you why I don’t find some of your statements suitable explanations. Basically, I’m thinking out load and since, as you have expressed it, epistemology is contingent on an outside reality, I’m going to try to insist on it in an attempt to think out loud. Then maybe I can work my way back to modifying my statements.

Ok.

When I say account for, I mean what do you see as causing a change in belief. If all phenomena are self-constructed, how does a phenomena occur which causes my beliefs to change? Such a phenomena wouldn't occur because all phenomena are generated internally by my noetic structure. It is hard to conceive how a phenomena could occur which would cause a change in noetic structure or belief if all phenomena are constructed by my noetic structure.

I see.
I don´t think I ever said that „all phenomena are generated by my noetic structure“, btw.
Now, for purposes of this question, are we assuming that there is a physical reality (in which case there wouldn´t be much to explain: changes in my own physical condition cause changes in my reality)?
If, however, we work from our most recent operational agreements (i.e. that there is a physical reality out there and that our senses generate an image of this reality, I see no problem at all.

There are changes in reality, our image changes.
Or are you back at exploring the idea „dream theater without any external reality“? If defending this idea I wouldn´t know how to answer your question. Note that I haven´t even made any assumptions concerning the question how this dream theater would have come about – how could I possibly make assumption how changes in the dream theater come about, then?

I'm not sure you answered the question . . . am I to take it that you might believe phenomena can be entirely determined by conceptual structure? From the statement you made before the one I quoted, it seems you would answer that you don't know?

Well, if we are assuming that there is such a thing as „perception“ this indicates some sort of impact of the assumed outer reality on the phenomena. Since I don´t know whether this premise is warranted, I would have to say „I don´t know“, though.

no, I wouldn't say that epistemology is too concerned with perception as such. It’s concerned with interpretation of perception and what is and is not reliably accurate and how do you know?

I think that „reliably accurate“ and „useful, workable“ are way closer to each other than „reliably accurate“ and „truth“.
Since different people may disagree on what´s „reliably accurate“ I would prefer to do without this term (that still somewhat implies a congruence between phenomena and external reality, whilst in fact already being entirely subjective) and simply go with „useful, workable“ that doesn´t veil the fact that it´s based upon subjective valuations.

It has to do with coherence, instrumental accuracy, and the ability to explain and predict and be certain that those explanations and predictions are correct.

Well, yes, that´s pretty much the way I deal with my reality. If my predictions are judged correct even in the my reality of others (or even the vast majority) all the better.

On a side note, I don't know if substituting in “pragmatically useful” is much of a help. Don't you then have the question of how do you know whether it is useful or being employed in a manner that is useful . . . in the end it seems that, once you admit that perception or dream theater is not entirely determined by conceptual structures, that seems to be the ballgame on the reality question.

Silenus, for the umpteenth time: What are we discussing? Dream theater or perception? I cannot defend several different possibilities simultaneously.
Furthermore, if I would say that something is „entirely determined by conceptual structures“ (which I doubt I ever have) I still wouldn´t have explained what „conceptual structures“ are and by what they are determined. That´s why this phrase does not really sound like me.

But it seems to me the reason you assume that this illusion may exist is based on your view of constructivism . . . a prima face appraisal of language shows it working on a daily basis.

If the way it works is sufficient for you to say „it works“, fine. It provides us with the impression that we are applying sufficiently similar concepts to the words, and as long as this is the case why worry about the question whether this impression is accurate?

I employ a sentence and get an appropriate response. It happens every day at the supermarket.

So if it works where is the problem?
However, in many cases we encounter that it doesn´t work. Our conversation – despite great efforts on both sides – provides countless examples for this.
This happens every day, as well. How often have I asked my partner a supposedly unambiguous, clear question, and have received countless answers that actually weren´t answers. After long discussions and mutual explanations we finally get to the point of „Ah, that´s what you meant. Why didn´t you say so in the first place?“ and the „appropriate“ answer.
When it comes to „things“ I do not really see what would be there to account for in language.
As long as we interprete that which is similarly (which in view of us being similar beings with similar needs) it can be easily reconstructed. Two persons (depending on their needs, preconceptions, noetic structure etc.) interprete something to be a distinct object. One points in its direction and says „apple“. The other one, interested in communication, accepts this offer.

It seems to me your belief in the illusion of language is based on your desire to avoid having to use objective and subjective categories,

I haven´t expressed a „belief in the illusion of language“. I have merely said that we ultimately have no means to tell whether certain agreements are based on communalities in our concepts or are just reached by the assumption of such. This, of course, usually doesn´t become a problem before we reach a certain level of abstraction.
In the supermarket language proves useful and usually gains us the results that we strive for in using that particular language. It proves useful to the extent that the question for objectivity or subjectivity doesn´t even come up.
Yes, my desire to avoid the categories „subjective“ and „objective“ plays an important part in my approach (which, btw., is completely congruent with my approach that works from my desires as being a driving force for the set up of my reality. One might even call it circular reasoning – and that would be a justified criticism if I tried to reason for an objective truth).
Give me a good reason for accepting the categories „objective vs. subjective“ for that which subjects encounter, and I might change my mind. So far, „subjective vs. intersubjective“ appears to do more justice to the fact that all we talk about is a product brought to us through our individual senses.

not on any certainty or instrumental evidence for that belief.

If I remember correctly you have never used the term „instrumental evidence“ in our long conversation before, and now it appear several times in your post. Care to tell me what exactly you mean when saying this? I sense that I might find this term (and possibly even the concept that you use it for) quite useful.

I’m having trouble determining whether I agree with the first sentence. To me, it seems that this is the case some of the time (as in guitar) but not all the time. Sometimes I think words do point to things.

Well, speaking for myself, my words point to my concepts and categories, and depending on which of these concepts and categories a certain phenomenon most significantly (depending on my current needs and interests) fits, I will label it with this word. I don´t know how you do it.

In fact, I don’t think it is antithetical to say something refers to a concept and also to a thing.

Sure, once I have categorized a particular phenomenon in the above described way, I will use the term to point to the phenomenon.

I just don’t see the difficulty you see here, you are saying that, because reality is excessive, it is unattainable, the fact that we can be aware of all these things and still identify and conceptualize objects with accurate intersubjectivity and can interact with them successfully makes this a no problem.

I don´t know what „accurate“ intersubjectivity is. Intersubjectivity is important, the usefulness for interaction is important. That is exactly my point.

We can know how the things we see are without knowing how they ultimately are.

No, all we can know is what they look like to us. That´s quite something, though, and usually sufficient for most practical purposes.

In other words, an apple sits in the shade and so looks slightly different to you than it does to me when I view it in the sunlight doesn’t create any difficulties in us both describing it as red.

Well, if we both see a red apple where is the problem? Where is the need for epistemology?

Nor does it mean we suddenly become unaware that we are viewing it in the shade and that this has an effect of perception. I feel like this is not a bid deal.

Neither do I. There is sufficient common ground for interaction, our communication doesn´t seem to run into problems, and that´s all I need. So, indeed: not only not a big deal, but no problem at all.
However, you are the one who is concerned with epistemology, with discerning something something as accurate and true beyond mere intersubjectivity. At least that´s how I understood you from the beginning.
If, however, you have shifted your concept of „objective“ in the meantime towards something that is usually called „intersubjective“, if you probably even mean „that which the persons involved agree upon“ when saying „objective“, I don´t see much disagreement between us.

Again, we are also both aware that there is a field of shade affecting our perception. We don’t need to stop being aware of it . . . and this is where the concept of instrumental accuracy comes into play . . . the program that tells me they are identical . . .

Instrumental accuracy, however, in your view seems to be incoherent. To admit the concept of instrumental accuracy, again, admits that phenomena aren’t fully determined by conceptual structures.

I´m afraid I can´t follow. Ad 1 I am not sure I understand what you mean by „instrumental accuracy“ (without further explanation it seems to have a warm ring of pragmatism to me ), and ad 2 I really doubt that this „fully determined by conceptual structures“ that you hold it against has ever been my argument or position.

This is the difficulty with simply always using vision examples. Knowing we see things differently isn’t really a problem for me. Color is a counterpart of vision; it doesn’t exist independently of it. So to say, is it really that shade of red or this one is a red herring. Really color, objectively, is a statement of how our eyes perceive certain wavelengths. The ability to predict how people perceive certain wavelengths as a certain color shows the instrumental accuracy of our definitions that certain colors match certain wavelengths. Instrumental accuracy is important for this reason.

I put great effort into showing that we can not predict how people perceive certain wavelengths. All we can predict is how the will call them (because, no matter whether the way they look to them is identical with the way they look to others) they have learned that this is the term for however they perceive this wavelength.

This is admitted by the fact that you brought in an instrumental reading to tell me that they are, in fact, the same shade. So they are objectively that same shade? What happened to that my reality, your reality?

Note that in my example I said „supposedly objective“. The whole thing was an analogy, and it needs to be read within its frame of reference.
But forget about „supposedly objective“. There are two different situations in which we perceive the shades in a different way. Depending on the context we perceive either of those different „realities“ as undoubtedly accurate.

My particular exploration into Epistemology is based on my interest in asking how can we determine if abstractions are true and accurate.

Yes, I was wondering that all the time. From your initial questions concerning epistemology I had the impression that you were indeed interested in the „truth“ of „abstractions“. That´s why I found it somewhat confusing that you kept arguing from very concrete supermarket issues and such. I wondered why you kept bringing up examples of agreement, while actually you wanted to discuss methods to prove someone wrong in case of disagreement.

Can I say that evolution is true?

A scientist wouldn´t say that. They would say it is the best working theory currently available.

Can I say that stars are a thousand light years away . . . how do I know?

Does it explain what you need to have explained sufficiently? I personally can´t fathom what a light year is and on top I don´t plan to travel to those stars.
However, the scientists seem to work from the numbers they have calculated with apparently good results, so I would see not much point in objecting to that which is of no relevance for me, anyways.

Will a lawn gnome ever speak to me in Arabic?

In what language do lawn gnomes speak to you usually?

 

[quatona]

Part two.

In your view, it’s not whether we actually evolved, but whether such a concept is useful for my structure.

Not sure what you mean by „my structure“ here.

The more I look at your view of things the more it seems like you want to stand up and assert your own non-contingency.

Once you are at telling me what I want to do – could you do me a favour and explain it in a way that I can understand it. I have no idea what „asserting one´s own non-contingency“ might mean. Not that I necessarily plan to deny that this is what I want – but first I would need to know what it is that I want.

Then your whole being exists on its own.

For the last couple of posts we have talked a lot about communication, interaction and intersubjectivity. I don´t know what about it suggested the idea that I argued from or towards the idea that I existed on my own.

Because, once you become contingent, the question is asked, upon what things?

Maybe it´s my problem with the English language, but my attempt to understand what „becoming contingent“, and even more „becoming contingent upon...“ might mean, seems to remain helpless guesswork. Help me, please.

And neither of these “realities” are at variance with each other. My reality includes that fact that this picture has more significance for him because his sister is in it . . . I don’t see how objectivity has anything to with this example. Objectivity would have to do with, does that picture contain his sister, yes or no. Obviously we both would answer yes . . . If I don’t know the dude or the picture and you ask me does that picture contain some strangers sisters, I’d have to say I don’t know. That doesn’t suddenly disqualify the fact that it does or does not contain his sister and that they both aren’t accurate descriptors.

Do pictures contain persons?
I don´t think so. I think that - like I have said before – I might be able to determine that the picture as I interprete it (my sister in front of the Eiffeltower) is impossibly matching my reality (because in this reality my sister can impossibly have been to Paris ever).
Different ways in which my reality problem can be solved.
-[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]My sister did travel to Paris once, without me knowing about it.
-[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]When the picture was taken my sister was somewhere else, but a person looking like her was there.
-[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]When the picture was taken the Eiffeltower was far away,but something looking like the Eiffeltower was there (e.g. an Eiffeltower model).
-[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]Neither my sister nor the Eiffeltower were there when the picture was taken.

Now, as we see, there are options that could solve the apparent impossibility of my spontaneous interpretation of this picture. But even if under the assumption that my sister was once in Paris in front of the Eiffeltower, I don´t see a way to conclusively determine that this picture displays her in front of the Eiffeltower. I would, however, have less reason to doubt it, and the assumption doesn´t run into contradictions. My reality can be reconstructed as consistent. If my sister tells me „Yes, that was me. I remember I wore that very dress, Philip shot a photo of me“ and if Philip confirms this, the better. If I have found the photo in the possession of my sister who tells me that she had personally developed the Paris film and then immediately had put the photo where I found it, even more better.
„This is a photo of my sister in front of the Eiffeltower“ is the most parsimonous interpretation available. On top I don´t run into any problems concerning intersubjectivity with this interpretation. I would see no reason to keep to this interpretation. Is it accurate? What do I know? Why would I care?

 

[quatona]

With the my reality thing . . . are you saying, to some degree, that since we cannot know the full excess (granted realities existence) of reality, we can never truly know whether we are right.

It´s more like I say the concept "right" is irrelevant, uninteresting.
When I conceptualize something as a guitar I couldn´t care less about the question whether this conceptualization is "right".
Even if someone comes and claims that it is a piece of firewood and he starts a fight over it because he is almost frozen to death, I am not likely to give up my conceptualization. I might, however, incorporate this guy´s conceptualization and admit that - depending on the needs and desires - it can be both.

That we always must hold to a state of agnosticism.

Well, everybody can do what they want - I can´t keep them from claiming knowledge, can I?
I, however, have no need for the idea of "knowledge about the ultimate reality". I am busy managing my reality and getting to terms with the fact that others sometimes have conflicting realities. Respecting their realities as theirs seems to give me good results. Like, it keeps me from engaging in Holy Wars.

Therefore, to speak of my reality, is to admit that my experience of this ultimate reality is truncated . . .

No. To speak of my reality means making no statement whatsoever about that which others find comfort in as assuming as "ultimate reality". I hold no concept that could reasonably be called "ultimate reality". I have no idea what that´s supposed to be.

and therefore to speak of objective truth is a unattainable pipe dream.

What´s even better: It´s a completely useless and baseless concept, in the first place.

Therefore, since we don't access an excessive reality, let us talk of what we believe in terms of usefulness because that is how we access "truth" anyway.

No, you keep imposing your concepts on my position. I don´t speak of "truth". The external reality - if such exists - is what it is. Case closed. Every attempt of giving it meaning, of categorizing it, of conceptualizing is, of ripping it apart into objects is my doing and the result is what I want and need it to be.

So say I agree that we can't know things truly, do you think we can know if something is false with some definitiveness?

Yes, within a given frame of reference we can determine that a statement is false. If, however, you don´t accept the frame of reference I am operating in, we might run into problems with agreeing on the falseness of the statement.

 

[pebblesflintstone]

I took a class in my university called human learning and cognition. Anyways it was a great class- discussed how philosophy and it's view on knowledge affected all the psychological thinking from there on. The book pairs the philosophers with respective psychological theories and I think you would enjoy it. The book was written by Hergenhahn and its called "Theories of Learning" it's beauty darn good and I recommended

 

[Silenus]

Yes, I was wondering that all the time. From your initial questions concerning epistemology I had the impression that you were indeed interested in the „truth“ of „abstractions“. That´s why I found it somewhat confusing that you kept arguing from very concrete supermarket issues and such. I wondered why you kept bringing up examples of agreement, while actually you wanted to discuss methods to prove someone wrong in case of disagreement.

I think I kept bringing it up because I have trouble seeing how the aforementioned methods of proof in disagreement are completely divorced from these concrete things . . . however, let me, after an absence due to excessive overworking, clarify what i am thinking now, after some pondering a chance encounter with Nietzsche.

To the realists.— You sober people who feel well armed against passion and fantasies and would like to turn your emptiness into a matter of pride and an ornament: you call yourselves realists and hint that the world really is the way it appears to you. As if reality stood unveiled before you only, and you yourselves were perhaps the best part of it . . . Your sobriety still contains a secret and inextinguishable drunkenness! Your love of "reality," for example—oh, that is a primeval "love"! Every feeling and sensation contains a piece of this old love; and some fantasy, some prejudice, some unreason, some ignorance, some fear, and ever so much else has contributed to it and worked on it. That mountain there! That cloud there! What is "real" in that? Subtract the phantasm and every human contribution from it, my sober friends! If you can! If you can forget your descent, your past, your training—all of your humanity and animality! There is no "reality" for us—not for you either, my sober friends,—we are not nearly as different as you think, and perhaps our good will to transcend intoxication is as respectable as your faith that you are altogether incapable of intoxication.

There is a lot in this quote that I find appealing and I could almost imagine you typing it during our conversations, although I don’t think you’d ascribe to it. I had a moment not too long again that directly connected to our conversation. My wife had just painted the kitchen of our house and the color was such that, because of lighting, it looked like a different color over the staircase then it did over the kitchen sink. I had to laugh because here is a nice little real life example of your cube diagram thing.

Here is my basic difficulty. It seemed to me from previous discussion that you agree that not all cognition and perception is determined by noetic structure. If this is the case, there is something out there is also contributing to mental constructions and to cognition, I see no way around this. If all phenomena is not from self alone, something else contributes and it seems to me that something else has to be reality.

Now the question for me becomes how does error occur, if it does occur? Everyone changes opinion and opinion change means that I have admitted to myself that something I had previously thought to obtain was inaccurate. Such an inaccuracy would never be noted if phenomena are internally determined, so that error had to be something recognized or gleaned from an external determination. Once it is admitted that error is caused by an adjustment to the externally determined phenomena, it seems you must admit the existence of objectivity. The thing causing opinion change is external.

Now I come to the problem of assurance and the thing we talked about before. If you cannot get the “birds eye view” of reality, how can you know you have the truth. You seem to say, since you can’t get the bird’s eye view, why talk about truth and falsehood, just talk of how you have constructed out of what you have. I find this appealing. However, I can’t ignore the fact that there is a reality, and therefore, a truth out there, which seems to be what is going on if I jettison truth and falsehood for some sort of pragmatism. It seems to me that Mortimer Adler’s tripartite distinctions of knowledge and opinion helpful. There is knowledge that is assured truth (logic) that has a self-evidence to it. Then, there is truth that is knowledge for me up until this point, up to what I know thus far. There is a humility here because I may encounter phenomena that inspires change, but the possibility of being wrong doesn’t mean I should automatically assume I am. And there is opinion, beliefs held about things of which I have inadequate information.

So, it seems to me, I shouldn’t ignore the existence of truth (simply because I can never have full assurance). In fact, this seems more obviously to me simply because realism is also somewhat common sense and is pretty basic a belief for all people in all cultures and so the burden of proof seems on those who deny a correspondence theory of truth.

So, after some thought, my conflict is between the seemingly obvious correctness of correspondence theory with the obvious fact of the lack of full assurance of most beliefs.

 

[quatona]

Silenus, thanks for the Nietzsche quote!
I didn´t know it, and I think it is right on the mark of our discussion, and if I were more poetic I could indeed have written it myself. In fact, I think it answers the problem that you will be talking about further down better than I ever could.

Here is my basic difficulty. It seemed to me from previous discussion that you agree that not all cognition and perception is determined by noetic structure
If this is the case, there is something out there is also contributing to mental constructions and to cognition, I see no way around this. If all phenomena is not from self alone, something else contributes and it seems to me that something else has to be reality. .

Well, it´s rather that for purposes of this discussion I agreed to work from

• the idea of an external reality
• the idea that our images in one way or the other deal with this external reality.

Thus, what you present as conclusion here seems to actually merely be a rephrasing of the premises I conceded for the sake of a focussed discussion.

Now the question for me becomes how does error occur, if it does occur? Everyone changes opinion and opinion change means that I have admitted to myself that something I had previously thought to obtain was inaccurate. Such an inaccuracy would never be noted if phenomena are internally determined, so that error had to be something recognized or gleaned from an external determination. Once it is admitted that error is caused by an adjustment to the externally determined phenomena, it seems you must admit the existence of objectivity. The thing causing opinion change is external.

Now I come to the problem of assurance and the thing we talked about before. If you cannot get the “birds eye view” of reality, how can you know you have the truth. You seem to say, since you can’t get the bird’s eye view, why talk about truth and falsehood, just talk of how you have constructed out of what you have. I find this appealing. However, I can’t ignore the fact that there is a reality, and therefore, a truth out there, which seems to be what is going on if I jettison truth and falsehood for some sort of pragmatism. It seems to me that Mortimer Adler’s tripartite distinctions of knowledge and opinion helpful. There is knowledge that is assured truth (logic) that has a self-evidence to it. Then, there is truth that is knowledge for me up until this point, up to what I know thus far. There is a humility here because I may encounter phenomena that inspires change, but the possibility of being wrong doesn’t mean I should automatically assume I am. And there is opinion, beliefs held about things of which I have inadequate information.

So, it seems to me, I shouldn’t ignore the existence of truth (simply because I can never have full assurance). In fact, this seems more obviously to me simply because realism is also somewhat common sense and is pretty basic a belief for all people in all cultures and so the burden of proof seems on those who deny a correspondence theory of truth.

So, after some thought, my conflict is between the seemingly obvious correctness of correspondence theory with the obvious fact of the lack of full assurance of most beliefs.

I think I understand what you are seeing as the problem here.
However, I think that your problem is induced by an unprecise use of the term „truth“ (or an equivocation), if you will. In your post you equivocate „(external) reality“ and „truth“, whilst epistemology uses the term „truth“ as a statement about a connection/relation between external reality and image.
As I said in my previous post the external reality „is what it is“. That´s all we can say about it without subjecting it to the perception and conceptualization of an observer. „Truth“, however, presupposes an observer and actually does not point to a quality of the external reality but to a connection/relation between observer and the observed (with the purpose of exactly not leaving it at „it is what it is“, but connecting it to the observer´s mind, i.e. giving it meaning) . All attempts to eliminate the observer/observation are futile. Even a „bird´s eye perspective“ wouldn´t eliminate the observer/observation as (co-)determining factor of the resulting image – it would still not be „what it is“, but that which is observed from a certain perspective. #
Come to think of it, the attempt to perceive/understand „that which is“ as „that which is“ is downright absurd and pointless. It is the attempt to arrive at a statement that says more than merely „it is what it is“, but making such a statement would require us to take the perception/conceptualization out of the equation -. in which case we wouldn´t be able to make any statement at all. Conceptualization without conceptualizing. Perception without perceiving.
There are two options:
Either we leave that which is in its immediacy and simply accept that „it is what it is“, or we try to make it accessible to our mind through our perception and conceptualization in which case it would be absurd to eliminate exactly that which we are after: conceptual connection.

Subjecting "that which is" to our conceptualization is by its very nature the attempt to give it meaning (to make sense of it in the way our mind requires us to). To call this „distortion“ or „error“ downright denies the very purpose of epistemology. It is not an „error“ – it is actually exactly what you want when trying to get a grasp on the external reality. You want to get a grasp on it – you do not want to leave it in its immediacy, you do not want to leave it be what it is.

„What is?“ is actually never the question in epistemology. The question is always „What does it mean to me?“. „Truth“ necessarily points to the connection between a mind and external reality.

Now for some detail responses:

.

However, I can’t ignore the fact that there is a reality, and therefore, a truth out there, which seems to be what is going on if I jettison truth and falsehood for some sort of pragmatism. It seems to me that Mortimer Adler’s tripartite distinctions of knowledge and opinion helpful.

Hihi. That gave me a chuckle. Arguing against a pragmatic approach and for the importance of „truth“ by pointing to a certain approach as „helpful“ is, well, funny, isn´t it?
But of course I won´t reject to look into Adler´s concepts on grounds of my own paradigm: Helpfulness, usefulness. Let´s see.

.

There is knowledge that is assured truth (logic) that has a self-evidence to it.

Something that is „self-evident“ wouldn´t even be subject to epistemology. It would be self-evident, after all. Not subject to discussion, doubts or disagreement. Calling this „truth“ or „universal agreement“ makes practically no difference and is indistinguishable. There will be and there can be no epistemological problems.

(On another note: Logic is a completely different animal. Logic – as I understood we used this term throughout this discussion - is not to be equivocated with „truth“ – it is a tool, not a result. It is not the external reality, it is the epitome of a „noetic structure“. It describes how our conceptualization works. It describes the way we get from one concept to another, in which these concepts don´t even need to be assumed to point to external reality. Logic works independently of external reality - logic doesn´t even require any connection to the external reality. In fact words don´t even need to have a concept that they point to in order for us to be able to check whether the thoughtprocess is logical, illogical or alogical. Logic is a case of "garbage in, garbage out", or better "concept in, concept out". It is an internal process, that doesn´t help anything with overcoming the inevitable difference between concept/image and "what is".
"External reality" and "truth" are two different concepts, "logic" and "truth" are two completely different concepts, so are "external reality" and "logic". You would, of course, be entitled to use them as synonyms - but in this case you can´t conclude from one on the other, as you were doing.)

Then, there is truth that is knowledge for me up until this point, up to what I know thus far.

Excuse me, Silenus, but this appears to be in the best case very careless wording, in the worst case careless thinking. On the one hand you are trying to establish "truth" and "knowledge" as states of objectivity, and now you even call that "truth" that which you clearly signify as subjective by saying "knowledge for you".

There is a humility here because I may encounter phenomena that inspires change, but the possibility of being wrong doesn’t mean I should automatically assume I am.

I´m not sure how you get to the idea that you „know“ something. It doesn´t follow from anything we have said so far. It´s just an assertion, that on top you yourself qualify as subjective in the same sentence. So, in order to prevent us from jumping to unwarranted conclusions, from putting the cart before the horse and from defining „knowledge“ and "truth" into existence, I´d suggest to call this state „assuming“.

All I can say in view of an unchanging or changing external reality and a changing mind/needs/preconceptions (or „noetic structure&#8220 is that the current image is the most useful/meaningful. In which the mind as that which creates meaning is the ultimately determining factor.
If my image changes, there are basically three options as the cause:
- external reality has changed
- my perspective has changed
- my needs have changed.

[Just for clarification: I would, of course, not advocate to (automatically or otherwise) "assume I am wrong". Since not operating with the concept "truth about the external reality", I don´t operate with the concept "wrong about the external reality", either. I am merely stating that the image/concept is not the external reality. No matter how I slice it will always be an image/concept thereof, and this image/concept is all I can work from. Unlike your idea of "truth" requires you to, I don´t see a problem with that. My concepts work in my reality, my reality is consistent (it is reconcilable with logic and other "noetic structures") - or they don´t and it isn´t.]

And there is opinion, beliefs held about things of which I have inadequate information.

I fail to see the difference between the former option and this one. In both cases I would assume that my current information is accurate, but don´t and can´t currently know whether it is. It is not until a later change that we might make a negative statement about it - be it "inaccurate" (you) or "not useful" (me). (Interestingly you use „adequate/inadequate“ and not „accurate“, a terminology that matches my pragmatic approach of usefulness better than that of „error/truth“. )

From my approach this distinction model is completely useless, of course. It doesn´t add anything useful to the fact that at every point my current image is the currently best available for me. This model of different states of „knowledge“ draws arbitrary lines on the sweeping scale of the necessity that holding certain concepts can have in my reality.

Whilst in situations of interaction with others (i.e. in situations of the need for "epistemological" process) it is even less useful. If you and I look on the same thermometer at the same point in time and I see it reading „20°C“ and you see it reading „10°C“ we have an intersubjectivity problem. On which stage of Adler´s model my conviction „20°C“ would be located makes no practical difference and doesn´t help make the disagreement go away.
I´m inclined to think that – vice versa - the degree of agreement they find themselves in with others is one of the determining factors in how strongly those that think in terms of „truth“ assume a certain image to be „true“.

So, it seems to me, I shouldn’t ignore the existence of truth (simply because I can never have full assurance).

I´m confused. I don´t know which of the various meanings of "truth" you have been operating with so this "existence of truth refers to".
"Truth" (as in "identity between external reality and concept") is an impossibility. They are different and they must be different, as I have tried to shown in the beginning of my post.
"Truth" (as in "extremely strong, beyond any doubt held conviction", as in Adler´s model) depends on full assurance.

In fact, this seems more obviously to me simply because realism is also somewhat common sense and is pretty basic a belief for all people in all cultures and so the burden of proof seems on those who deny a correspondence theory of truth.

Well, you are merely appealing to the usefulness of agreement here. This is at the core of my approach.
I don´t see that the replacement of "universal agreement" or "majority opinion/belief" by the term "truth" renders any change to my approach. It´s a change in semantics, and on top it means that you have added another definition to the various definitions of "truth" you have been operating with so far anyway. However, if you define "truth" as a synonym for "universal agreement" or "majority agreement", the term "burden of proof" is obsolete. We just count the votes, and the result is the proof for the minority being "wrong", by virtue of your definition.

So, after some thought, my conflict is between the seemingly obvious correctness of correspondence theory with the obvious fact of the lack of full assurance of most beliefs.

I´m not sure how to respond to an argument from "obviousness" when I don´t agree with it being obvious.

"Obvious correctness of correspondence theory" is self-referring, btw. Circular.

Fortunately, in my approach I don´t need to deal with these conceptual problems introduced by the need to change the definition of "truth" until it makes at least some sense (even though it doesn´t have anything to do anymore with that which it used to signify at the beginning of the discussion).

Agreement: no intersubjective problem. No agreement: intersubjective problem.
Intersubjectivity problems aren´t solved by majority vote (i.e. the disagreement remains). It is one of several conceivable pragmatic approaches of dealing with them, though. The question, as it would present itself to me: In which instances is marority vote a useful approach (and for which purpose), and in which instances is it not (and how does my view on this change - depending whether I am in the majority or minority)?

 

[Silenus]

Well, it´s rather that for purposes of this discussion I agreed to work from

• the idea of an external reality
• the idea that our images in one way or the other deal with this external reality.

Thus, what you present as conclusion here seems to actually merely be a rephrasing of the premises I conceded for the sake of a focussed discussion.

Actually, its a little more than just a rephrasing of an assumption. I don't see, once you admit that phenomena are not simply locally determined, how you escape the existence of a reality. If something else is contributing to phenomena other than noetic structure, what else could it be but reality? mind theater doesn't fit the bill. And, again, if you admit this, then there must be some connection with that reality. I took it that you agreed that phenomena are not fully locally determined, not fully formed by noetic structure when you said this . . .

I don´t think I ever said that „all phenomena are generated by my noetic structure“, btw.

Subjecting "that which is" to our conceptualization is by its very nature the attempt to give it meaning (to make sense of it in the way our mind requires us to). To call this „distortion“ or „error“ downright denies the very purpose of epistemology. It is not an „error“ – it is actually exactly what you want when trying to get a grasp on the external reality. You want to get a grasp on it – you do not want to leave it in its immediacy, you do not want to leave it be what it is.

„What is?“ is actually never the question in epistemology. The question is always „What does it mean to me?“. „Truth“ necessarily points to the connection between a mind and external reality.

it's interesting, i don't think I understand you here because, on first reading, I agree with you and I don't feel it impacts my previous post at all. In fact, I see it as reinforcing it. I take it, when you say get a grasp of it, you might mean understand it. To be able to comprehend its how's and why's, so to speak. I don't see that as the antithesis of leaving it be what it is . . . What is opinion change if not the realization that a conceptualization doesn't match experienced phenomena and existing conception coherently, or that a judgment based on a conception or perception is found to be incomplete? And since phenomena is not locally, internally, or noetically determined, what else is causing that change but a more accurate understanding of that which is?

Hihi. That gave me a chuckle. Arguing against a pragmatic approach and for the importance of „truth“ by pointing to a certain approach as „helpful“ is, well, funny, isn´t it?

I'm not citing Adler's methodology here, but his terminology, the way he distinguishes between forms of knowledge. I don't see how that is contrary to anything I've said previous.

On another note: Logic is a completely different animal. Logic – as I understood we used this term throughout this discussion - is not to be equivocated with „truth“ – it is a tool, not a result. It is not the external reality, it is the epitome of a „noetic structure“.

I agree, but I would argue that logic is an intuitively self-evident tool.

"Truth" (as in "identity between external reality and concept") is an impossibility. They are different and they must be different, as I have tried to shown in the beginning of my post.
"Truth" (as in "extremely strong, beyond any doubt held conviction", as in Adler´s model) depends on full assurance.

You're right, I haven't made myself clear and I wasn't sure which part of your response to quote to give my words here context. I chose the above statement of yours because I was talking about Adler because I thought it was a good way to categorize assurance, that's all. I do disagree with the first statement that it is an impossibility. Especially, again, considering the fact that phenomena are not locally determined.