Philosophy Now Forum

Addressing a few posts up, now that I've munched a little bit on what was said:
As to the Subject - is there a negotiation between Subjects?
And, to narrow the potential to rehash what has already been discussed :
If there can be a negotiation, what is being withheld in the negotiation?

Mark Question wrote:

evangelicalhumanist wrote: "Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief.
Really, well worth the read...

thanks. i might read it some day if you people cant talk to me without it.
and epistemology seems to give us hundreds of new books and papers every year?
knowledge seems to have very wide propositional interpretations and definitions, about many forms and types of knowledge? practical, personal, procedural, explicit, tacit, embodied, a priori,..
but is there always word "belief" hidden in rational propositional definitions of "knowledge"?

chaz wyman wrote: Do you believe you are missing the point, or do you know it?

do you believe you are atheist, do you know it? is rational(propositional) knowing "justified believing"?

I have no specific reasons as an atheist. I have strong reasons as a rationalist. Atheism is a lack of belief as I have mentioned before.

"Atheism is a lack of belief " is not a specific reason?

Mark Question: Please read my post response to EV's suggestion to chack out Stanford on epistemology.
Do you agree with my post? And you might look a few posts back by Chaz where he describes what he means by 'no content'.

But, Chaz, I do believe you have ducked out of the line of reasoning: to say that 'you' are just Being and then there are the labels that are 'not you'. You cannot sustain this kind of argument and still hold to the idea that atheism is not a belief -except through complete denial.

If 'you' are not the labels, then 'atheism' is but a label for you. If such a separation exists then all labels must be 'belief'. If not, then I assert that 'you' and 'athiesm' are proposed as conflated, of the same 'thing', since your subject is just as contentless as atheism.
So I have asked: is there a subject and also an object? Is the subject merely a space of nil between labels?

this line of argument brings up the possibility of essence, and I think it is a quite effective way of approaching the issue at hand. Is the Subject (the individual person Being) essential? You propose that 'you' are not the 'labels', that atheism exists only in a discursive realm of opposition, with theism in this case, and that you are an atheist only within this arena where theism exists, because of the condition of the Other. Now, either 'you' see rationalism as indicating essential things, actual True things, or at least that rationalism holds the best potential for discovering what may be true (rationalism as the route toward truth) such as you seem to hold for atheism, or, rationalism itself is another one of these labels, and the terms you use rationally, as well as the method of rationalism indicate nothing essential, which means that atheism must be a belief.
Am i 'believing' that atheism is true, or is athiesm true? The discursive gymnasitcs will not cause this dilemma to disappear.

You deny both these positions. Please delve into this tangled mixture and eludicate where I am incorrect here.

Is the subject an essential thing or is it a conflation of 'labels'? If the subject is a conflation of labels, then the subject must be 'essentially' what those labels claim: 'you' claim that atheism represents an essential True thing. And, if you claim that atheism is an essential thing, then in that you must argue it, atheism must be understood in that dynamic as a belief, a position in argument: a discursive situation. But, If the labels are merely a convention of the Other, and have nothing to do with 'you', the subject, then your atheism is a belief.

Indeed, you argue that atheism is not a belief, but that it exists necessariliy in the discursive arena to counter theism - is This not a belief? Is this arena True? Does it offer The route for Truth?
How might you define or situate what 'belief' is then?

Hey Evangelical Humanist: I wish you would chime in more since you were the one who brought aphilsophy back up.
What is your take on aphilsophy?

Wow. I just read a little more in Stanford epistemology. It hurts my mind. It is a prime example of what i propose in my essay "A Philosophy to Die For" is Methodological, or Technological Philsophy; Often, I am not so impressed with acedamia - It is based upon the Truth of the Object: the method of objective - but I sometimes read them just to know whats going on the greater 'philsophical' world.

But my hurting mind sometimes means I just need to keep returning to it now and then.

lancek4 wrote:Hey Evangelical Humanist: I wish you would chime in more since you were the one who brought aphilsophy back up.
What is your take on aphilsophy?

I don't have a "take" on aphilosophy, because I still don't get it very well. It's not even zen, really. Here is Typist himself on the subject (and aphilosophy was here first conceived by him):

What is philosophy? What is it literally? Thought.

aPhilosophy is "a-thought".

The conceptual part of aPhilosophy is of course thought, a philosophy, subject to the same limitations of any philosophy.

However, integral to this philosophy, what makes it different, is the suggestion that the philosophy part be discarded at the earliest moment, in favor of the "a-thought" experience part.

Now then, I ask myself what it means to be human. We are, of course, animals, like other animals in the world. All the usual cells, all the usual organs, organized in pretty much the usual way, as most other higher-order mammals, and really, not so very different -- physically -- from even lower-order ones. So what sets us apart?

I think it is our minds. We sacrificed a lot -- muscle, keeness of sight, smell, hearing, etc. -- in favour of mind. A chimpanzee has 5 times your strength. A dog can smell begbug pheromone at 5 parts per trillion in the air. Eagles can see a hare in the grass from miles away. But we can do something none of those creatures can do. Using our minds and our reason, we can change the world to suit ourselves.

Insofar as aphilosophy seems to suggest that we jettison that special ability at the earliest moment, then, it seems to me it suggests we return to a more animal-like state of existence. But since we won't be developing stronger muscles and keener senses in the exercise, I'm having some trouble seeing the benefit.

chaz wyman wrote:I think a better answer is without knowing. No good going with a nasty shock!

That would be a more reasoning answer but I was responding from feeling at the time. But meh to the idea of an issue with nasty shock as where would I be going too to worry about such a thing? Especially if my death was a complete surprise.

lancek4 wrote:Mark Question: Please read my post response to EV's suggestion to chack out Stanford on epistemology.
Do you agree with my post?

my english is not that good to say much about your post. but maybe mr. platon meant knowledge is justified true belief in a way where belief comes true and justified when you have worked hard(dialectical zumba) with propositional beliefs and made them become part of bigger picture of true reality(personal world view) in your mind. then you see it is true in your own eyes(brain)! but theres more! you also get technical and personal and practical and embodied and whatever knowledge same way like propositional knowledge from propositional beliefs. if you master golf, fall in love or have walked to mecca(‏مكة المكرمة‎, Makkah al-Mukkaramah). then you have true knowledge of golf, falling in love and the way to mecca. maybe thats the knowledge of aphilosophy, hermeneutics, qualitative recearch, atheism and theism too? propositionally contentless or whatever koan or paradox. but propositionally i just wonder why atheist should not believe his propositions about atheism. or why theist should not know what he sees(interprets) in reality. overestimating and underestimating seems to be the story of humans ability to predict future, understand exponents and evaluate other people. and maybe much more. whatever, i am rich(poor) hetero(gay).

Mark Question wrote:

lancek4 wrote:Mark Question: Please read my post response to EV's suggestion to chack out Stanford on epistemology.
Do you agree with my post?

my english is not that good to say much about your post. but maybe mr. platon meant knowledge is justified true belief in a way where belief comes true and justified when you have worked hard(dialectical zumba) with propositional beliefs and made them become part of bigger picture of true reality(personal world view) in your mind. then you see it is true in your own eyes(brain)! but theres more! you also get technical and personal and practical and embodied and whatever knowledge same way like propositional knowledge from propositional beliefs. if you master golf or have walked to mecca(‏مكة المكرمة‎, Makkah al-Mukkaramah). then you have true knowledge of golf and the way to mecca. maybe thats the knowledge of aphilosophy, hermeneutics, qualitative recearch, atheism and theism too? propositionally contentless or whatever koan or paradox. but propositionally i just wonder why atheist should not believe his propositions about atheism. or why theist should not know what he sees(interprets) in reality. overestimating and underestimating seems to be the story of humans ability to predict future, understand exponents and evaluate other people. and maybe much more. whatever, i am rich(poor) hetero(gay).

I am not sure how your english could not be that good and then go on like you have here. Maybe you're being funny so you can avoid having to make a significant contribution. but maybe your english is not that good. Maybe we can help it get better through interacting with 'thicker' concepts. But it seems your english is pretty good.

Yes, i wonder why atheism cannot engender belief. we will wait for Chaz's response, or someone else's.
I have a suspicion that if the atheist admits that atheism is a belief then it might imply that it is not true. at least this has been my angle on Chaz there.

And, I am not sure what exactly might be meant in Stanford by justified true belief, but I do know what I understand about it.
Whe I reduce my experience to knowledge, I have the problem of relying upon what I 'know' as 'knowledge' by which to come upon what I may understand as my experience. For example, your example of walking to Mecca. So you have a true knowledge of what it is to walk to Mecca. Such a take on knowledge avoids what knowledge may be by orienting knowledge to be that which we experience in some rational world. As if my experience is what I think about it, and Also, what I think about it is my experience of it. These categories, the ones which would speak of an understanding of knowledge as if it is notanother peice of knowledge, such as I might see an identity between 'the knowledge of the walk to Mecca' and 'knowledge in-itself' -- such 'technological' based categories avoid any solution but constantly redirect the solution back into itself. In effect, I keep 'knowledge' at a distance from myself and my experience, so that i may constantly reify and confirm that what i know is True, for if it is not so then what i know as myself may no longer exist. Thus, I justify my knowledge of the True within a belief that it is True, by drawing upon an experience of myself for self justification: Which by aphilsophy, I propose is suspect and probably faulty in its establishment.

]

evangelicalhumanist wrote: I don't have a "take" on aphilosophy, because I still don't get it very well. It's not even zen, really. Here is Typist himself on the subject (and aphilosophy was here first conceived by him):

What is philosophy? What is it literally? Thought.

aPhilosophy is "a-thought".

The conceptual part of aPhilosophy is of course thought, a philosophy, subject to the same limitations of any philosophy.

However, integral to this philosophy, what makes it different, is the suggestion that the philosophy part be discarded at the earliest moment, in favor of the "a-thought" experience part.

Now then, I ask myself what it means to be human. We are, of course, animals, like other animals in the world. All the usual cells, all the usual organs, organized in pretty much the usual way, as most other higher-order mammals, and really, not so very different -- physically -- from even lower-order ones. So what sets us apart?

I think it is our minds. We sacrificed a lot -- muscle, keeness of sight, smell, hearing, etc. -- in favour of mind. A chimpanzee has 5 times your strength. A dog can smell begbug pheromone at 5 parts per trillion in the air. Eagles can see a hare in the grass from miles away. But we can do something none of those creatures can do. Using our minds and our reason, we can change the world to suit ourselves.

Insofar as aphilosophy seems to suggest that we jettison that special ability at the earliest moment, then, it seems to me it suggests we return to a more animal-like state of existence. But since we won't be developing stronger muscles and keener senses in the exercise, I'm having some trouble seeing the benefit.
This conclusion, "we return to a more animal like state", is a conclusion based in the maxim that there exists only 'true/false', in the sence that knowledge of the true is 'positive', and the false 'negative'. Hegel well depends upon this essential dualism to elucidate upon the negative, which is at root "infinitely regressive", which means it never comes to a solution, a 'positive knowledge': truth. the negative exists in this way to grant the truth-value of knowledge-true.
Such orientation upon reality, the writ 'positive-negative' gains conclusion such as yours: no thought = an animal like state, which is rediculous. Faced with this rediculousness the typical and 'advocated' way of knowledge is to move back into the positive and assert what "is true". I have proposed, earier in this thread, that such a scheme of knowledge (positive<>negative) itself taken as a True knowledge (positive) thus has a negative which is not infinitely regressive, but rather is redundant.

[/quote]

Let us begin with "thought". What is "thought"? Is it something that exists in-itself, as self evident? What is "mind"?
In the same way as QuestionMark's 'walk to Mecca, when I reduce thought to mind, or mind to thought, I have reified 'knowledge', I have assumed and depended upon the categories given to make my claim. Perhaps you could look at "Non-Philosphy" to describe how 'philosophy' "argues itself; it might be said to be similar to aphilosophy.

Wittgenstien, Neitche and others suggest that once we have used the 'ladder of knowledge' to come to a Truth of the matter, that we inevitably have to throwaway the ladder, as you point out.
But this asserted activity is ironic at its base. Most often, it is taken to mean that once we have come to a Truism, that we can somehow now come back into knowledge and use it to gain a more full or true understanding.

I believe that Typist was indicating the marginalized view. Aphilsophy is a dialectical move. The point I understand from Witt and Niezctche is that 'knowledge', once 'climbed' to its extents, no longer becomes a route to find what is true, since it has already revealed what is true, which is, that 'knowledge' is faulty, the ladder argues what is inherently false - thus, the ladder being thrown away as a means to find out what may be True in the (object) universe now becomes (knowledge) as way to express 'what is True'. And this move is ironic. Knowledge, instead of being the 'object of investigation', becomes the 'means to express'.

Arising_uk wrote:

chaz wyman wrote:I think a better answer is without knowing. No good going with a nasty shock!

That would be a more reasoning answer but I was responding from feeling at the time. But meh to the idea of an issue with nasty shock as where would I be going too to worry about such a thing? Especially if my death was a complete surprise.

this little bit seems to sound oddly reminiscent of my essay "A philsophy to Die For".(link a few pages back)
"Without knowing" when my death willl come -- I would think the best way in the sense you guys are speaking, would be to think that it was not going to come (life as certain, death as uncertain), and then I would be completely surprised but the surprise would amount to a not knowing since i would already by dead.

lancek4 wrote: Yes, i wonder why atheism cannot engender belief. we will wait for Chaz's response, or someone else's.
I have a suspicion that if the atheist admits that atheism is a belief then it might imply that it is not true. at least this has been my angle on Chaz there.

maybe mr. platos true walk to larissa will serve at least as rhetorical analogue: maybe atheist wont find true route to heaven and he see how theist is walking true ancient route to miserable death? and maybe theist see how atheist is walking true route to hell or missing the right turn to heaven? maybe master golfer cant see how to play true golf and hit the ball like true amateur? maybe true love wont give you true choice not to love, either? maybe truly justified belief becomes part of you and then it becomes true to you, in your true world(view)? still i wonder, if him who denies belief and talks about knowledge can see(own two or three eyes or words) how knowledge can be without belief and see(jesus!) why others true believes are better than others true believes? because others true believes looks(truly are to them) atrue or untrue believes to others? hallelujah to us all?

Mark Question wrote:

lancek4 wrote: Yes, i wonder why atheism cannot engender belief. we will wait for Chaz's response, or someone else's.
I have a suspicion that if the atheist admits that atheism is a belief then it might imply that it is not true. at least this has been my angle on Chaz there.

maybe mr. platos true walk to larissa will serve at least as rhetorical analogue: maybe atheist wont find true route to heaven and he see how theist is walking true ancient route to miserable death? and maybe theist see how atheist is walking true route to hell or missing the right turn to heaven? maybe master golfer cant see how to play true golf and hit the ball like true amateur? maybe true love wont give you true choice not to love, either? maybe truly justified belief becomes part of you and then it becomes true to you, in your true world(view)? still i wonder, if him who denies belief and talks about knowledge can see(own two or three eyes or words) how knowledge can be without belief and see(jesus!) why others true believes are better than others true believes? because others true believes looks(truly are to them) atrue or untrue believes to others? hallelujah to us all? ahh yes. so true. perhaps then we have to look at how the 'true' makes 'true'.

maybe all such categories, golf, heaven, love, world, are all just categories, and not true in any true sense.
Such enters 'justified true belief' . Belief= untrue; justified allows for truth.

lancek4 wrote:This conclusion, "we return to a more animal like state", is a conclusion based in the maxim that there exists only 'true/false', in the sence that knowledge of the true is 'positive', and the false 'negative'. Hegel well depends upon this essential dualism to elucidate upon the negative, which is at root "infinitely regressive", which means it never comes to a solution, a 'positive knowledge': truth. the negative exists in this way to grant the truth-value of knowledge-true.
Such orientation upon reality, the writ 'positive-negative' gains conclusion such as yours: no thought = an animal like state, which is rediculous. Faced with this rediculousness the typical and 'advocated' way of knowledge is to move back into the positive and assert what "is true". I have proposed, earier in this thread, that such a scheme of knowledge (positive<>negative) itself taken as a True knowledge (positive) thus has a negative which is not infinitely regressive, but rather is redundant.

Let us begin with "thought". What is "thought"? Is it something that exists in-itself, as self evident? What is "mind"?
In the same way as QuestionMark's 'walk to Mecca, when I reduce thought to mind, or mind to thought, I have reified 'knowledge', I have assumed and depended upon the categories given to make my claim. Perhaps you could look at "Non-Philosphy" to describe how 'philosophy' "argues itself; it might be said to be similar to aphilosophy.

Wittgenstien, Neitche and others suggest that once we have used the 'ladder of knowledge' to come to a Truth of the matter, that we inevitably have to throwaway the ladder, as you point out.
But this asserted activity is ironic at its base. Most often, it is taken to mean that once we have come to a Truism, that we can somehow now come back into knowledge and use it to gain a more full or true understanding.

I believe that Typist was indicating the marginalized view. Aphilsophy is a dialectical move. The point I understand from Witt and Niezctche is that 'knowledge', once 'climbed' to its extents, no longer becomes a route to find what is true, since it has already revealed what is true, which is, that 'knowledge' is faulty, the ladder argues what is inherently false - thus, the ladder being thrown away as a means to find out what may be True in the (object) universe now becomes (knowledge) as way to express 'what is True'. And this move is ironic. Knowledge, instead of being the 'object of investigation', becomes the 'means to express'.

Really, I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't see aphilosophy as any sort of dialectical move, and I don't see "no thought" as an animal-like state, and finally, I don't see that aphilosophy takes one any closer to "truth." My view is that aphilosophy, as Typist described it (and this is only as I understand what he wrote), seeks to experience without "tainting" the experience with thought.

My own view is that our mental capabilities are just one of the many tools (including, of course, our senses) that we bring to bear on our experience of the world, and that while there may be some occasional benefit to blocking or altering our toolset, to persistently do so reduces rather than enhances our ability to fully experience. That is because I think that full experience is impossible if we remove an important part of our own processing.

Just for a simple example, it might seem to say that to simply experience a piece of transcendant music without analyzing it is to experience it more fully. I disagree, since the fullness of the experience involves what I am currently feeling/thinking, and this can change from one listening to the next. Removing that is like removing a dimension.

EH you are thus confirming what you are not understanding by your not understanding my post Is that for you 'thought', Typist 'philosphy', is a Technology.
If you do not understand dialectic: it is the positing of contrasting elements by which to veiw a problem.

lancek4 wrote:EH you are thus confirming what you are not understanding by your not understanding my post Is that for you 'thought', Typist 'philosphy', is a Technology.

If you do not understand dialectic: it is the positing of contrasting elements by which to veiw a problem.

I understand dialectic perfectly well. I also understanding spelling. View, not veiw. Sense, not sence.

Very well, if I must explain what I didn't understand about what you wrote, here goes: You in red, me in black.

This conclusion, "we return to a more animal like state", is a conclusion based in the maxim that there exists only 'true/false', in the sence that knowledge of the true is 'positive', and the false 'negative'.

I said nothing of the kind, and believe nothing of the kind. Clearly, animals are "conscious" and respond to their environments, and just as clearly they are capable of forms of thinking. Crows have been shown to count, and various apes and birds have been shown to use abstraction to invent, and then to pass on their inventions to others of their kind. But those very things are what humans do better than any other creature of which we are aware, and I see no reason to curtail what we do best for some so-far unhinted at reward.

Likewise, I do not think that there are only true or false, and I do not think that knowledge can be described as you suggested. You have obviously not finished reading (or not completely understood) the entry on epistemology yet. I don't think of thinking as even necessarily a search for knowledge. I think of it as a necessary process of the mind, something that it cannot (except for minute periods) stop doing. Seeking knowledge, yes, but also dreaming, scheming, hoping, envying, enjoying, wondering. calculating, rationalizing...

Hegel well depends upon this essential dualism to elucidate upon the negative, which is at root "infinitely regressive", which means it never comes to a solution, a 'positive knowledge': truth. the negative exists in this way to grant the truth-value of knowledge-true.

That I simply don't understand. I'm no "technical philosopher" (if I'm a philosopher at all). Perhaps it has meaning for others here, but it does not for me.

Such orientation upon reality, the writ 'positive-negative' gains conclusion such as yours: no thought = an animal like state, which is rediculous.

And I did not say "no thought," I said less thought. And the spelling is "ridiculous."

Faced with this rediculousness the typical and 'advocated' way of knowledge is to move back into the positive and assert what "is true". I have proposed, earier in this thread, that such a scheme of knowledge (positive<>negative) itself taken as a True knowledge (positive) thus has a negative which is not infinitely regressive, but rather is redundant.

Again, no idea what you are talking about. I don't "assert what is true," I tell you what I think, and give my reasons, which you are then able (in your own way and according to your own lights) evaluate, question and pronounce upon. But my thoughts are not assertions of what is true, and they are most certainly not dichotomous in the way that you are trying to portray them.

I don't know how to define or classify "true knowledge" and what it means to call that positive, or what it means to call the negation of that either infinitely regressive or redundant. I can talk about what we've learned about the origins of the universe without supposing we've got to the end of that investigation. I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that there are an infinite number of primes, and if you really need it, I can explain why. Negation of that? Surely not "regressive," just wrong.

Let us begin with "thought". What is "thought"? Is it something that exists in-itself, as self evident? What is "mind"?

I don't see thought as a “thing” at all. I see thought and mind as "what brain does" -- that is, as process. In the same way, I don't see entropy as a thing, but as a process, and the same for decay and fire.

In the same way as QuestionMark's 'walk to Mecca, when I reduce thought to mind, or mind to thought, I have reified 'knowledge'

No, you have not, because neither thought nor mind are equated to knowledge. I can (go back and read epistemology again) think many things, hold many things in mind, which could not in any way be considered “knowledge.”

Wittgenstien, Neitche and others suggest that once we have used the 'ladder of knowledge' to come to a Truth of the matter, that we inevitably have to throwaway the ladder, as you point out.

I’m unaware of the reference. However, I do not need to throw out the ladder of mathematics once I have concluded, using that very ladder, that there are an infinite number of primes.

But this asserted activity is ironic at its base. Most often, it is taken to mean that once we have come to a Truism, that we can somehow now come back into knowledge and use it to gain a more full or true understanding.

And is that not so? Can my knowledge that there is an infinite number of primes (or better yet, my knowledge of how to prove that) not be used to gain more full or true understanding of matters mathematical?

I believe that Typist was indicating the marginalized view. Aphilsophy is a dialectical move. The point I understand from Witt and Niezctche is that 'knowledge', once 'climbed' to its extents, no longer becomes a route to find what is true, since it has already revealed what is true, which is, that 'knowledge' is faulty, the ladder argues what is inherently false - thus, the ladder being thrown away as a means to find out what may be True in the (object) universe now becomes (knowledge) as way to express 'what is True'. And this move is ironic. Knowledge, instead of being the 'object of investigation', becomes the 'means to express'.

In the context in which it arose, I did not perceive Typist’s as a dialectical move, but rather as a psychological ploy. Typist is convinced that the existence of God’s is not a matter for dispute (that would be a suitable subject for dialectic), but rather something so fundamental that it must be accepted (for it is only the denial that truly engages him). That’s where aphilosophy came from – a plea to stop thinking and just accept. Because, in the end, that is the only way to God, isn’t it?