Philosophy Now Forum

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Well duh. Do you not think it is puzzling then, why we have taken thousands of years of science to get where we are? Surely had we direct access to reality, we'd have had it all from the beginning.

Like I said, we are really done on this one.

Figuring out how, say, volcanoes work is a much different matter than being able to directly perceive a volcano rather than only being aware of a mediated mental impression that might not at all resemble whatever is creating a "volcano" picture.

I thought we were talking about reality. What happened to the big god of the volcano, who with his wrath smote the people ?
`If we had direct contact with reality, can you explain where he disappeared to?

Who perceived a volcano God?

People rather posited that as an explanation.

That's different than whether we can directly perceive a volcano (which is what naive realism posits--you had mentioned naive realism earlier) or if we only can access a mental impression that might not have much to do with whatever is causing it.

We can directly perceive processes, such as a lava flow. Processes are not just mental creations.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Well duh.

I like "well duh" responses to my posts, because that means one agrees.

Duh no.
Empirical evidence starts from the subject and only achieves objectivity within the agreement of the community of those that have similar evidence. There is a really good reason why the Empiricists such as Hume to Kant were on the Idealist spectrum not the realist objectivists specturm.

Hume is not an idealist. Kant is.

Objectivity has nothing to do with agreement. It has to do with whether something is extramental.

Observation of empirical evidence occurs in subjects, but evidence itself, when we're talking about something like a lava flow, say, is objective, because it's not a brain phenomenon, it's a volcano phenomenon.

Belinda wrote:Prothero wrote:

Some seem to speculate independent reality is frozen, eternal and timeless or completely beyond access and therefore can neither be experienced nor known. I think the rather amazing efficacy of science and the senses in utilitarian pragmatic terms is sufficient proof of our ability to encounter and manipulate an external independent reality and to "know" a lot of about it. Of course my definition of "knowledge" is a pragmatic one, not an idealistic one.

Our ability so far to encounter and manipulate an independent external reality is cumulative despite paradigm shifts and moral disability. If one accepts this then one necessarily accepts also that we approach more closely the independent, frozen, and timeless reality. Probably as we are creatures of time we can never attain the latter.

There is a wide spectrum of opinion about how much or how little we can know about “reality” which is independent of our perceptions of it. Some say we can not even know there is an independent reality (absolute idealism). Some say we can not even know there are other minds (solipsism or BIV). Then there are all the various degrees of realism from the naive or direct realists who maintain we experience reality as it is (presumably without us) to the Kantian type of realists who do not deny an reality independent of us but excludes the possibility of “knowing” it (the noumena). All we have access to in Kant is the phenomena, our sense perceptions organized through our categories of thought (time,space and causality) categories which we impose on nature.

I fall pretty far on the spectrum of we have useful knowledge of and direct interaction with an independent reality. We are part of the world, we have arisen from the world, all normal sense perception begins as a causal chain or interaction with the world. Unicorns are a possibility but I have never seen one, have no empirical evidence of one's existence and therefore have little reason to believe in the actuality of unicorns. Electrons are a conception of science, I have never seen one or directly experienced one, but there is considerable empirical evidence of an real (actual) entity which matches the description, so I believe in the actuality of an “electron”.

This is not to say we have “direct” knowledge of the world as it is without us, or complete knowledge of the world, or that current theories of science are our final understanding of nature or that we will ever have complete as opposed to partial, incomplete and in some respects unsatisfactory “knowledge” of nature. We will never know what is like to “be a bat”, “be a tiger” or even be another “human” or reconstruct the presentational immediacy of historical events.. Nonetheless we have little reason to doubt the existence of a reality independent of us or that the combination of experience, reason and science tell us important and useful “information” about that reality.

Although I referred to the notion that reality is sometimes thought timeless, eternal and changeless, the reality that we live in, arise from and experience is anything but. Our reality is temporal, flux, change, impermanence, fleeting, a world of complex interacting, societies, organisms and processes. Reality is process for us closer to Whitehead’s Process and Reality than to an iron, frozen or block universe. There may be a realm, layer or level of reality which is eternal and timeless but it is not the one we directly experience or interact with.

Hobbes'Choice wrote:

practical terms, though we are simply stuck within the limits of our perceptual horizons, and for the most part that works in the "world" we create for ourselves.
But I think it useful to our conception of the universe that we have the humility to remind ourselves that we have those limits. Science has extending those horizons by looking deeper in to the macroscopic and the microscopic, even well beyond the limits of light itself, and with that we make human visualisations of what lies above, beyond, and below.

To be a totally intransigent empirical realist is to be blind to the possibility that the evidence of our senses is fallible. One can maintain a stubbornly realist stance on the spectrum of realism-idealism, like Prothero describes that spectrum, and still be aware that there is no certainty.

Descartes' demon of scepticism, nourished as it was and is by the philosophers of the enlightenment, is alive and well among scientists and more enlightened religionists.

Prothero wrote:

Although I referred to the notion that reality is sometimes thought timeless, eternal and changeless, the reality that we live in, arise from and experience is anything but. Our reality is temporal, flux, change, impermanence, fleeting, a world of complex interacting, societies, organisms and processes. Reality is process for us closer to Whitehead’s Process and Reality than to an iron, frozen or block universe. There may be a realm, layer or level of reality which is eternal and timeless but it is not the one we directly experience or interact with.

Indeed! Those are dangerous men who insist that eternal and timeless reality has revealed himself to humans in fine detail, far more dangerous than naive realists.

Terrapin Station wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote:Figuring out how, say, volcanoes work is a much different matter than being able to directly perceive a volcano rather than only being aware of a mediated mental impression that might not at all resemble whatever is creating a "volcano" picture.

I thought we were talking about reality. What happened to the big god of the volcano, who with his wrath smote the people ?
`If we had direct contact with reality, can you explain where he disappeared to?

Who perceived a volcano God?

People rather posited that as an explanation.

That's different than whether we can directly perceive a volcano (which is what naive realism posits--you had mentioned naive realism earlier) or if we only can access a mental impression that might not have much to do with whatever is causing it.

We can directly perceive processes, such as a lava flow. Processes are not just mental creations.

You can't hear yourself.
Let alone me.
We are done.

Belinda wrote:Hobbes'Choice wrote:

practical terms, though we are simply stuck within the limits of our perceptual horizons, and for the most part that works in the "world" we create for ourselves.
But I think it useful to our conception of the universe that we have the humility to remind ourselves that we have those limits. Science has extending those horizons by looking deeper in to the macroscopic and the microscopic, even well beyond the limits of light itself, and with that we make human visualisations of what lies above, beyond, and below.

To be a totally intransigent empirical realist is to be blind to the possibility that the evidence of our senses is fallible. One can maintain a stubbornly realist stance on the spectrum of realism-idealism, like Prothero describes that spectrum, and still be aware that there is no certainty.

Descartes' demon of scepticism, nourished as it was and is by the philosophers of the enlightenment, is alive and well among scientists and more enlightened religionists.

Prothero wrote:

Although I referred to the notion that reality is sometimes thought timeless, eternal and changeless, the reality that we live in, arise from and experience is anything but. Our reality is temporal, flux, change, impermanence, fleeting, a world of complex interacting, societies, organisms and processes. Reality is process for us closer to Whitehead’s Process and Reality than to an iron, frozen or block universe. There may be a realm, layer or level of reality which is eternal and timeless but it is not the one we directly experience or interact with.

Indeed! Those are dangerous men who insist that eternal and timeless reality has revealed himself to humans in fine detail, far more dangerous than naive realists.

Yes.
You should take this up with Terrapin.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Belinda wrote:Hobbes'Choice wrote:

practical terms, though we are simply stuck within the limits of our perceptual horizons, and for the most part that works in the "world" we create for ourselves.
But I think it useful to our conception of the universe that we have the humility to remind ourselves that we have those limits. Science has extending those horizons by looking deeper in to the macroscopic and the microscopic, even well beyond the limits of light itself, and with that we make human visualisations of what lies above, beyond, and below.

To be a totally intransigent empirical realist is to be blind to the possibility that the evidence of our senses is fallible. One can maintain a stubbornly realist stance on the spectrum of realism-idealism, like Prothero describes that spectrum, and still be aware that there is no certainty.

Descartes' demon of scepticism, nourished as it was and is by the philosophers of the enlightenment, is alive and well among scientists and more enlightened religionists.

Prothero wrote:

Although I referred to the notion that reality is sometimes thought timeless, eternal and changeless, the reality that we live in, arise from and experience is anything but. Our reality is temporal, flux, change, impermanence, fleeting, a world of complex interacting, societies, organisms and processes. Reality is process for us closer to Whitehead’s Process and Reality than to an iron, frozen or block universe. There may be a realm, layer or level of reality which is eternal and timeless but it is not the one we directly experience or interact with.

Indeed! Those are dangerous men who insist that eternal and timeless reality has revealed himself to humans in fine detail, far more dangerous than naive realists.

Yes.
You should take this up with Terrapin.

I've already addressed what she's saying in this and other threads. It's not a matter of believing or even being concerned with believing something with certainty. It's a matter of reasons we have or do not have for particular beliefs. There is no good reason to believe that naive realism is wrong. All of the arguments against it rely on at least occasionally assuming that naive realism actually has it right (for example, arguments based on scientific conclusions about how perception works--we have to be able to more or less correctly perceive the perceptual apparatuses in question to come to the conclusions that we're coming to).

Terrapin Station wrote: There is no good reason to believe that naive realism is wrong. .

Indeed this is true. But there is no reason to believe in anything.

In fact we know it is wrong. It is clearly and obviously wrong. That is one reason it is called naive.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote: There is no good reason to believe that naive realism is wrong. .

Indeed this is true. But there is no reason to believe in anything.

In fact we know it is wrong. It is clearly and obviously wrong. That is one reason it is called naive.

Haha--"naive" is used in the sense of "unspoiled" or "unworked" or "not artificial," from the French etymological roots of the term.

Anyway, you're not one of those folks who believes that they have no beliefs, are you?

Terrapin Station wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Terrapin Station wrote: There is no good reason to believe that naive realism is wrong. .

Indeed this is true. But there is no reason to believe in anything.

In fact we know it is wrong. It is clearly and obviously wrong. That is one reason it is called naive.

Haha--"naive" is used in the sense of "unspoiled" or "unworked" or "not artificial," from the French etymological roots of the term.

Anyway, you're not one of those folks who believes that they have no beliefs, are you?

No, no, no. I am one of those folks that reject belief as damaging. I believe nothing, but seek to know.

naive is one instance that is not relevant. Naive in this instance means lacking judgement, and being innocent of complexity.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:No, no, no. I am one of those folks that reject belief as damaging. I believe nothing, but seek to know.

naive is one instance that is not relevant. Naive in this instance means lacking judgement, and being innocent of complexity.

How do you define or characterize (propositional) knowledge if not as justified true belief?

I am quite averse to "knowledge" - surely, to be honest, one has experiences, memories, conclusions, beliefs.

One can give explanations regarding one's conclusions or beliefs - why one finds them to be seemingly appealing or reliable.

Nothing, in my experience, causes more unnecessary confusion and conflict than claims of "knowledge."

Terrapin Station wrote:I've already addressed what she's saying in this and other threads. It's not a matter of believing or even being concerned with believing something with certainty. It's a matter of reasons we have or do not have for particular beliefs. There is no good reason to believe that naive realism is wrong. All of the arguments against it rely on at least occasionally assuming that naive realism actually has it right (for example, arguments based on scientific conclusions about how perception works--we have to be able to more or less correctly perceive the perceptual apparatuses in question to come to the conclusions that we're coming to).

Hobbes' Choice wrote:In fact we know it is wrong. It is clearly and obviously wrong. That is one reason it is called naive.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:No, no, no. I am one of those folks that reject belief as damaging. I believe nothing, but seek to know. Naive is one instance that is not relevant. Naive in this instance means lacking judgment, and being innocent of complexity.

Terrapin Station wrote:How do you define or characterize (propositional) knowledge if not as justified true belief?

OuterLimits wrote:I am quite averse to "knowledge" - surely, to be honest, one has experiences, memories, conclusions, beliefs. One can give explanations regarding one's conclusions or beliefs - why one finds them to be seemingly appealing or reliable. Nothing, in my experience, causes more unnecessary confusion and conflict than claims of "knowledge."

How about “justified belief” as opposed to “justified true belief? The use of the term “true or truth” just introduces more metaphysical baggage and debate into it. What justifies “belief” other than some combination of experience, reason and empirical evidence? Scientists generally do not talk about “truth” only philosophers. Scientists talk about theories which are compatible with currently known facts or about theories which make accurate predictions.

Notice how people are using the terms belief and knowledge differently and attaching different valuations to the terms. Some are seeking knowledge and rejecting beliefs, other the reverse. Of course in philosophy knowledge is often defined as “justified true belief”.

Likewise, notice the use of the term naïve realism versus the term direct realism as opposed to say representational realism or indirect realism. Certain aspects of perception are direct and other aspects of perception are representational but in the end perception is a process an interaction, an interplay between subject and object.

Terrapin Station says that there are no good reasons to believe that naive realism is wrong.
What would amount a good reason? I can think of four empirical reasons to believe that naive realism is wrong:

1. Optical illusions

2. Hallucinations

3. Mental effects of sensory deprivation

4. Hormonal or other biochemical effects upon mood, degrees of awareness activation, and source of information(external or memory).

Terrapin Station wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:No, no, no. I am one of those folks that reject belief as damaging. I believe nothing, but seek to know.

naive is one instance that is not relevant. Naive in this instance means lacking judgement, and being innocent of complexity.

How do you define or characterize (propositional) knowledge if not as justified true belief?

Belief has no place in my lexicon, except to demonstrate a faith held position.

JTB is equivalent to knowledge. All knowledge is contingent on the information which furnishes it. Belief requires no justification but faith.
I think it makes more sense to draw a line between the two ideas. In the same way I prefer why to focus not on the hows but on intentionality.