Knowledge and Narratives

Your questions.

2007-04-27T11:12:00.000-05:00

1. Is the knowledge presented by Hornbacher literally significant or only emotionally signficiant?

2. What is the difference between weak and strong verification? Can we ever attain strong verification?

3. How does someone decide whether a program is degenerative or progressive when it is providing explanations for failures?

4. How does Popper distinguish between trial and error and induction?

5. What is the difference between Popper’s theory of knowledge and Lakatos’s (according to lakatos)?

6. What, according to Popper, is the benefit of reduction?

7. How would Ayer establish the existence of a table?

8. How would Popper consider the idea of absolute knowledge?

9. Describe the hard core and the protective belt of astrology.

10. ExplainPopper’s theoy: P1 >> TT>>EE>> P2. What does this tell us about knowledge?

11. If everything is subjective and in the minds of people, how do we know what is “real” and/or to what extent we can trust characteristics of things to be “true/certain”?

12. Russell makes the argument that animals are not self-aware, but how can he do so when he just admitted that he cannot understand what is in the minds of others?”

13. In thesis 6, Popper says that knowledge cannot start from nothing and that the advance of knowledge consists mainly in the modification of earlier knowledge. But doesn’t knowledge have to originally start out of nothing? Knowledge can only be a product of earlier knowledge up to a point; even if we cannot literally trace back to the earlies instance of knowledge, can we still assume that there is a point at which there is no earlier knowledge?

14. What distinguishes science from pseudoscience? Is philosophy a science or pseudoscience?

15. Have any of the answers you have given on this test been literally significant? Have any of the questions been literally significant?

16. What is a demarcation criterion? What are the demarcation criteria of the philosophers we have read?

17. How does Longino merge the normative (Popper) and descriptive (Kuhn) accounts of knowledge?

18. Why does Longino state that in science, there are Paradigns (a time when people agree on things) and then scientific revolutions

19. According to Lakatos, there is a "hardcore" and "protective belt". Explain what these are and why they are used.

20. "Chris has been depressed these days."Is this sentence literally meaningful or emotionally significant according to Ayres? How about according to Skinner?

21. What is the difference between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description?

22. What are Ayer's main arguments against metaphysics?

23. What are the differences between degenerating and progressive research programs?

24. What’s a positivist?

25. What's a materialist?

26. What is objectivity?

27. What’s the difference between science and pseudoscience? Identify science/pseudoscience.

28. Explain how you might reduce __ to __

29. What’s the difference between induction and deduction? Identify examples of the two.

30. How can you be sure of your own existence, and then of the existence of other things?

4/24 questions

2007-04-26T09:14:00.000-05:00

Q1: How big does a scientific "community" have to be for something to count as scientific knowledge? For example, the Apollo missions to the moon were only experienced by a handful of people, and the astronauts can almost be described as having gone through "mystical experiences". Yet, we accept that research and the historical accomplishment itself as scientific knowledge, despite its un-repeatable nature.
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Q2: On a basic level, I understand that objectivity comes in degrees. If an idea is accepted by the community at large and has been questioned with no changes resulting, it's probably a pretty objective idea as opposed to an individual's radical idea, which is probably not objective.

My question is how does an idea become objective if it is originally is an individual's "crazy" idea that is initially rejected by the scientific community? Eventually, a lot of ideas are accepted into the scientific canon, but how do they get there after being rejected so many times? (ex. earth revolves around sun)
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Q3: Isn't Longino's definition of objectivity a little faulty? As far as I can tell she fails to show that her criterion for objectivity establish anything other than a semblance of objectivity. The chapter seems to establish not that science as a social phenomenon is objective but that Longino wants to redefine objectivity to refer to things which come about by social processes. I don't buy this--it seems like her criterion for objectivity are subjective--the word objective is subjective. I am sick of objective knowledge.
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Q4: 1. Please explain the reasons that Longino has to support her claims (for instance, what are her reasons behind her claim the "scientific method involves as an equally central aspect the subjection of hypotheses and the background knowledge assumptions in light of which they seem to be supported by data to varieties of conceptual criticism" on page 74). It would also be really really helpful if you went over the main points... I got so lost reading this!
2. On page 65, what is the epistemological ideal of objectivity?
3. Which category does intersubjective criticism fall into? Is it evidential of conceptual?
4. In the Objectivity by Degrees section, what exactly does she mean by "Shared Standards"?
5. Specifically, what is the difference between positivist analysis and anti-empiricist analysis?
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Q5: Would it be possible to go one step farther than Longino and say that objectivity is impossible? Even if society agrees on something, it could still be considererd biased due to overarching social ideas, and therefore not really objective.
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Q6: My question is about her claim that a benefit of social knowledge is that it prevents knowledge from being shaped by "highly idiosyncratic values." Can't there be valuable theories that arise from such values. Copernicus had to have very idiosyncratic values to disagree with the currently popular beliefs of Aristotle and theorize that the universe was heliocentric, but that is now believed to be true. Furthermore, it was not really because of the criticism of his peers that the theory was accepted, but the development of further tools and math. How does this fit in with her idea that through social criticism we gain knowledge?
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Q7: My reading of the text is that objectivity may be attained through careful averaging of subjectivities, through guidelines designed to remove subjectivity from the averaging process itself. But, since the subjectivities in question all spring from the same source- that of human limitation- what precautions are taken to assure that this average of subjectivities approaches true objectivity (in the sense of capturing the intrinsic nature of an entity)?

It seems that, considering we can not compare human subjectivity as a whole to any one truly objective source, how can we know how far from objectivity we as human's fall? I mean, we may be reasonably precise in terms of objectivity, but what reference do we have to indicate that we are at all accurate?

To demonstrate my point- let's say a certain subset of clinically insane people were to evaluate a phenomenon. Assuming that they all suffer from similar perspective excesses, their analyses may all fall in a similar range of understandings, and they might consider themselves to reach objectivity by averaging their opinions. But a "normal" observer, one with supposed better faculties for approximating reality, would see their group's perception as highly subjective.

Similarly, without consulting some source of absolute individual objectivity (a preposterous proposition, and one that would be very hard to confirm) it is very difficult to conclude that an average of human subjectivity can yield a truly objective conclusion.
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Q8: Is Longino stating that science is social knowledge because first the theory has to be accepted by other scientist by the community before being "released" into the world? We could say that their might be an amazing discovery, but if the "panel" of scientist deem it unimportant or are racists, genderist, ect, they will make sure no one in the outside world knows about it?
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Q9: The article mentioned a few things that "limit the extent of criticism" and block objectivity such as the endless criticism of assumptions, a de-emphasis on critisim in favor or "originality" and the fact that some assumptions aren't being recognized as such. Is anything being done to try to fix these things? I think the first is the most difficult to deal with. Is there a point where there is no more useful criticism? If so, would this be the point where we can say that is knowledge or truth?

The differentiation of science from myth or religion on page 70 (I think) is a little confusing--I feel that anybody has the right or authority to criticize myth or religion, similarly as one does to science. If one has the appropriate background and knowledge, one can do so quite reasonably. Perhaps the difference is in the reception of the criticism instead? I'm not sure about that, considering I've heard it's really difficult for scientists to abandon old theories and ideas, just as it is for those who follow certain religious beliefs.
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Q10: What characterizes a positivist versus a wholist? Do these terms appear in contexts besides objectivity?
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Q11:For Longino, does objective science get closer and closer to a description of the real world (like the asymptotic graph you drew for Popper) or does it only get closer to a state of universal agreement among scientists?

I guess both should occur, but is there any guarantee here that objective science will describe reality?
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Q12: 1) What’s meant by “logical positivist”?
2) Longino mentions a connection between closed society and decreasing objectivity. While lessening criticism of science may diminish objectivity, wasn't there primarily just lestened criticism of the morals associated with such science in the WW2 era, meaning the science itself is just as objective then?
3) By contrast, consider a one-man society, in which one person does all the research. As this removes the social factor in the objectivity of science, would the one-man science be any more subjective? I'd think science by definition has to be objective.
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Q13: Longino mentions that "because community values and assumptions determine whether a given bit of reasoning will pass or survive criticism and thus be acceptable, individual values as such will only rarely be at issue in these analyses". It seems quite dangerous, then, if a community's view is skewed in such a way as to act as a filter for scientific values. Is the objectivity of science as a whole then dependent on the overall values of the local community? Doesn't science then suffer greatly if the world develops presuppositions that hinder the production of certain theories? If so, how do we as a world ensure that we operate with the least amount of bias?
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Q14: According to Longino, does scientific objectivity occur when a theory or experiment is introduced into a community that has no background or relation to the theory. or to be a bit clearer as a whole can science be considered knowledge if it introduced into a community that lacks prior knowledge of a theory but is convinced by the "scientist" that said experiment is true.

4/19 Questions

2007-04-23T09:58:00.000-05:00

Q1: 1. who exactly is the person using Lakatos' writing and adding side comments in brackets?

2. I am wondering what these terms/sentences mean: "theological knowledge cannot be fallible: it must be beyond doubt", and "empirical progress".

3. How does the author believe the problem of demarcation can be solved? Since most of his writing is a criticism of Kuhn and Popper's approach to distinguishing between science and pseudoscience, I got a bit confused. For him, is science a program with "dramatic, unexpected, stunning predictions"? This doesn't really make sense to me. Also, he ends the paper by saying how distinguishing between science and pseudoscience "has grave ethical and political implications"... so to recap by question, does he even come up with a way to solve the problem of demarcation?

A1: (1) The paper was originally a "public lecture" that Lakatos gave. The side comments in brackets were added, by him, when he put it down in written format.

(2) With respect to "theological knowledge ..." . In this whole passage, L. is explaining why it is that the criterion for having knowledge is thought to be "proven from fact". In giving you this explanation, L. turns to the history of science, and shows that science inherited this criterion from theology, where knowledge was claimed to be beyond doubt. " Beyond doubt", when freed from theological authority, needs a bit more explaining (we can no longer give as reason for believing something "because God said so"). Thus, beyond doubt is interpreted as being proven from fact. If you can prove it from facts, then it is beyond doubt.

"Empirical progress" is just the growth of knowledge.

(3) Demarcation (delimiting what is knowledge (science) from what is not) is done through an evaluation of a research programme. One needs to evaluate a whole research programme and determine whether it is progressive or degenerative. Degenerative ones are not knowledge, progressive ones are. The "dramatic...stunning" bit is basically describing one aspect of progressiveness. But even if they are just "interesting and entertaining", that's progress, too. As long as they are not degenerating. Degeneration is identified by a research programme's inability to make new predictions, and also by it's method of handling conflicting experimental results -- it basically "patches up" the theory by adding ad hoc statements to account for the anomaly. So, yes, he does have a positive thesis regarding demarcation.
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Q2: It seems like Lakatos is setting up falsifiability as a bit of a straw man. Does Popper actually "preach" that "refutations are the hallmark of empirical failure," that in actual scientific inquiry a single piece of counter-evidence destroys a theory forever? It doesn't seem like it to me - Popper is describing a theoretical notion rather than something that corresponds to the history of science. How is Lakatos actually arguing against Popper? Or to rephrase, what is the version of falsifiability Lakatos is attacking?

Also, is Popper's falsifiability criterion the only aspect of his theory that can demarcate science from pseudoscience, as Lakatos seems to imply? What about P's notion that better theories lead to new and more interesting questions? That seems just as good if not better than Lakatos's sense that "in a progressive research program, theory leads to the discovery of hitherto unknown novel facts."

A2: The important criticism of Popper that Lakatos is making concerns the conclusion that one draws when one finds that one's theory about a matter predicts something that comes out false. For Popper (Lakatos claims) that is the death of the theory. Lakatos' claim is that it is not/should not be. And the simple reason for this is because the theory does not exist alone in the world. It come surrounded by a protective belt (see below), which is amended and modified in light of the failed prediction. The "hard core" (seriously, can you believe this terminology??) remains untouched.

I agree with you though. I think that Lakatos' exegesis leaves much to be desired. (In particular, Popper does have a positive proposal concerning the ability of a conjecture to make predictions, evaluating conjectures on the basis of those predictions that are confirmed, the refinement of conjectures and the development of new and interesting questions. One needs to ask how these features of knowledge acquisition might figure into, and cohere with, what Lakatos is saying about progressive research programmes.)

With respect to your second question: The emphasis is on what gets tossed, not what gets saved. What L. is actually objecting to is the idea that we would eliminate a conjecture from consideration merely because some experiment has gone awry (i.e. the ~P case). His claim is that there are a lot of reasons for why this might have happened, and not all of them entail that the theory is false. In fact most of them don't. So to say that, simply because a theory met with the unfortunate circumstance of making a prediction that came out false, we should therefore consider it non-knowledge, is to draw the demarcation line at the wrong place.

So, at least with respect to the question of what gets tossed out as non-sense, Popper (according to Lakatos) is acting too hastily. This is a generally accepted criticism of Popper.
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Q3: It's strange this tension between narratives and knowledge. It seems like we're reading lots of essays about fantastic objective knowledge and its attainability--and then reading books (only one so far) whose worth lies wholly in their subjectivity. Where's the middle ground here? Won't each group of texts deny the legitimacy of others? I'm in a difficult position because I'm conditioned by English to start from the text rather than starting against the text, which seems to be the method in philosophy. I've read the lakatos, and everything else and simply don't feel wholly engaged by it. I grasp it intellectually but it doesn't seem emotionally relevant--and Ayer or someone is telling me that anything that is emotionally relevant isn't real, or isn't verifiable, or doesn't matter. Is philosophy pseudoscientific? It doesn't seem to make surprising claims, like lakatos wants his sciences to, just to rationalize and connect existing facts of life.

A3: But there is a middle ground here -- a middle ground between objectivity and subjectivity. We can only see that once we recognize that this thing we've been aiming for -- objective knowledge -- is non-existent. Ultimately, there is no objectivity. Anything that we might have thought of as objectivity -- a god's-eye view of the world, the view from nowhere, a value-free, perspectiveless account of reality -- is unattainable because there is no magic method that drives the subject out of our claims about the world. But it is only through an understanding of this failure that we can come to see why (1) we are not propelled into a radical subjectivism or even strong social constructivism and (2) subjectivity -- and, more importantly, the explicit recognition of subjectivity -- is the path to knowledge.
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Q4: I don't really understand the concept of not being able to derive a
law of nature from a finite number of facts. I understand the
unreliability of facts in the sense that we can never achieve finite (Editor's note: do you mean `infinite' here?)
knowledge, but then how do laws exist at all? If they can never be
proven, what differentiates laws from theories? I always thought that
laws were, in fact, proven theories. Along the same lines, I don't
understand Popper's statement that a theory is only scientific if it
can be falsified. Are there really no concrete scientific findings?

A4: To put the answer to your first question most simply, a law makes a universal claim about ALL occurrences of a particular event or property (i.e. PE=mgh, Potential energy can be calculated as the product of the mass of an object, gravity and the height of the object above the earth). Since we haven't experienced all cases of objects resting at some distance above the earth, this is a statement that goes beyond what we actually have experienced to predict something about future such events. So laws, to the extend that they `exist', are actually unproven assumptions -- assumptions that things will continue to be just as we have experienced them (and, for that matter, were like this prior to our having experienced them.)

Your second question is important to understand. What Popper is saying is not that a conjecture (theory) must, IN FACT, we falsified, but rather that it be the kind of statement that, POTENTIALLY, can be falsified. So, does the conjecture make a claim about the world that we can actually go out and tests? There are absolute scientific findings according to Popper (N.B. Lakatos will disagree) -- conjectures that we have shown to be false. And there are scientific findings that are well supported -- we keep doing tests, different sorts of them, we keep refining the conjecture, coming up with new predictions, and these keep coming out true, so our conjectures are more probable than not.
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Q5: I don't understand the part about value. I think people have to assign value to things, things just don't objectively come with it. Thus, I could manage to believe pseudoscience can have scientific value if believed but how can a theory no one believes or understands be valuable (even if it's "really" progressive)? Would a dollar be valuable if no one believed in it's worth or understood it's purpose? Could it just be POTENTIALLY valuable if it's worth would just be understood or discovered? Is there such thing as objective value?

A5: What L. is really trying to say here is clearer if you focus on his distinction, made in the first paragraph, between knowledge and things that are not knowledge -- superstition, ideology, pseudoscience (i.e. false claims). His point, I believe, is that whether or not something is true is independent of whether anyone believe it. Many things that are false are believed by a lot of people, and many things that are true are believed by nobody (just think of things that have yet to be discovered). He is probably trying to stay away from the true/false dichotomy since, on his account, theories won't be known to be true or false, but will make novel predictions, explain a lot of phenomena and, in general, be progressive. So, if you interpret "valuable" in this sense -- i.e. help a research programme to be progressive.

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Q6: Who are Mendelians? ("communist party persecuted mendelians")
Does anyone actually think of marxism as a science? why does lakatos hate commies?

A6: People who studied early genetics and followed Gregor Mendel's theory that phenotypic traits (like plant height, seed color, etc.) sort into dominant and recessive traits (tall, short; green, yellow) that are determined by genes.

Marxism is a political theory, and to the extent that it predicts the rise and fall of politico-economic systems, yes it is a scientific theory.

Lakatos was a Hungarian citizen and witnessed the invasion of his homeland by communist forces during WWII.
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Q7: I am having problems understanding how the value of a scientific theory is independent of the human mind that creates it/understands it. If it such a grand and valuable idea, then how does it get assigned value other than when people use it? I can't see how scientific theories can have intrinsic value because there they can only be appreciated by those who work with them and use them or by those who create them to explain phenomena as it exists in the world.

Also, is only scientific theory knowledge because of the "value" that it has? Can pseudoscientific theory be knowledge or can we have knowledge of pseudoscientific theory even if it doesn't really have much value? (which goes back to the question of how theories are assigned value independently of people)
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Q8: Lakatos's comments about Popper's view on the line between science and pseudoscience trouble me. If I understood Popper correctly, in order to be scientific, something must be directly testable. In this sense, Marxism would be refutable by the same sense that Lakatos eventually arrives at-- its predictions fail to come true. I also feel like recalcitrant results can be explained in Popper's sense- that they do not in fact represent a falsification of the meat of the theory, but they serve to make the theory more refined. They are new "problems" as I understand it. This said, what is really the difference between Popper and Lakatos's definitions of science?

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Q9: Can a programme still work or be true if it is degenerative? for instance, if one is looking at some specific historical event and one formulates a theory for why and how such an event came to pass, there isn't really a way to predict novel facts, because the information is already laid out: one already knows what happened before, and what heppened after, and the consequences; one knows all the circumstances already. First of all would this be a degenerative theory? And if so, can it still be valid?
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Q10: Marxism is offered as an example of a degenerating program, but it seemed a little out of place in the context of the whole paper. What is another example of a degenerating program, in the realm of science, (not history)?
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Q11: How does anyone decide when a scientific program is lagging behind the facts and when it is merely dealing with a few anomalies? Both ways it seems that it is trying to provide an answer to refutations, so when is it okay to use the "problem-solving machinery" and when is that a sign of a degenerating program?
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Q12: Would Lakatos consider the Marxist theories scientific in the beginning, before things happened that were contrary to its predictions, or would he believe that it was always pseudoscience?
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Q13: In this article, Lakatos mentioned, "In degenerating programmes, however, theories are fabricated only in order to accommodate known facts". But don't some anomalies that we discover today lead to minor changes in details of larger theories? Why can a theory not be modified in order to explain a particular anomaly, as long as such a modification still helps to explain all other observations?
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Q14: Is it possible for theories categorized as pseudoscience to be scientifically proven if it is studied from a different prospective?

4/17 Questions

2007-04-23T09:52:00.000-05:00

Q1: Popper draws the distinction between reduction and emergence: the one reduces things to preexisting knowledge or systems of knowledge and the other asserts that the two are different. Is this a reductionist distinction to draw? Doesn't the label 'emergent' subjugate emergent objects or ideas to Popper's dichotomous system, 'reducing' them to features of another structure of logic? What does it mean to have a framework for dealing with things whose distinguishing characteristic is that they cannot be reduced to familiar frames? Is there a third axis along which we can think? It seems like reduction/emergence, as a linguistic construct, aches to be settled in favor of one or the other, reducing life to physics or emerging it to something completely inexplicable (and physics along with it). Is there something else? What would it look like?
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Q2: For some reason, I had a difficult time with this reading, even though it seemed to be easier than the previous readings. I guess my main problem is all the notation he uses to describe how problems result, how to solve problems, grammar things, etc. I just don't quite understand how the abbreviations are being used and what they mean when they are being used. Also, I'm not even sure if I understood the overall arguments he was making. What were his main points besides the fact that meaning should not be utilized in making judgements/stating facts (also, was that even his idea or someone else's idea he was explaining?)
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Q3: Why is the reduction from chemistry (or biology) to physics so important? I don’t quite understand what is so spectacular about reducing one of these subjects to physics. Why is it a scientific success to be able to explain everything in chemistry/biology with physics? Is it because it shows that then chemistry and physics are closer to being "true"?

What exactly is Popper referring to when he talks about ad hoc reductions?

Intuitionist logic tries to prove as many mathematical theorems as possible with reduced logical means, but how is it different from classical logic? What is classical logic?
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Q4: Where does the boundary lie between "chemistry" and "physics"? Aren't these simply arbitrary categories constructed by humans? Popper claims that it's conceivable that one day, biology will be reduced to physics, but where does that get us, how does reducing various branches of science to physics give us knowledge?

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Q5: What is the exact difference between reduction and emergence? If something emerges from something else, does that mean it will or won't be reducible to the original thing? If chemistry reduces to physics, what is something that emerged from physics?
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Q6: As humans, we can never prove a theory to be correct, only prove it to be wrong. If we keep trying to disprove it but it stands our toughest tests, then it is considered "higly likely" to be true. Does this mean we should not ask what "truth" is and accept that it is somehow connected to fact?

Also (on a side note) what is the "blade" theory he kept talking about? I'm a tad confused on it.
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Q7: Popper says "One should never get involved in verbal questions or questions of meaning, and never get interested in words." However, if you never get involved in questions of meaning, how can you be sure that somebody understands what you mean? Two people may have a completely different understanding of the same word (for whatever reason), which could lead to a difference in the truth of a statement. Or is Popper assuming that in general, people are going to understand the words to mean essentially the same thing?
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Q8: Is Popper saying that reduction should be the ultimate goal? It would be very helpful and would greatly expand our knowledge of the world if it were possible to simply reduce, for example, chemistry down to physics. We would probably even gain a bit of understanding if it was less than simply, but I don't think it should be forced or strived at meticulously. He mentions that biology would probably be very difficult or complex to reduce to physics, but it might be possible. Should we be trying to reduce things if they don't want to relatively easily warrant reduction? It seems like that would lead to lots of problems or obscure, unpractical theories. How much knowledge is gained? Should knowledge be relatively simple or useful?

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Q9: I'm wondering about Popper's various equations involving TT and EE etc. If we follow this scheme, where a problem goes to theory goes to examination goes to problem, couldn't you just expand and keep going with more problems and theories? If by doing so, do you get further and further away from your original problem, and more importantly your original theory? It seems like this would make complex knowledge extremely unrealiable, and more unreliable the more comlex it gets, since it would be based on theory after theory. Is this the case? Or does the EE (error elimination) wipe out the error?
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Q10: Why does Popper view reduction as such a great advancement in knowledge?
What exactly is Popper's argument against the equation "to be = to be perceived?" How does the "realization" that "all observation involves interpretation in light of theories" reject the equation?

Questions from 4/10

2007-04-11T13:52:00.000-05:00

Q1: I understand that for Idealist philosophers who believe that knowledge is made of sensations, memories and impressions. However, I don't see how that means that common sense cannot exist. If someone has a memory (or memories) of an experience, isn't it possible to refer to those memories for guidance in a similar situation and wouldn't that be using common sense? Also, what about intuition? Isn't that also a form of understanding that can be used in situations and be referred to as 'common sense?'

Additonally, is Wittgenstein's theory applied in Popper's theory to the extent that we create/phrase our questions and answers incorrectly which causes the flaws that Popper cites?

To better rephrase/encompass my question, what exactly is Popper's stance on the Idealist debate? He seems to criticize Idealism, but I guess I don't exactly know why. Also, the 5th paragraph states that "thus for these philosphers the real world of common sense does not really exist(.)" Since Popper agrees with half of Hume, is this the part that he disagrees with?
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Q2: Sir Popper establishes, quite well in my opinion, the grounds for testing what theory or conjecture is to be preferred to explain any given phenomena. But what of the theories or conjectures that cannot be easily tested? What of Popper's theory concerning the lack of authority in making claims of knowledge? How would this theory be tested?

Ayer would argue that untestable theories venture into metaphysics and are therefore irrational. Is Sir Popper's theory concerning the lack of authority irrational? What of his theory concerning the testing of conjectures? Is this also irrational? If not, what tests would one subject to Sir Popper's theories? If no tests exists, then what theories (besides Ayer's) could be developed to justify the rationality of Popper's conclusions?
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Q3: The difference between probabilities based on induction and theories based on trial-and-error is unclear to me. Popper says that the first is wrong and the second is right. What distinction is he drawing? It seems sort of artificial to me.
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Q4: According to Sir Popper, nothing in publications can be proved as factual becuase we can never find the true original source because every step leads us to new questions and their is the chance that it might not be correct/true?

So are we allowed to say that if we experienced/where part of it and talk/write about it, then we can say it is factual, but if someone else writes about it, after asking me, they are considered wrong?
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Q5: 1. In thesis 5 of Popper's 9 theses, he says that "the fact that most of the sources of our knowledge are traditional condemns anti-traditionalism as futile." What does anti-traditionalism refer to and what are the problems with discounting it?

2. In thesis 6, Popper says that knowledge cannot start from nothing and that the advance of knowledge consists mainly in the modification of earlier knowledge. But doesn't knowledge have to originally start out of nothing? Knowledge can only be a product of earlier knowledge up to a point; even if we can't literally trace back to the earliest instance of knowledge, can we still assume that there is a point at which there is no earlier knowledge?
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Q6: What exactly is the difference between the logical problem of induction and the psychological problem of induction?
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Q7: Popper seems to place his faith in effectiveness in the world. Are there arguments against this too? Has anyone taken an opposite line to Ayer and claimed that physical arguments are senseless?
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Q8: Even though Popper ostensibly differs from Ayer, his theory of "prefer[ence] for practical action" still seems to favor "testable" theories. Should we never operate on principles that aren't readily testable or haven't been tested? What would Popper say about "gut instincts" or feelings/emotions in general?
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Q9: The example of Newtonian classical mechanics struck me as questionable. It seems like Popper is using induction, if improperly, even while attempting to prove that induction does not work. He's providing one single example of a case where induction supposedly did not work, and using that to claim that induction never works. Isn't that essentially using induction with a very small number of samples? Also, since the theory was disproven in certain circumstances, we know that it is not true in those circumstances. But all that establishes is that the theory needs revision, not that induction does not work.
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Q10: I don't understand how Popper's solution for the psychological problem for induction. It seems like he is running into the same problems as Hume but just trying to rephrase them. Or does induction not take into account that when a conclusion arrived at by induction is proven false, then the claim is false? That doesn't make any sense. Is Popper's conclusion different from Hume's because he uses a scale of preference?
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Q11: Where's the principle of empirism come from? How much weight does it hold in science & philosophy today?
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Q12: Am I correct in understanding Popper's position on knowledge to be a collection of yet-to-be-disproved theories that serve as bases for action? In this sense, this seems to be more of an approximation to knowledge, as such an understanding could conceivably be variant over a population. (For reference, I am considering the idea of "real knowledge" to be a constant of understanding. Maybe I am wrong in this assumption, in which case I could clearly use some help.)
But, if this is in fact an approximation to knowledge, why is it accepted within Popper's reasoning as "knowledge," while approximations to truth are discounted.
In other words-- I agree through Popper's logic that there is no truth, but I don't understand Popper's conclusion that there is, in fact, knowledge.
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Q13: In the Popper article, pg 2: he says "I do not doubt that Born and many other would agree that theories are accepted only tentatively."In this article (and in at least one other, I believe), the authors say a statement and then go on to say that doubtless So-and-so, another great philosopher in history, would have agreed. How are they justified in making statements like that? Does anyone ever challenge them?

What exactly is Popper's definition of observation? He says reading something in the newspaper is not observation. Would seeing something on TV count? What about using our other senses? Would hearing something count? What about hearing someone describe an event? He emphasizes tradition, but tradition must be passed on somehow. Is this not through some form of observation? Seeing rituals, hearing stories, watching how other people act and making decisions and, from previous experience, infering how they think? I guess I just don't yet know where we start from if not observations of some sort.
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Q14: Universally known "facts" obtained through science may, at any time, be proven to be false with a single experiment, which is why there is a problem with induction. What about personal accounts of specific experiences, whether it is an account of a particular disease, what it feels like to float in zero gravity, etc. Doesn't the fact that they are completely personal also make them completely valid? Is it possible to "disprove" personal knowledge?
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Q15: Popper declares that the fact that our knowledge can only be finite, while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite. Does this mean that our search for knowledge is in vain because knowledge stems from prior knowledge and there is no definite solution or answer to the question "what is knowledge"?

Questions from 4/5/07

2007-04-09T14:57:00.000-05:00

Chris Staral said:
Q1: I was a little bit confused during Ayer's definition of "strong" and "weak" verification. He mentions that it is verifiable in the strong sense if "its truth could be conclusively established in experience," which I understand. He then goes on to identify weak verification "if it is (possible for experience to render it probable." So if something is possible for experience to establish it as truth, but this establishment is improbable, is it immediately assumed that it is not "verifiable"?

What implications might this have for his discussion on disproving a claim? Since a claim cannot be entirely disproved, if something is possible for experience to establish it as truth, but this establishment is improbable, could that be considered as "weak refutation"?

A1: A better way to think about weak and strong verification is as follows:

Two distinct categories exist that encompass all claims: verifiable, or not verifiable. Within the category of "verifiable", one is able to more closely evaluate its probability of being true. Anything that has has a 100% chance of being true is "strong" verification. Anything less than 100% is "weak" verification. Non-verifiable claims cannot be further evaluated in this regard, as they are inherently unverifiable.
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Joanna said:
Q2: On page 7, Ayer states that a priori propositions are "attractive to philosophers on account of their certainty." But if a priori knowledge is defined as "knowledge independent of experience," then doesn't that contradict Ayer's previous statement that, "a statement that is not relevant to any experience...has no factual content"? And if so, what makes a priori knowledge certain?

A2: It is probably more clear to explain a priori as "truth we know by nature of definition, rather than experience." An example of a priori knowledge would be "a triangle has 3 sides." Thus, a priori knowledge is attractive to philosophers due to the certainty given to universally accepted definitions.
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Rosemary said:
Q3: In reference to Ayer's discussion of non-verifiable propositions, how does something's ability to be verified affect its literal significance? Is his claim that a non-verifiable proposition has no literal significance restricted to philosophy, or does he mean it in a broader sense?

A3: Ayer does mean it only restricted to philosophy. Thus, a statement can still have literal meaning even if it is not verifiable, but that literal meaning exists only outside of the philosophical discussion. That is how a poet can get away with saying something unverifiable, whereas a philosopher or metaphysician cannot.

Editor's note: I would suggest the following amendment to this answer. It's not that Ayer restricts his analysis to philosophy, per se. What he is suggesting is that any statement, if it is non-verifiable, has no literal significance. Among these he places metaphysical statements. Here is an example:
"Mind externalizes itself in various forms and objects that stand outside of it or opposed to it, and that, through recognizing itself in them, is "with itself" in these external manifestations, so that they are at one and the same time mind and other-than-mind." Okay, so now you know about metaphysics.
The passage concerning the poet is to be understood in the following way. Metaphysicians are often said to be misplaced poets -- while their statements do not have literal meaning, they, nevertheless, arouse emotion, etc. This, Ayer maintains, is to malign poets. Poets DO produce meaningful statements, it is just that they are not judged -- and should not be judged -- according to their truth. When they produce statements that are not verifiable, they do so intentionally, and for the purpose of evoking emotion. Metaphysicians are aiming at making meaningful, truthful claims, and fall short on both counts.

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Q4: A lot of Ayer's argument is based on the Wittgensteinian idea of language being the source of our problems. I understand that the language does matter if you want to convey your ideas to others but I guess I don't know if I'd give it that much weight. The definition of "fictitious" is "not existing". Regardless if parallel sentences deem "fictitious" an "attribute," it still means "not existing". And if your language doesn't adequately convey your logical thoughts, are your thoughts reduced to nonsense because of this handicap? Furthermore, I'm not sure I understand why something that does not exist cannot have an attribute. Can I have an idea of a unicorn or an alien or some person I've never met before and therefore have it exist in my mind with attributes? It might not be universal, but the idea of it still exists.

A4: In order to be considered knowledge, according to Ayer, ideas must be verifiable. The verification process includes communication with others. If you cannot express your ideas in words so that other people can understand and talk about the idea, the idea must then be meaningless. Ideas must be expressible. This in turn means that, yes, what is nonsense in one language could very well be meaningful in another which is set up in a way that it is able to adequately convey this idea.

Things that do not exist cannot have attributes. (Editor's note: Things that do not exist cannot be said, truthfully, to have particular attributes. Do you see how my change to the first sentence makes a big difference?Ascribing a property to a non-existent object cannot produce any means of verifying that claims. Thus, such a statement would be meaningless.) I can think of a unicorn, have an idea of one, but anything I come up with can only be emotionally significant to me only. There is no way to verify the status of a unicorn's existence or lack there of, so it cannot be literally significant. Therefore, any sentence with unicorn subjects is automatically nonsense anyway. The fact that our language gives way to analogies between sentences like "Unicorns are fictitious" and "Dogs are faithful" is a matter or poor reasoning, a language flaw which does not convey the fact that the sentences are logically different.
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Catherine said:

Q5: In general, I guess I just don't quite understand the part about the poet and the metaphsyician. Is he implying that poetry is art (which is unnecessary) and metaphysicians are like poets who don't know what they are doing? Also, does every flaw in grammatical structure mean that the idea is false or just that the way the idea was created is false by its presentation?

A5: As discussed, Ayer does not think badly toward the arts or poets. Instead, he claims that poets use words to create meaningful sentences and ideas. When these ideas and sentences do not make logical sense, they have created them that way to achieve a purpose. Conversely, metaphysicians try to create statements that have content and end up with a meaningless creation of nonsense.

Also, if I understand correctly, Ayer believes that statements by metaphysicians (or any person for that matter) that holds a grammatical flaw which affects the meaning of the statement are meaningless. However, the idea that is being expressed may not be meaningless to its creator, but becomes meaningless upon its improperly phrased utterance to all.

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Q6: In the author's argument regarding reality through functionality (discounting the significance of the idea of a more basic "reality" than observable traits), it seems significant that people seem to perceive specific objects differently, potentially leading to slight differences in objects' functionalities. If this is believed to be true, it would seem to imply that there exists a certain set of traits belonging to each object that is unobservable by any one person at any one time. Further, if this is the case, and the functional reality of the object differs depending on the observer, this seems to open the possibility of an inherent reality from which the different functionalities spring. Is the author justified in apparently not considering the variant properties of observation as he alleges a lack of "literal significance" to intrinsic reality?

A6: Yes, the author is completely fine discounting variances in observation, because the literal significance of the idea is dependent on the expression, or definition (Editor's note: actually, the verifiability criteria) of the idea. If the definitions are different, then the ideas hold different, but still viable literal significances (so long as the expression is physically testable).
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Q7: How can Ayer state that Metaphysicians are full of nonsense if he agrees with Wittgenstein, who states that all language is "bad", therefore scientist are also full of nonsense, since the language they are using is not constructed properly, so they can't prove anything that they have proven since they are using a language that don't work properly?

Editor's note: He may agree with Wittgenstein in saying that language is troubled in this way, however he has a positive proposal for how to deal with troubled language.
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Erika said:
Q8: Ayer says that a statement is not significant if it is not verifiable. Hence, this lead me to wonder... what does he say about his own statement (that "a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, an only if, he knows how to verify the proposition")? Because if a statement is only significant if it is verifiable, and his statement is not verifiable, then wouldn't that just make his thesis not significant?

A8: According to Ayer's theory of verifiability, this statement would not be significant because it is not verifiable. However, I feel that Ayer is assuming we all have a common understanding that this statement is true and significant. So if people do indeed agree that it is right for him to start his argument with this statement, then it is meaningful in the sense that it allows us to set rules to determine when a statement is significant and when it is not.
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Jenny said:
Q9: What is the exact definition of metaphysics as Ayer is talking about it. I don't know anything about metaphysics except what I can gather from this, and some parts are a little unclear.

Does metaphysics really boil down to bad grammatical or linguistic understanding? Surely the philosophers were motivated by something else than misleading parallels. It is common to many people to believe there is something more out there than is directly observable or verifiable. Do other philosophers agree with his diagnosis?

A9: Metaphysics is the study of questions about “Being” and existence and related issues. Ayer sees it as a collection of nonsensical arguments and statements that can’t be proven or have verifiability criteria applied to it successfully.

For Ayer, metaphysics by definition boils down to bad grammatical or linguistic understanding. The metaphysical questions are those that can have no other reason for existence, since they are nonsensical and should not otherwise be considered. This may not be the belief for other philosophers, especially not for metaphysicians. However, Ayer does say that some nonsensical statements may be meaningful to the author, at least. (Editor's note: while references, in the above answer, to `nonsensical arguments and statements', `bad grammar' and `bad linguistic understanding' as sources of metaphysics are technically correct, keep in mind that for Ayer, the ultimate reason for things being metaphysics is the failure to find empirical verifiability criteria. Since no such criteria exist, the statement is deemed meaningless. So, the ultimate source of our epistemic warrant is the testability/verifiability, and this is because this is how Ayer understands what it means to be empirical.)

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Q10: What time period is Ayer from? He talks about no rocket having been made that can see the opposite side of the moon. For that matter, when is anyone we’ll study from?

We’ve been dealing solely with metaphysics so far, right?

What’s the target audience for the works we read?
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Lucas said:
Q11: If existence is not an attribute, what is it? Also, what do we say about the "other" mode of being (Unicorns are "fictitious") once we dispose of a "non-empirical" sense of existence?

A11: As we discussed in class today, existence is not a property but an implicit aspect of the assertion of a property. (Editor's note: Another way of putting that last claim is that, from a logical point of view, existence is a quantifier, and not a predicate/property.) Thus it is redundant to say "x exists," and any claim of the form "x is y" can be rephrased "there exists x which is y." (Editor's note: The same goes for "does not exist".)

The second part of the question is about the place of fiction in an empirical philosophy. The answer is that the same rule of verifiability applies to unicorns as to horses (or whatever). Propositions about unicorns (such as "Unicorns have white fur") are nonsense. (Editor's note: And this is because we can give no criteria for verifying such propositions, and this Ayer concludes is because there is nothing empirical to which such propositions refer.)

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Q12: Does language influence the way we physically experience the world? Is knowledge by acquaintance completely free of constraints set by language? What about linguistic relativity--is it possible that people who speak German or Chinese see the world differently than people who speak English? If so, then how can this ever be overcome?

A12: The availability of certain words may allow us to experience the world a little differently than people who speak a language without the same vocabulary. The initial sense-data may be the same for everyone, but the data that comes immediately after that is probably influenced by language. For example, an experiment was done on American and East-Asian students in which they were told to describe a scene held in front of them; the descriptions the American students gave were consistently different than the ones of the Asian students. They focused on different aspects of the picture (the American students described the foreground and the main objects in the picture, whereas the Asian students noticed the details and background). In a sense, they'd "seen" different pictures. This example is perhaps better applicable in talking about how culture affects one's sensory experiences, but language could potentially have the same effect. This probably cannot be overcome; in the case of discussing philosophy, communicating in English already becomes a problem because it's necessary to base one's arguments on the same words and definitions.

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Q13: Is Ayer saying that because the questions metaphysical philosophers ask are to be dismissed altogether? It seems to me like that's a bit much to throw all the questions out because our language isn't refined enough for us to be able to describe the questions or their answers. It seems like the problem is the language's limitation rather than the ideas'.

Editor's answer: Yes, he is saying that such statements should be dismissed as being meaningless, and therefore, as being incapable as saying anything true about the world. It may be the case that this is a problem with the language, but how else do ideas get expressed -- and expressed in such a way that we can assess their truth-value?
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Q14: I see that Ayer distinguishes between practical verifiability and verifiability in principle as the first step in the criterion which we use to test the genuineness of apparent statements of fact. My question is what is Ayer's view on religious scripture, for example Matthew 24:9 Then shall they deliver you up to tribulation, and shall kill you; and ye will be hated of all the nations for my name's sake, or does he view the bible and other religious text as mere non-sense?

Questions from 4/3/07

2007-04-04T11:24:00.000-05:00

Q1: In Berkeley's explanation that everything exists as an idea in God's mind, did he earlier prove that God existed? If he did not, then he's assuming God's existence, which is a rather large logical flaw. If God were to not exist, then how could a tree be an idea in God's mind?

A1: You can see, from this Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article that Berkeley infers God's existence from his argument for idealism in the following way:

"Berkeley claims that an inspection of our ideas shows that they are causally inert (PHK §25). Since there is a continual succession of ideas in our minds, there must be some cause of it. Since this cause can be neither an idea nor a material substance, it must be a spiritual substance (PHK §26). This sets the stage for Berkeley's argument for the existence of God and the distinction between real things and imaginary things.

One knows that one causes some of one's own ideas (PHK §28). Since the mind is passive in perception, there are ideas which one's own mind does not cause. Only a mind or spirit can be a cause. "There is therefore some other will or spirit that produces them" (PHK §29). As such, this is not an argument for the existence of God (see PHK §§146-149), although Berkeley's further discussion assumes that at least one mind is the divine mind."

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Q2: I'm taken by many ideas, including the unreliability of induction, but it seems somewhat supplementary: the chicken might wish he had a more enlightened attitude towards the nature of knowledge, but its not clear this would palliate his situation. Is knowledge useless? The strongest argument for the reality of the world to me is that it continues to act on us when we have forgotten about it. I wonder what it is about Berkeley's argument which Russell takes such issue with. Perhaps he doesn't like fallacies, but he seems more motivated than that. It seems like Russell concludes that there is external reality--but ideas in the mind of god have just as much external reality (in the mind of god) as matter would. That said, the invocation of God in a philosophical argument seems a little bit disingenuous.

A2: It is not clear why one would think that, with a better understanding of induction, the chicken's plight would not be improved. So it would seen that knowing more -- i.e. how induction works -- would be very useful. The invocation of God in a philosophical argument is less disingenuous than it is a good lesson in epistemic humility. God's existence is obviously not being subject to the same scrutiny as every other thought or idea is, and this is likely due to the authority ascribed to God. And I agree ... if all you can say is that your ideas are caused by something out there, but you can never really know that thing as it is in itself, then you do open yourself up to having to accept that there might be a mind of god out there ... especially if you have an idea of such a thing.
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Q3: Russell has a tendency to define his own terms, and use them later (ie "sense-data"). Do other philosophers use the same unusual terms, or talk about sense-data in their own words? In other words, could there be a needed vocabulary of special terms, or do philosophers focus on normal uses of words (introspection)?

Similarly, why can't philosophy simply accept things which have been scientifically proven ("law of gravitation"). I see the reasoning behind this for theories (Theory of Relativity), but not laws.

What time period is Russell from? It would have to be fairly recent considering he speaks of Bismarck. Is it right to assume that Russell is British? The misspellings give him away.

A3: Philosophical arguments most often claim, at least, that they are employing common usages of words. This is not to say that philosophy does not have its own jargon -- it certainly does. But when philosophers talk about "sense-data" or "reality" or "idea", they typically mean to use those words in the same way that a typical person would in an everyday conversation.

I'm not quite sure of the distinction that you are making between theories and laws, however the real question is why philosophers (or anybody else for that matter) should "simply accept things which have been scientifically proven". Science is a good method for finding things out about the world but it is certainly NOT a guaranteed method. Many discoveries that have been PROVEN have later been DISPROVEN.

British, 1872 - 1970.
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Q4: My question this time relates the chapter on induction to the reading from last week. How does probability relate to the likelihood of there being a physical world, not just a mental one. Is there a probability of, for example, the table being there between blinks? If we cannot receive sensations from it to provide evidence of its existence, can we apply the principle of induction to this case at all? Are the two ideas connected?

A4: So the thinking here is this: Each time I look at the table, it appear to exist in front of me. When I am not looking at the table, it does not appear in front of me. However, it appearing to be there each time I look makes it highly probably that the table exists when I am not looking. Is this what you are thinking?
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Q5: If everything is subjective and in the minds of people, how do we know what is "real" and/or to what extent we can trust characteristics of things to be "true/certain?"
pg 3/5 Ch. IV

For example, if there is a group of people where 50% are colorblind so they interpret green as blue and 50% have "normal" vision, would it be acceptable under this framework to call grass blue because it is so not only in the mind of one person, but in the minds of many?

Also, would it be possible to go over Russell's ideas of self-consciousness vs. consciousness of the self?

A5: For Russel, we don't know that there is a real world, however if we assume that there is a real world then it makes everything else we believe a whole lot simpler and coherent. He doesn't, at least not in what you have read -- nor anywhere else that I know of, address the issue you raise concerning what we conclude when there is a difference of opinion concerning our ideas about a particular object or event.

One is self-conscious when one is aware of the fact that one is having experiences -- sensations, memories, etc. However, Russell questions whether one can have a consciousness -- an experience or sensation -- of the self that is doing the experiencing. This is what he refers to as "consciousness of the self".
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Q6: If there is a sundial in the middle of the lawn, and at noon we always see its shadow casted in the same direction at 2 PM, do we still say that their might be a probability that it won't happen again tomorrow because the sun might not rise, the dial might now be there, we might not be there, their might not be a tomorrow?

So basically we can't be certain of anything because everything not in our mind is based off actions we cannot control?

A6: I am not sure of the exact import of your question (i.e. why the set-up with "noon" and a shadow at "2PM"?) however it is correct to say that, in assuming that whatever events we have experienced in the past will occur again tomorrow, we are relying upon a universal statement (see answer to Q16, below) -- that is "Every day at noon the sundial will be at the 2PM position." and we are not justified in believing in the truth of this statement because it goes beyond our experiences, and claims something about all experiences of this sort.
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Q7: I actually have two questions.
1) I don't know much about stars, but I believe that because their light takes so long to get to earth because they are so far away that the stars we see are actually the stars of the past. I was just wondering how this plays into the knowledge issue. Is it knowledge by acquaintance because we actually see it even though our first hand awareness of it is it's past state? What if a supernova has occured but we can't preceive it yet? Can we be acquainted with that star and since we don't know where they have occured can we not actually then be acquainted with any star? Or does it fall into the category of knowledge of description kind of like seeing a picture of Bismark in a history book?
2) To approach certainty without limit that A is associated with B, Russell says you must have a "sufficient number of cases of the association of A with B", but how do we know what is a "sufficient number"? Is anything less than knowing all previous cases sufficient?
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Q8: In his discussion of induction, Russell deals specifically with the probability of knowledge as it relates directly to occurrence and recurrence. Clearly, this application of probability is fitting, but the inclusion of the idea of probability in knowledge seems to open some strikingly unexplored venues for discussion in his earlier arguments. Specifically, the idea of knowledge by description doesn't deal with the probabilities of truth within the referenced descriptions. Or, if the probability of truth is not applicable in this case due to the possibility of "knowing" falsehoods, then the probability of truth would seem also not to apply in the other sense, as *expectations* of truth are then the critical facet of "knowledge." To extend the idea of probability- even directly observed sense-data rely on the probability that one's sensing mechanisms have not changed since previous exposure and that environmental factors can be identified to account for potentially misleading data collection (for instance, an atmosphere of colored lighting).

And, just to hit on the idea of comparatives in logic manipulations that we talked about last time, here's a representation of what I'm saying:

Case 1 (no comparative)
"If the world is real, then it is simple." (Assume true)
"If the world is simple, then it is real." (Fallacy)
"If the world is not real, then it is not simple." (Fallacy)

Case 2 (comparative with one referable idea in the antecedent)
"If the world is real, then it is simpler [than a world that is not real]." (Assume true. NOTE: "the world" and "a world" refer to the same entity undergoing different supposed conditions-- real and not real.)
"If the world is simpler [than a world that is not real], then the world is real." (True. The argument follows from the antecedent because it is the only remaining condition for the world to occupy. The world, in the statement, is already simpler than a world that is not real, and so the world cannot be "not real," and thus, must be "real.")
"If the world is not real, then it is not simpler [than a world that is real]." (True. The original statement causes the statement, "If the world is not real, then it is simpler [than a world that is real]," to be necessarily false. By default- the remaining condition- the statement, "If the world is not real, then it is not simpler [than a world that is real]," is true.)

Case 3 (comparative with two referable ideas in the antecedent)
"If Florida beats Ohio State, then it is better." (Assume true)
This statement can be read two ways:
"If Florida beats Ohio State, then it is better [than Ohio State]."
or
"If Florida beats Ohio State, then it is better [than a Florida that does not beat Ohio State]." (NOTE: In this case, every time I refer to "Florida" or "a Florida," I am referring to the same entity. I only use the indefinite article "a" to differentiate between the same team undergoing different conditions-- winning and not winning).
Depending on which reading you choose, the next statements can be logical or fallacious:
(a)
"If Florida better [than Ohio State], then it beats Ohio State." (Fallacy)
"If Florida does not beat Ohio State, then it is not better [than Ohio State]." (Fallacy)
(b)
"If Florida is better [than a Florida that does not beat Ohio State], then it beats Ohio State." (True, because the phrase "a Florida that does not beat Ohio State" includes all degrees of Florida's quality until it is a Florida that beats Ohio State.)
"If Florida does not beat Ohio State, then it is not better [than a Florida that does beat Ohio State]." (True, because "If Florida beats Ohio State, then it is better [than a Florida that does not beat Ohio State].")
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Q9: I'm not sure I understand Russell's concept of "I" or "Self" in chapter 5. When he says we may not know ourselves, does that mean that we haven't yet figured out who we are (in relation to our interests, our place in society, etc), or is he saying that we all have a separate identity called "the Self" with which we are not yet in touch? If it is the latter, this seems like a concept most rational (scientific?) people would not believe in.
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Q10: I'm still confused by the explanation of why "we cannot know that anything exists which we do not know" is false. I think I understand his explanation, but don't understand why description merits as knowing something. I would think knowing something by description would be like our situation with the electron: we may think we know it's there, but it's 'third hand knowledge', something not necessarily to be trusted.
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Q11: Here is my question for the second reading assignment:
In Chapter IV, Russell explains how the word "know" is used in two different ways: knowledge of truths (when we know THAT something is the case) and knowledge of things or acquaintances. I am a little confused about what he means with knoeledge of truths. What exactly does it mean to know THAT something is the case? Through what means/method/mechanism do we know THAT something is true?
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Q12: I suppose I agree with him. I've felt a little bit silly discussing realism/idealism in class recently. I suppose implications are generally more interesting than preconditions. I continue to be worried about the adequacy of language at all. It seems as though there can be no sensical discussion of Russell's acquaintance-knowledge (even the phrase knowledge by acquaintance is an example of knowledge by description) and the threat of deconstruction seems to be one to which most of these philosophies don't have a response. It seems like everyone depends on linguistic consistency, and I'm worried that that might be fallacious.
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Q13: Russell makes the argument that animals are not self-aware, but how can he do so when he just admitted that he cannot understand what is in the minds of others?
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Q14: According to Russel past sense data which are remembered are known to have existed in the past, I was wondering can we apply this theory, if in any way it relates to certain frequent repetition of dreams and/or deja-vu's.
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Q15: This brings us back to the question: Have we any reason, assuming that they have always held in the past, to suppose that they will hold in the future?"

Some thoughts that came to mind when I read this:
-Why is having a reason necessary
-Don't we assume that things will happen the way they've happened in the past simply because humans (and animals alike) couldn't have evolved any other way? How is survival possible if it were not an innate tendency to not doubt that the food hidden under the rock will still be there tomorrow. Perhaps we readily rely on certain unbreakable laws to stay constant because that trait has been selected for; those who doubted everything, or lacked the capacity to assume certain constant elements of the universe to be true, simply could not learn (memories in this case would serve no purpose) and therefore could not survive.

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Q16: I know he talks about it more in later chapters, but what exactly does Russell mean by a "universal?" What is the difference between a universal and a "particular?"

A16: A universal proposition is a proposition that ascribes a property to all members of a class. So, for example, "All humans are mortal" or "No zombies are mortal", are universal propositions. The subjects of these propositions are called universals, and they refer to all members of a class. On the other hand, a particular proposition refers to only some (could be just one) members of a class. Propositions such as "Some people are forgetful" and "Some days are not as good as others" are particular propositions. The subjects are particulars in the sense of being some members of a group.

Questions from 3/29/07

2007-04-04T11:11:00.000-05:00

Q1: Gathering from the reading, I get the impression that Russell could spend yet more time talking about such a seemingly simple subject as what's real and what's not. Is it necessary to spend so long discussing these points, as I feel one could argue to the same conclusion in a simpler and more concise fashion, not necessarily any less convincing. While it is necessary to distinguish between our perceptions and reality, it's a clear enough topic that doesn't require terribly much debate- light from the sun may take 8 minutes to get here, but why do we care? Building, programming and controlling spacecraft may be more concerned with the present state of the sun, but as far as the rest of us are concerned, 8 minutes after the fact is reality enough.
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Q2: Let's say there is group of 10 people, and 8 say that they see a red cardboard box in the middle of the room, while 2 say that they see a blue one. Is it safe to state that their is one real object in science space that has relations to both colors by being a mix of both, or do we assume that the box must have relations to red since the majority see that color?
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Q3: Why should it concern us whether or not there is a "real" table if it is impossible for us to ever perceive it? Isn't the way we, as humans, are able to experience the table all that matters?
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Q4: In Chapter III, the author refers to a time-order that events seem to have as opposed to a time-order that events really have, depending on scientific properties such as sound and light travel. Extending from this inclusion of scientific properties, it seems fitting to call on physics to question the idea of events "really" having one specific time order at all. In fact, as long as one event does not cause another (specifically, if light travels slower than the time-distance between the events), then the time-order of the events is subject to reference frame. This being "true," or at least popularly believed and backed by compelling scientific argument, it seems careless of the author to consider some scientific properties affecting perception while ignoring relativity.

So I have a problem with this part of the argument-- the assumption that relations between events can be "known," but I do not consider this to have much bearing on the question of physical objects' intrinsic natures. I'm a little confused as to why this passage is included at all, except as an exercise of logic, considering that it advances no argument on the proposed question. Anyway, my question for this class is: is the author's argument sound in selectively considering scientific properties, and if so, where are the logical boundaries when considering science coupled with common perception?
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Q5: In the second chapter, Russell mentions that:

"This discovery, however -- which is not at all paradoxical in the case of taste and smell and sound, and only slightly so in the case of touch -- leaves undiminished our instinctive belief that there are objects corresponding to our sense-data. Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it."

This particular argument seems to wish to appeal to our instinctual response (i.e. we should believe it because we have no reason not to). Yet I thought that instinctual response was something that we were forced to reject in order to arrive at this point in the first place (i.e. the table is not really brown, but only appears to be brown). How is the basis for this argument different than the basis for his original argument concerning the perception of the table's existence? Does the answer to this question always extend to other places in his dissertation in which he appeals to our instinctual response?
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Q6: What, exactly, is Leibniz's theory about rudimentary minds in all matter?
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Q7: I don't think I understand what the author is saying about space in the third chapter. Could you perhaps clarify, especially about 'matter should be in a space, but the space in which it is cannot be exactly the space we see or feel'?

A7:I think that a proper response to this confusion would be to point to the beginning of Ch. 3. Matter, we assume, is taking up space. It is taking up the space that contains the whole of the object we are looking at or feeling. But it is impossible that we should see or touch the object from all possible angles or positions at once, and cannot know the whole of the object, and since we cannot know that, we can't really observe the entire view of the space it takes up. It is simply not possible from a human perception.

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Q8: Russell says that different people receive slightly different sense-data, but in general we all seem to agree at least on the vague sense-data before we get too specific and he continues that he desires to find the public neutral objects that coorrespond with our sense-data. But I have trouble believing such thing could ever be possible for another reason (other than othe people to us are sense-data) as well that he doesn't go into detail about. If you assume that other people can think, etc. and are not just merely sense-data, how do you know their sense-data is at all similar to yours? For example, what if everything you described as silver was actually perceived by me in the color you would call orange, but because I grew up being told that was silver, I said it was silver too. The names are really just arbitrary. I guess a better example might be taste. People like and dislike different foods. Is it really just a matter of different opinions or could it be that I actually get the sense-data of a completely different taste than you, even though we call it by the same name? (Although, I suppose it is difficult to believe touch differs by very much.) And if our sense-data is more different than we suppose, how would we ever be able to come up with public neutral objects?
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Q9: Part of Russell's argument at the end of Ch. 2 seems to rest on the assumptions 1. That we have instinctive beliefs and 2. That those beliefs are ordered in some hierarchy. I can accept the first premise easily, but could you explain the second a little more? How does Russell argue for a natural order to our instinctive beliefs (if that is indeed what he is arguing)?
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Q10: In response to Ch. 2's analysis over systematic doubt, how would one go about proving the existence of other things and people besides themselves?
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Q11: I noticed that during our discussion in class on "what is knowledge" and in the readings on Matter and it's existence or reality that there was no concrete answer to the questions at hand. I wanted to know is it possible to find answers to these questions on life and if so are the answers really answers or are they fragments of our imagination such as colors and shapes. I feel that the reason we see the color red or the shape of a square is not because thats what it really is rather that is what someone at some point said it was and now we are pron to believe it because that is what we are taught growing up. and if that is the case is there a such thing as knowledge, if knowledge comes through teachings and experiences?
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Q12: In Chapter 2, the author discusses what may be called an "instinctive belief." I am not sure if I fully understand what this means. Does it mean that according to this belief, we can assume that we do not need to depend on perception or sense-data to know that the external world really exists? If this is the case, then how can we be sure that the external world really does exists? Is it simply by instinct?