Thursday, February 26, 2009

4-page Summary

I think the following quote (from the 4-page summary) is really compelling when it comes to understanding how fiction helps us...understand:

"To advance understanding, we need not discover anything new. We already have a vast store of information at our disposal. But a jumble of disorderly data has little cognitive value. Our problem, often enough, is what to make of what we’ve got. Advancement of understanding then involves finding order in or imposing order on the information at hand. Fiction helps. It highlights patterns, spells out implications, draws distinctions, and identifies possibilities we had not recognized in the welter of information before us."

Rarely if ever does fiction serve as a vehicle for "new information," but it often presents new and interesting insights. One of most striking aspects of fiction, in my opinion, is its ability to make people question what they think they know about human nature. Characters who shouldn't be sympathetic often become objects of sympathy, and the reader is left questioning the idea of moral and ethical distinctions...

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The Tenability of Examples

I was intrigued by the way that Elgin presented the idea of "examples" and "models," particularly in science. I suppose that in the back of my mind, I've always known that models are normative and by no means an empirical reflection of how the world REALLY works. Nevertheless, they are academically and practically useful. With regard to ideal models, there was a passage from Chapter 5 that I found particularly instructive:

"Were they committed to the reality of their referents [idealizations, approximations, thought experiments and other falsifying assumptions], theories deploying such devices would be in sorry shape...that there exists NO IDEAL GAS DOES NOT DISCREDIT THE IDEAL GAS LAW. But that there exists no phlogistan decisively discredits phlogistan theory. The difference is plain. The ideal gas law is a fiction. So its falsity does not tell against it. Since phlogistic laws purport to be factual, their falsity is their undoing" (183).

This is a particularly relevant, interesting and enlightening passage because normative models are in fact false, prima facie, but nevertheless invaluable. Were we to do away with thought experiments and models, for example, the field of economics as we know it would probably cease to function. Philosophy would certainly suffer in the absence of thought-experiments (Rawls' theory of justice would crash and burn) and even chemistry would suffer greatly. I find all of this exceedingly interesting because it's self-evident but rarely acknowledged by the academic disciplines it pertains to (particularly in the hard sciences).

I found Elgin's commentary on fiction less relevant. While it is true that fiction and writing can help open our eyes to aspects of the human experience we might not have noticed before (188-189), works of fiction like Shakespeare's can only do so within the confines of what Shakespeare views as relevant to our understanding of human nature. There is nothing inherent in prose or poetry that offers new insights into human nature; the medium, in and of itself, in my opinion, does not reveal anything that Shakespeare could not tell you in person. What the medium does, instead, is to magnify the effect of Shakespeare's innate wisdom about human nature and help the reader better understand jealousy or lust. Thought experiments and models are different because they may reveal knowledge that we otherwise would not come to. Rawl's veil of ignorance theory, for instance, serves as a method of PRODUCING an insight. Poetry, as a medium, does not PRODUCE insight but instead TRANSMITS it. This is not to denigrate the role of poetry; I myself am a poet. However, I do not think that Elgin portrays the role of fiction and poetry in understanding very accurately.

Or perhaps I'm just misunderstanding the reading.

Shifting Focus

While I believe I understand the point Elgin is trying to make in the beginning section of this chapter, I'm not sure that I agree with her claim that exemplars supplement knowledge. She states that, "Exemplars, being symbols, require interpretation" (175) yet if they require interpretation, is that really beneficial to knowledge gathering? Do we really "know" something that we've interpreted. Elgin goes on to say that "many symbols admit of multiple right interpretations." (175) If pluralism exists, how can that be truth/knowledge? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting the point Elgin's trying to make (it wouldn't be the first time in this class) but this chapter seems to contradict what she's been saying in the previous chapters. I hope we can discuss this section of the chapter in class today so I can get some clarification. I'm curious to see if anyone else had a similar response. 

Better Understanding

I like how our last class, Monday's article, and today's reading all complemented each other nicely and gave us a new perspective on gaining knowledge. It seems that when we usually talk about things like the truth most of the time people refer to the facts that can be justified as knowledge. Elgin tells us, no, it is so much more than that which is initially tenible and may lead to a better understanding. Art and other similar things that challenge our htinking may and should give us new perspectives. It's also a relief to know that we don't always have to be so literal and that metaphorically speaking can achive knowledge and understanding as well.

Chapter VI

I found this chapter to be interesting and I like the principles that Elgin is proposing. The idea that both science and art bring forth different and important aspects of our lives based on vital works of fiction made a lot of sense. It's true that fiction has founds in fact in say, literature and physics, but that extrapolating fiction out is creating an example that people can understand and digest. I wholeheartedly agree that understanding based on principle alone is almost impossible. Anyone who's taken chemistry knows that learning facts in the classroom is useful, but connecting it to an example helps it stick.
I did have a concern about a few things in the reading. Elgin explains that secondary extensions can be leading, and uses the example of a sheep herder and a cowboy to illustrate the point. She explains that, "The residues of fiction thus infuse the findings of fact." While I understand what she's trying to say, some of that could be taken in a very negative context. I thought of the negative stereotypes say for "red necks." Is it true that people from the South like Nascar and are missing teeth and hate gays? Well, statistics might back some of that up, meaning that it technically is residing in fact, but to say that "Red necks hate gays" is definitely far too assumptive. In this context, just because something is ground in fact, it doesn't mean that using it as such is helpful.
The other question that arose while I was reading was with Elgin's idea that we deal with fiction in art and science all day, but it is useful to us none the less. While I agree that knowing things such as fuel economy are important for a car, and having this idea tells us a lot about what people value in a vehicle and about sales techniques, I think that deciphering the extent of the fiction gets a tad hazy. Understanding a piece of work like "The Jungle" tells us about the hardships of the industrial revolution in America, but at the same time, just how much of that work is reflective on the real world can lend credibility or take it away. An example from the sciences might be with current fMRI studies. Some psychologists have been accused of using fMRI to try and explain not just blood flow in the brain, but how blood flow can explain things like racism and sexism in humans. In this case, is the fiction really helping our understanding? I would argue that it isn't, it is in fact doing quite the opposite.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Exemplars and Features

In the reading a few weeks ago,
"By making the avoidance of error our sole or primary epistemic objective, it overlooked the importance we attach to sensitivity, relevance, informativeness, and cognitive efficacy. We regularly risk error to achieve such ends." pg 59
We asked the question in class, how do we rethink knowlege?

I think that this chapter adds a layer to just how we can rethink what we know and why we know it... with new evidence and new informationcertain aspects of reality start to make more sense. This is what epistimologyis all about, or at least what I have begun to deduce from Elgin's arguments

"For in shifting its focus from knowledge to understanding, epistemologydevalues truth." pg 171

As we saw early in the last chapter on the value of emotions, and now on these exemplars which bring out certain features of beliefs, there is more to knowlege and understanding then certainty and coherent facts.Cognitive emotions shape our beliefs and the system of beliefs just asseemingly false experiments or art can be helpful to cognition if they fit in and facilitate a system of beliefs.

Exemplification is not only a mechanism for shaping our cognition, but italso provides a way of understanding and categorizing features. As Elgin described in earlier chapters, this categorization is essential to knowlege.

"Exemplification is a mode of reference, so anything that exemplifies is a symbol.Not only do experiments exemplify theoretically significant features, and works ofart formally significant features, ordinary samples and examples exemplify the featuresthey display." pg 172

These categories can also help us to better understand the world, bringing different aspects into focus and thus shaping our view of the world or even creating a new world. This goes back to the idea of world-making. Under different exemplification or different categories of signifigance, our beliefs may change. This is not necessarily sayingthat these exemplars cause our beliefs to be more or less true, but rather that they add to our understanding of reality.

This is the main point that I take away from todays reading as well as yesterday's.

The picture that Picasso paints of Gertrude Stein may not be her exact likeness, however it does not make the painting less true or less important. Some of the features it bring to focus may tell us more about Stein than a physical likeness, and this is more important than straight forward truths.

Pictures, Perceptions and the Like

In "The Power of Pictures," Schwartz argues that "pictures may not only shape our perception of the world; they can and do play an important role in making it" (711). In other words, Schwartz sets out to argue that we "partake in world-making" and that it is false to assume a world which is "ready-made, waiting out there to be captured in word or image" (712). In the next paragraph, Schwartz points out that while some individuals extoll the virtue of seeing a pure world, there is no way to determine what is "pure and simple" to the human eye (712). I take this to mean that the author either does not believe in a conception of reality independent of the perceiver OR believes in a reality independent of conception but does not think that it is accessible.

However, later in the article Schwartz discusses the importance of classification and the extent to which one person's ability to notice certain aspects of a face, for example, help to create categories into which we can place other faces. The creation of categories implies that there is something from which to create categories in the first place - a reality independent of our perceptions. Schwartz thus appears to be saying that an infinite number of features exist on a face, and it is up to the perceiver to pick out the ones he or she takes to be the most important. This process eventually produces categories.

With regard to the creation of categories, I was confused by the following passages:

"This class, like any other class of objects, tenselessly always existed. It also always contained all and only the members it has, regardless of the doings of Picasso or anyone else. Indeed, the class we now take to be composed of resemblers of Stein would (if we exclude the reflexive case) have been extensionally the same class and just as real had Stein herself never existed. This, however, says no more than that classes are individuated by the members they keep" (714).

On the next page, Schwartz writes:
"The point then is not the trivial reminder that words bear arbitrary connections to their denotations and, hence, require human habits or conventions to give them their referential force...The idea of the fact of the matter, 'Stephen looking like Stein,' sitting out there or just being that way, while awaiting the good fortune to be noticed or recorded, evaporates" (715).

So categories and labels exist and have always exist but at the same time have not. Could we clarify these two passages in class?

I found the last part of Schwartz's article rather interesting. In applying his theory that by observing the world we partake in "world-making," the author contends that scientists as observers partake in world-making as well (719). This parallel between scientists and artists is interesting and novel. In my opinion, this idea merits more discussion.
I agree with Laura that Schwartz really prompted me to question the notion that the only reality we should strive to achieve is the objective one.  It's not the objective reality that shapes how I see the world, it's my own version of reality--how I have experienced the world up to this point.  I do, however, buy that pictures play a big part in shaping how we see the world.  While Picasso's painting may not present Gertrude Stein in a objective way, the painting still affects how I would compare someone to Stein, how I would view Stein, what characteristics of Stein's would stand out the most to me now.  I see very clearly how, although it is not an objective representation of Stein, the painting affects how I see some aspects of the world.  

The one lingering question I had was how a painting or a picture of something that is not a portrait can change my view of the world.  Would the same logic apply to a landscape painting?  The painter still chooses which attributes of the landscape they wish to highlight and in turn which aspects of the painting I'm supposed to view.  But, does this change how I would view such landscapes?  Perhaps I would begin to look at the trees instead of focusing on the river.  But, I do not see a real connection to my view of the world from such a painting.  And what about more abstract art?

I suppose the bigger point of the article was that we create meaning using words and, specifically in this case pictures.  Without highlighting what we believe to be significant characteristics or assigning a word to an object, there would be no meaning and in turn no truth.  I feel like Schwartz is trying to convince me that through pictures, artists are highlighting what they believe to have the most meaning and that in turn affects what I see as having the most meaning through the means of comparison.  

Schwartz

I understand what Meredith is saying about not being convinced of Schwartz's claim that pictures make the world, but I had a bit of a different understanding of his argument. I think this ties into ideas we have read about before concerning the idea that there is no "reality" out there independent of our perceptions because we can never see this reality without our particular lenses. I do not think that Schwartz is claiming that Picasso "created" how Stein looks in the same way that biology "created" how she looks. I think he's saying that our individual realities, or worlds, are shaped by the way that he has portrayed her. We may be affected by this portrayal and never look at her the same way again. He even says, "Picasso cannot paint Stein any way he pleases and still influence our perception and conception of her" (719). He claims that Picasso has to somehow "get it right" and our other ways of classifying help to determine what is right and what is not.

I think what is difficult about buying into this is that most of us still have this concept there there are two worlds: our world and the objective, scientific reality that exists independently from how we think about it. My attention was caught to one point when Schwartz remarks, "It is not clear why seeing the world through innocent eyes is seeing it more objectively or correctly than viewing it through the eyes of experience" (712). I think we have all spent a considerable amount of time discussing whether or not there is this objective reality, but Schwartz brings up the question of why we think objective reality is somehow superior to our individual perceptions of reality. I think it has something to do with the fact that we would all like something supposedly "concrete" to build off of (similar to perfect procedural). Still, I think that seeing the world through certain lenses can be beneficial. To look at an idea without bringing in any other ideas or experiences to help in interpreting it can lead to a somewhat flat understanding of the idea. Our perceptions help us see ideas for more than what they are, in a way. I think that Schwartz is saying something a bit different than this here, but it is something that came to mind.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Pictures and Perception

When reading this article, I largely agreed with Schwartz. I think he is trying to emphasize that artists and their work can provide perspective in the culmination of truth. Artwork allows the viewers to take what the creator sees as truth and interpret it, or to take that meaning and incorporate it into the truth as you see it. Truth, by definition, must be above all interpretation. Schwartz seems to be advocating that artwork adds to truth only if it has accurate points, and that it adds to the concept of truth if indeed, the artwork is accurate. Overall, I think Schwartz wants to emphasize that art has value to those who seek the truth.
Maybe this will help, Meredith, but maybe not - we'll see :)

I feel like maybe this reading wasn't necessarily assigned to us for us to think that the picture changes reality, like Picasso and Stein, that Picasso truly created an image that was different from Stein in reality, I think instead it was meant to show us how valuable a picture or image is.

Here are my other thoughts:
*Because pictures and images are things we can return to and they will not change, they have a large impact on us, as opposed to reality, which we cannot freeze or come back to exactly. Therefore, even if the image isn't exactly real, it can alter our thoughts

*Power of pictures :Plans in pictures help us to visualize what we will create, words can provide context, but a picture is best, especially when we are hoping to communicate our ideas to another person

*I was wondering if the bottom of page 712 was referring to looking at something with or without outside influence?

*Artists/creators have power over the interpretation of the subject he/she created, BUT the interpreter obviously has the final say/decisions/interpretation of the piece, especially if they do not get to speak with the creator; Though Picasso has control over his art, we still have control over the interpretation, and that interpretation is restricted to the interpreter's (mine/our) thoughts

The Power of Pictures

I'm going to be honest.  I don't really buy Schwartz's claim that pictures play an important role in making the world.  I can agree with his claim that pictures can be powerful and help shape our perception of the world, but he hasn't convinced me of much more than that.  His first example about the skyscraper made me think that I was going to buy his claim that pictures can help shape the world because without a drawing, the skyscraper probably wouldn't have been able to be constructed.  However, the examples of Picasso's paintings completely lost me as to how pictures are supposed to help make the world.  Schwartz claims that Picasso's painting helps to make or create what Stein looks like (713) and that the picture joins in giving Stein her looks (713).  I just plain don't see how Schwartz jumps to this conclusion.  Stein would have the features she has regardless of whether or not she was painted.  About all Picasso did, in my eyes at least, is paint a portrait of the woman that emphasized certain parts of her face.  Any other takes on this -- maybe someone can help convince me to agree with Schwartz's claim?

The Power of Pictures

I find Schwartz' argument for the importance of pictures in shaping our world reasonable. I am however curious how he would evaluate abstract art or even art that does not aim to be realistic in a picture like sense. Clearly these images also have influence on our perception of the world but perhaps in a slightly different manner than his Stein example. He defines one Stein image to be better than another when it "provides more insight into Stein's characteristics and helps capture more forcefully what is significantly distinctive about her looks." p173 Where does abstract art fall into this definition if the subject of the image and its characteristics are not so concrete?

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Emotions

This was my favorite chapter so far because it deals with the impact emotions make on all parts of life, and I strongly believe and understand that emotions make up most of what we chose to do in life, or at least it is that way for me. I especially liked what Betsy had to say in class about choosing a major (or something equally important) and being asked what made us make that decision. The answer for most people is that they liked that field and enjoyed learning about that. In fact, we hope that is the answer because emotion is what pushes us to learn and develop, and without the motivation of emotion, what are we left with? Motivation for money? That kind of sucks.

Emotions

The idea that Elgin presents in Chapter 5, that emotions may yield the first signs of a LATER tenable thought, is rather interesting to me. Since, as Elgin mentioned, there is usually a mutual exclusivity that is assigned to "reason" and "emotions," I had never fully realized the extent to which emotions inform classification, categories, reclassification, and so forth.

Nonetheless, what Elgin is arguing has roots in common, everyday practice and is widely accepted in society with regard to some issues. For instance, Elgin argues that emotions can sometimes act as the initial signs of a tenable belief. Women, in self-defense courses and really throughout secondary school, are constantly told that if something "feels wrong" or "feels off," then it probably is.

The extent to which intuition can inform tenable beliefs is at time remarkable. On the other hand, as Elgin readily acknowledges, emotions can also cause people to misjudge situations and grossly misconstrue how they should respond to certain events (a perfect example is Othello's overwhelming jealousy).

I appreciate that Elgin spent so much of the chapter carefully and thoroughly distinguishing between the many different types of outcomes emotions may cause. In this regard, Chapter 5 is epistemically and practically useful.

Chapter 5

Marissa it's true that when you are the parent of an infant that you can begin to know what your baby needs just by thier cry. I liked chapter 5 and felt like it furthered Elgin's turn toward understanding at the end of 4. If we begin to actually listen to each otherwe may begin to understand what the other is needing just like in the case with the mom and the infant or at least I took this to be the point. I thought her ideas abput emotions were pretty obvious and I'm interested in seeing where we will be going in the next chapter.

Emotional Intelligence

Elgin's fifth chapter was the first with which I wholeheartedly agreed with and also the first chapter with which I was able to grasp some sort of understanding with only one read-through. One passage in particular was intriguing for me. "What we hear depends on what we listen to and what we listen for." Elgin gives an example of how parents of an infant genuinely believe their child has different cries and that they can distinguish between the different cries and find meaning in them. A person who is not directly related to the family who merely hears the cry of the child would not find meaning in the cry, but instead find it annoying. After reading this passage, my initial response was to wonder if Elgin actually believed the parents could differentiate the cries of their child or if she had a different explanation. Not having any children of my own, I'm somewhat reluctant to believe that parents have this ability. Reading further, Elgin explained that parents are in reality conditioning the child to produce a variety of cries with their varied responses. Being a neuroscience major, this was a very satisfying response. 

Elgin goes on to make the claim that "context influences emotion." Emotions shown, such as love and infatuation, may appear the same taken out of context but shown in the situation are very different. This is a concept I think I agree with but I'd like to see what the rest of the class thinks. Is emotion the feeling that we ourselves are feeling or is it what is viewed by others? Do emotions have to be justified in order to be true emotions? Obviously someone can feel fear while watching a scary movie but is it "fear" they're actually feeling if they know they are watching a fictional film? 

An Emotive Epistemology?

As I was reading this section I couldn't help but think: "So what?" It is true that there are often rational reasons for feelings and emotions, but it is equally likely that those same feelings and emotions are completely unfounded. It is like putting unwavering conviction in a hunch, it is just bad logic! I sincerely hope Elgin clears this up in the following chapter!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Norms and Rules

In Chapter 3, Elgin makes an important distinction between rules and accepted norms in her discussion of inquiry as a social practice with regard to Wittgenstein's theory of inquiry as game. Games, after all, have strict rules and then certain unspoken or accepted norms which may be followed. For instance, in hockey it is not written into the rules that players should or can fight in certain leagues (although in the NHL I think they are allowed to). Nevertheless, when a fight breaks out between hockey players rarely if ever is there a timely intervention. Elgin cites another example in Chapter 3 (that of grammatical rules and how they are sometimes broken in favor of accepted mistakes.

Elgin and Wittgenstein (based on my understanding of the read, at least) both acknowledge this the extent to which RULES do not fully govern games. My question pertains to how informal norms or rules influence the outcome of the inquiry. If knowledge, the result of the game or inquiry, is the outcome of a set of a rules that produced it but are subject to exceptions at any time, is such knowledge valid?

Elgin chapter 4

Elgin’s fourth chapter was encouraging to my assessment of my own personal epistemological integrity. After our in class discussion of how our beliefs are justified I struggled to imagine a ‘responsible’ method of justification that could be reasonably accomplished by any one person. Although I acknowledge that Elgin has not let me or anyone else off the hook, I find comfort in the idea that, “Without the resources the community provides, I could neither formulate nor justify the belief in question.” (p116) The example of a number of different types of scientists working together to solve a problem without having complete understanding of eachother's disciplines demonstrated how other's understanding can be drawn upon in a tenable (?) manner. Her explanation of knowledge also applies to the previous class discussion of the title of the class. “Knowledge is supposed to be an all-or nothing affair. Either you know that p or you do not. But understanding admits of degrees” (p124) Such a statement has led me to support ‘Fog of Understanding’ or something similar that implies much less certainty than Paths to Knowledge.

Equilibrium and Understanding

I felt like I followed much of what Elgin was trying to describe in this chapter. Her justification of imperfect procedural epistemology to be used as a means to greater levels of understanding gives a method for actually using some of the truths gained after much hard work. Her idea of reflective equilibrium acting as a dynamic system that allows new information to reset the balance gives distinct value to information already gathered, even if we know it's wrong. She's right in saying that every single physics problem ever done at the high school level has been wrong since every force is not taken into account, but the understanding of the concepts is instead the goal, not the exact true value.
One thing with which I struggled to find a balance was the discussion she had about using imperfect procedural epistemology as a means to go higher. She basically had a "no pain, no gain" approach to scientific exploration and creating permanent tenability when she described the process on 127. I follow her point entirely at this juncture, as no greater good has ever been created by sticking to safe assumptions in regard to new evidence and detail. Indeed, risking being horrifically wrong in front of your scientific peers is a necessary evil of research. However, later on she describes the danger of pushing a system until it unravels can also result in having to completely redo the entire body of work. Sometimes pushing a system results in greater conformation of the understanding, sometimes it destroys it. Although I do agree that we should definitely in principle always push for a greater understanding and test the boundaries of what we assume to be correct, it calls into question the issue of practicality. I suppose using what information we have due to preliminary testing and using that to build to other levels of understanding is the best we can hope for, but the level at which we can say we're sure enough is a harder call. Although it is also the case the information gained on shaky grounds can also serve to back up or refute earlier info as well, since earlier inquiries being off doesn't necessarily mean other inquiries are also off. But then again, no pain, no gain.

Monday, February 16, 2009

My quest for tenability

I think I understood most of Chapter 4. It took me a while of reading the discussion of rational equilibrium and initial tenability to get it, but it clicked eventually. I'm going to try to illustrate what my original conception of this was with the example of 'paths' through a forest as a search for knowledge that we talked about in a class a while ago. It stands to reason that most people want to travel on the easiest path--one with a clear surface for walking, spacious, and not dangerous or tricky. That, I figured, would be the tenable path as I understood it. And as you're standing at the beginning of the forest, getting ready to choose a path through, you have a wide variety of paths to choose from that you could take. These represent the different beliefs one could have in which to base their "world" or "system" off of. But a path that originally looks clear could be fraught with danger later on, and a path that may not even seem to exist at the forest's edge might be safe and easy--much like abandoning an initially tenable belief that becomes no longer tenable for one that wasn't initially tenable, it would be wise to turn around a try another path when the going gets tough.

So there I was, I had finished the reading, and I got it. Then, I thought to myself, "You know, Elgin used the word 'tenable' in like every other sentence, and I don't really know what it means. I should look it up." I was assuming it meant something like "plausible" or "logical." Turns out it means "capable of being held, maintained, or defended." I don't think the difference between the two definitions is insignificant. There's a difference (I think) between the ability to come to a conclusion and the ability to then maintain that conclusion--they're two separate steps in the conclusion-having process.

Now I don't know what to think. Does this shatter my fragile understanding of the concept? (which is kind of ironic--this kind of illustrates the accepting of an initially tenable idea and switching) Does the difference in what "tenable" means matter enough?

A Whole New World

Sorry, I just couldn't resist...

With regard to the article, I fumbled through it and felt as though I had a shaky understanding of it until this part: "Mere acknowledgement of the many available frames of reference provides us with no map of the motions of heavenly bodies: acceptance of the eligibility of alternative bases produces no scientific theory or philosophical system; awareness of the varied ways of seeing paints no pictures. A broad mind is no substitute for hard work" (71).

Wasn't that the point of Goodman's article though? As I understand it, Goodman spent most of the piece exploring the interrelations between various worlds as well as things like deletions, etc, which, in my mind, rests on the assumption that we should be open to different worlds. Was this not the point of Goodman's refutation of reductionism?

If we could spent some time in class fleshing out a clear and cohesive thesis, I think that that would be enormously helpful with regard to understanding the rest of the article.

Goodman

I liked Adil's example in his post of the "There can only be one" ads. It provided a tangible representation of some of what Goodman discusses. I have to admit, I was a little lost when first reading the essay, but I think I ended up agreeing with most of what was said. I rejected the idea of perfect procedural epistemology right away because I thought it was too restrictive and though it claims to represent reality, does not seem to fit in with reality. The world does not function on perfectly proven truths, but by our being as well informed as we can be. I think Goodman would agree with this. He says, "The whole truth would be too much...the truth alone would be too little" (70). He seems to say that if we accepted everything as truth without question, then our beliefs would lose all validity. On the other hand, if we only accept those things as truth that can be proven without a doubt, we would be severely limiting ourselves.

What also struck me about Goodman's argument was his emphasis on the fact that truth is not always the goal of "knowing." This reminded me of Lynch's argument that truth is the goal of inquiry. Goodman argues that we often hope to gain simply insight or comprehension instead of actual facts when we inquire. This makes sense, because not all of learning involves finding the "right" answer but gaining new ways of thinking. Goodman also emphasizes that everything we "know" is framed by something. I think this is true. I've always felt that we cannot help see the world through our own eyes. Even if we buy into a new idea, we still bring everything we believe and apply it to this idea. 

Sunday, February 15, 2009

There Can only be One

Goodman emphasized in his article how we build up the world by our perceptions and what we feel is meaningful. One way to showcase this is by looking at the "there can only be one" advertising that the NBA used last year. For example look at the following and answer who is the one.
Quickly Matt McGuire will say Garnett. Why? because the Celtics won the championship, and in the system of the NBA there is only one champion. Goodman will say that Mcguire would weigh and order his information relating to the picture and be able to choose one. Goodman would also say that Mcguire is right. Mcguire is right because both sides accept that the championship decides the victor, and prior to the game they may have a dichotomy since both players thinks they will be the champion, but after the conclusion is not contested. Now look at the examples below:


























Each Person may be able to come up with different results. All of these pictures give us so much information but when we answer the questions of who is the "one" we use different systems to answer the question. The TV world, Sports World, and Political world show how we make these systems of measurements that are relative to what we are measuring. For all of these (before elections) according to Goodman, their would be no Truth, for now based on different systems each one could be the one since each half has its own precepts for why they are the "true one". Bryant thinks that the best player is the one who takes his team to more championships, Jordan thinks it is about career points. Both can be correct but since their is differing precepts not believed by the other, their can be no true result. However Goodman states that we cannot just reduce to believe only what is true because it would be to little, but we cannot believe everything because that would be too vast.


The Last example that I wish to show is one example in which such a poster cannot frame. While the NBA finals were going on avid NBA fan Matt fit in his puzzle of knowledge as a placeholder a piece that said either Celtics or lakers will be the NBA champions. Since their was no answer yet, he could not accept it at fact just a theory. In the same way we notice that when people have inconclusive evidence and two theories they adapt one as a placeholder and until further exploration. The world is flat or round? at one time their was a debate but now it is widely excepted by scientific verification what the answer is, and now we all know what is true. In a current context we can look at global warming. If you look at fox news they bring on two guests when talking about global warming; one for and one against. This establishes that their is a difference, and that two scientists can reach differ ant results. This is what I consider a false dichotomy. Since both rely on scientific verification as their reasoning only one can be right. Some of these "scientists" are payed by Exxon Mobil or large corporations and are even payed to be perverse to Global Warming, in 1987 when Global warming was first released in a scientific study as being true, the U.S. government censored much of the terminology that made global warming a concrete stolid occurrence that is a problem. In conclusion the goal was to create a debate, because when their is a debate that means their is no accepted truth.

Goodman Article

"For the man-in-the-street, most versions from science, art and perception depart in some ways from the familiar serviceable world he has jerry-built from fragments of scientific and artistic tradition and from his own struggle for survival. This world, indeed, is the one most often taken as real; for reality in a world, like realism in a picture, is largely a matter of habit."

This section of Goodman's article summarizes, in a way, a thought I've had throughout this course. This may seem a bit basic and perhaps obvious, but in debating the definition of truth and knowledge, I cannot seem to get past the point that each individual is hampered by his or her own reality and knowledge. The human mind is limited simply by what it knows. Whether true or not, an individual's beliefs are formed based upon the knowledge the individual has at that certain point in time. While this is not a concrete or infallible funtion, it seems to be a limitation with which we all must contend. Goodman seems to assert, in this small passage, that the average person's reality is not defined by the philosophers or even simply another passerby; instead, the average person defines his own reality. Whether it is true or not seems almost irrelevant because he believes it is. For example, if you were to tell a new mother that her physical stress levels have not risen since the birth of her child, yet she believes herself to be more stressed than she was previously, it will be inconsequential. It won't necessarily change the way she feels, nor her outlook on the world.

So it seems with more intangible beliefs. Morality, ethics, and feelings are impossible to prove but can become an individual's reality (or at least play a crucial role). Thus, habit and and individual's ability to process thought and knowledge create his or her world.

Goodman article, and Elgin

Blake Daniel Brown
Paths to Knowledge
15 February 2009

The World: Absolutely Relative

Nelson Goodman discusses the “world” as a convention of humankind. The “actual” world, or the world-as-such, is ineffable. We, as humans, have as a part of our existence the need to create and sustain the “worlds” we live in, and given the pluralism that exists in our “worlds” and the effects of technology on our abilities to encounter and communicate with people that live “worlds apart”, it can be difficult to negotiate the crumbling terrain of being in a “world.”
What Goodman does in his essay Words, Works, and Worlds, is cast a soft light on this reality. We needn’t have a panic attack given the ineffability of the world-as-such; rather, we ought to recognize that what is considered the “world” by ourselves may not be the case for others. Given this understanding, we can explore our “world” and the “worlds” of others as we journey through life.

But what are we to take as a good world to live in? Is there epistemic continuity between worlds? Well, there must be, for one strong fundamental commonality of world-making and world-inhabitance is the human capacity and apparent need for language, wherein resides the possibility for epistemic continuity. Language is rule-governed. While it is possible to redefine the parameters of language, we most often seem to use language to communicate with one another, and given this aim of language, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do this. Given this, we flourish by playing by the rules of language, i.e., reason, and correspondingly, logic.

With language as our medium of epistemic continuity between worlds, we can discern the good life by understanding our own world and the worlds of others. Whether we are right about our mode of inhabiting the good life is unknowable absolutely, but is knowable contingently. This is where I see some of Elgin’s work coming in to play. Perfect Procedural Epistemology would say that we ought to maintain skepticism about our world and the worlds of others because the truth of our ideas about reality are absolutely uncertain, and therefore, to avoid error, we remain in ignorance.

If we inhabit the world through the Perfect Procedural Epistemological lens, we indeed do become downtrodden and skeptical about the whole endeavor of life; which is why we may have much to gain by considering life through the lens of Imperfect Procedural Epistemology. In inhabiting a pattern of thought and action governed by Imperfect Procedural Epistemology we can consider opposing views of reality with a bit of a grain of salt, and still maintain a rigorous pursuit of knowledge and truth. In doing so, we have the possibility of learning from one another about the common experience called Life, and experiencing a richer world of our own.

mondays article

Im not sure if I walked away with an understanding of what the author was going for in this article or if I took him to be saying something that was just more preferable to me. It seemed to me that the article was claiming that an individuals understanding of the world is built upon her beliefs about the world. Some beliefs are deeply entrenched and thus form a central feature of our "world-making" while others are less entrenched and easier to replace for beliefs that fit better. We can't know the truth in a sense of objective truth it is just out of our reach. Instead what we know is truths about the various worlds which we prescribe to. The world is made and discovered through our examination of "reality" through our coherence of beliefs. We only know things in so far as they cohere with our "world", as apposed to actually knowing some objective truth.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

I have to admit, that I have been struggling quite a bit with Elgin's writing. Especially compared to how much sense Lynch made most of the time. I found our class discussion on Perfect Procedural Epistemology to be particularly interesting, as it at first glance makes reasonable sense. However, I feel like it would be remiss to suggest that the only things that can be classified as truth are those which can be absolutely verified. In that matter, I agree with Elgin. I find it difficult to think that it is possible to find a truth that does not have to be based in concrete fact, however. I will look forward to doing the reading for later this week, to find what Elgin proposes is a more reasonable model.

Friday, February 13, 2009

justified knowledge

I've been reading chapter 4 and I'm understanding the discussion, but I'm not sure what perspective Elgin is taking. I'm thinking she is somehow rejecting the idea that we must individually justify everything we "know." I got that from the part where she says that if we were only to believe what we individually who justify then how could I possibly believe water is, in fact, H2O since I did not take part in deciding/"proving" that. I like this idea because it means we are allowed to trust others in doing some of the justification for us. However, I would like to know her thoughts on how we should decide whom we can use for justification purposes and how we should decide this. I'm assuming she'll present this idea in the rest of the chapter, but I'm not gonna lie, sometimes I read stuff and totally miss the point, so we should discuss this next week.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

KNOWledge...how can you have it without KNOWING something?

Okay, so in a sort of post-class reflection I would like to admit that I am still a little unsure about this new idea of what knowledge is. Of course, I never really bought want Lynch was asserting in our earlier discussions but I couldn't help to accept a little of what he claimed about truth and its relation to knowlege. How can we say that we have knowlege without being correct, or without ever knowing for sure what we think we know. Okay, so I understand that I am talking myself in circles a little bit, but there needs to be some foundational basis of something before we can say that we have knowlege, right? I think that otherwise people are just smart. As for the bird and TV example we used today in class, how can a child assert from the information he is given that a TV is alive just like a bird is alive, because they speak. Is this knowledge? or is the child just smart or an excellent critical thinker? What is the difference? Thought process isn't knowlege, thats just being smart. That was my major question about class today.

Structural Problems in Foundationalism

At the outset of Chapter 2, Elgin argues that foundationalism is not problematic because the standards for justifications are too stringent but is instead problematic due to structural problems. In Chapter 2, however, Elgin mostly describes how foundationalism requires a tedious chain of strict justification derived from other "peices" of justified knowledge (as though chain-links in a fence). Finally, at the end of Chapter 2 (59), Elgin again criticizes foundationalism for excluding forms of knowledge such as metaphor (and even mathematics!). If possible, can be spend some class time going over Elgin's arguments regarding the structural inadequacies of foundationalism and matching up her arguments with what she says she is going to do at the outset of chapter 2? I think I might have misinterpreted some of her points.

Foundationalism and Games

I understood (I think) most of what Elgin was saying about fundamentalism, but I had an issue with one of her points. She describes that we need to prevent infinite regress in our claims by not letting them extrapolate out too far, but I think in doing so, we're still back where we started with perfect procedural epistemology. It's true that at some point, which is also hard to determine, a truth cannot be used as evidence to justify claims that go on and on. However, determining where these end and which are justified seems so vague that I don't know where we would be able to start building. Making claims based on evidence isn't a terrible way to go about collecting truth, but that leads more toward imperfect epistemology. If we were able to determine the truth that humans have canine teeth, we could infer a few things. We could say that our teeth evolutionarily are like other animals that ate meat, so therefore, humans can also eat meat. For the most part, this is the case. But we can also use that evidence to say that humans have canine teeth, but since we also have molars, our canine teeth have evolved to simply tear at plant material. Some vegan extremists might like this idea, but evolution points to the first claim. However, unless examples are constructed to have an obvious answer, determining which claims are true and which aren't seems like an impossible task.

Although I liked the analogy of the game that Elgin uses throughout the beginning of the 3rd chapter, I was disheartened by one part of the analogy. Elgin describes one of the aspects of the game as playing to determine who is the better player of the game, not who is the better person. This is, of course, the reason we decide that "may the better person win" before we play a game, with the hope that the one with the most skill and abilities comes out on top. However, this isn't always the case, and sometimes we get a ball that takes a bad hop or keep getting lousy hands. If this is the case, we hope winners and losers will come out in the wash, but saying this seems to be a problem with the procedure if applied to truth. Elgin explained in chapter 2 that it is often the one who has the most convincing argument who wins, not the one who is defending the actual truth. In this case, the analogy seems to contradict her earlier statement (although it is possible that the analogy just works in most cases.)

The overlapping of "isms"

Elgin describes the concept of foundationalism epistemology as the belief that "knowledge is incompatible with error and independent of luck" and goes on to say that to have knowledge, one must have objective justification. In my opinion, this sounds very similar to Lynch's theory of verificationism, in which everything that is considered "truth" must be verified. I realize both theories have their flaws, the main one  being it is extremely difficult to completely justify everything you believe and therefore one can not acquire a great deal of knowledge (or truth - I feel as though the concepts overlap). As we discussed in our last class, many of us admitted we would rather be ignorant than have certainty. I think the reason for this is because we, in my humble opinion, recognize complete certainty is unattainable and we decide to settle. I know, I know - "truth is a worthy goal of inquiry." I'm still not 100% convinced of that. Religion could not exist if everyone required complete justification in order to believe something. 

I'm still continuing to ponder the debate with which we ended Tuesday's class. Are humans inherently good or inherently selfish? And can we be both or must we be one or the other? My opinion fluctuates back and forth, but my inner cynic keeps deciding many examples point to us being inherently selfish. Has anyone reached any sort of conclusion regarding this?

The Truth and Gambling

An interesting portion of the reading was the example of gambling while talking about epistemic entitlement. On p22 we see the line "It is then in our interest to act on the basis of true beliefs." It goes on further to say that we don't really know what is true a true belief and what is false. It seems to me it then tell us that in understanding the situation we then "weigh the real risks and rewards, and choose the best course." It goes on further to refute this idea because "To override luck, justification must ensure that even in the worst of epistemic circumstances there is no danger of error."

In light of the example of gambling I have a hard time believe this last quotation. In gambling an individual (one that is good at gambling) plays the odds in a uniform process. Whether it is counting cards, keeping track of which hands have been played, using calculations based on his hand compared to what other players hands are, doing research on a race house or basketball team; either way, it seems to me that this person could be justified to epistemic entitlement or in other words confidence.

One could say life decisions are gambles as well because he don't know if our beliefs by which we make decisions are true ones or false ones. We do the best with what we find to be reasonable justifiable and make decisions. Are we not to make any decisions in life with a feeling of confidence.

Kevin Kuhle

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Chapter 3

This chapter was WAY too technical to make any sort of conclusive, analytical response after only a single run through the reading, so the following should be taken with a handful (or two!) of salt.

For Wittgenstein and the others (but especially Wittgenstein), reality must necessarily be socially constucted. Truth is irrelevant, some unreachable ideal, and knowledge is only a (the?) prevailing opinion. What seems indubitable to one paradigm is lunacy and delusion to the paradigm that succeeds it. I cannot say much about Rorty, but I have read a little Wittgenstein and am currently reading Kuhn, and take the latter differently than Elgin, but not in any way that I can articulate at the moment. Hopefully as we get deeper in I will be able to formulate a more intelligent response with more cognitive consistency!

well that section will need some explaining in class

Foundationalism- the belief in basing our body of knowledge on a foundation which is a priori true. All our epistemic knowledge is based on other knowledge to know it is true, this other knowledge is our foundation which we just know is true. It is not based on each other,, thus not circular, it is just the base. The problem here is that we end up with not really having good reason for making these base claims of knowledge.
Pure Proceduralism- The rules will bring about the conclusion that is correct thus if we know the rules and follow them to their conclusion then we will know the truth. The problem is that the set of rules are socially established and gain authority from being accepted by the community rather than having some connection to reality.
For Wittgenstien he tries to explain pure proceduralism with his analogy of a game. In the end we are basing our inquiry on a set of rules chosen through agreement because we like them, nothing more. Kuhn I think gets stuck in a problem of arguing that the only problems that can be solved are the ones that we have set for yourselves within the guidelines of the method we have created. If I understand this at a level that is even close to accurately then I think what is being argued here is that we have found methods which we claim give us truth and try to show that by setting problems which can be solved through the method and then accepting this as proof. So here our justification is that we can apply what we have come to claim as knowledge within a field, thus counting it as true. But this does not really work because the knowledge is not really about reality just about the system we have created. Thus knowledge here is not knowledge it is just the agreed upon correct use of a theory within a system. I don't know if that is actually close to right at all.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Ch1 and 2

I'm not entirely sure that I understand Chapters 1 and 2 (in fact, all), but one of the things that struck me in Chapter 1 was an article we read by Gettier earlier in the semester. According to the Gettier problem, justified true beliefs can be based on faulty knowledge, even if theoretically this is not supposed to happen. Since perfect procedural epistemology takes as true knowledge based on other knowledge, is it not possible that justified true beliefs can be based on faulty knowledge and thus run into the Gettier problem? If so, then perfect procedural epistemology may well be problematic (which is, what I think, the author is arguing in Chapter 2 in a more general sense).

Since this book is a little bit dense, at this point I'm mostly concerned with picking out the key ideas. Thus far, I believe the author will be arguing that the "middle ground," so to say, imperfect procedural epistemology, is favorable to the other two that she describes (perfect and pure). This is because, according to the author, perfect procedural knowledge has too stringent of a standard with regard to what is and not is not considered true. In Chapter 1, for example, the author points out that analogy, metaphor, and comparable devices are not, under the category of perfect procedural epistemology, considered relevant or "true." Thus, Elgin is partially doing what Lynch did: taking a "middle ground." However, Elgin does so in a vastly different way.

Mostly Ch. 1

I agreed with a lot of what Betsy said. I, too, associated most with imperfect procedural epistemology. Perfect procedural also reminded me a lot of verificationism. It seems that perfect and imperfect are similar in that they are operating in the same system but that they look at this system differently. Perfect assumes that absolute certainty exists and that any knowledge that we gain without absolute certainty is not, in fact, knowledge. Imperfect works within a similar system; it too strives for the truth. The difference is that imperfect admits that the system itself is fallible as well as humans. 

What bothered me most about perfect procedural was that it stated that anything that passes the credibility test is credible forever. This seems extremely limiting. Yes, it is nice to say that you are certain something is true, but to say that a fact is completely irrefutable does not allow for much growth. Imperfect still seeks knowledge and would still prefer that knowledge to be as close to "correct" as possible, but it allows for so much more openness. It allows us to pursue knowledge from every possible angle, even as Elgin claims through "analogies, metaphors and emotion." This makes sense to me, because even thought it is more difficult to say that knowledge gained in this way is in fact knowledge, it seems closer to how people actually function. People view things through an emotional lens and we connect ideas to our other experiences. To make the search for knowledge follow strict guidelines limits possibilities for what knowledge we can gain.

On a different note, I did not make it far into chapter two, but I did find a section I could understand (for the most part) because it reminded me of something. The section on pages 26 and 27 where Elgin discusses whether or not we know something is "pink" just because it "looks pink" was very familiar to me. When I was little, my favorite color was pink and because he thought it would be fun, my older brother decided to try and convince me that pink did not exist, that I was just perceiving it to be pink. This is similar to what Elgin brings up, that many argue that something looking like pink cannot be evidence in proving that it is pink. Apparently my brother was pretty advanced for a seven year old, and this all still makes my head spin a little.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Types of Epistemology - Not Touching Chapter 2 Yet

The author beat me to trying to defend imperfect epistemology. After gaining a better understanding of the three different types of epistemology, there were a few parallels I drew. I had a hard time grasping why anyone would strictly go for perfect epistemology, I would say that it was closest to verificationism to me. Even though it’s true that perfect epistemology ensures that everything you believe is able to be proven, I don’t know how you would go about gaining any new knowledge. Going on assumptions and contested data might not be the most ideal method of searching for truth, but testing new and wild hypothesis based off of bizarre and unexpected findings is one of the ways people stay interested in looking for new truths.

If the choice is between never being wrong and being wrong while looking for something more, it almost makes perfect epistemology look cowardly. Pure epistemology was almost moving into the realm of pluralism, but Elgin instead explains that pure epistemology is true within the context of the environmental structure, so it lends itself instead to be relativism. Lynch would say that relativism is a simple-minded waste of time, but being a product of a procedure seems to fit the explanation closely. Only being able to dispute practices that fit within the mechanisms, although it is explained as a pure epistemology, it seems to align more with perfect epistemology. It seems this way since it’s only willing to take on certain truths, and since perfect epistemology only deals with what can be absolutely true, the two seem related in theory. Perhaps it’s the limited scope of these two theories that caused Elgin to want to elaborate on imperfect epistemology for her book.
There are different types of epistemology. The first is perfect epistemology which holds as knowledge only that which can be proven or are definitional truths. This means that most things can not be known. The next is imperfect procedural epistemology this system is less concerned with the issue of error and more the issue of ignorance. This form of epistemology works to find what can be claimed as knowledge with the belief that there is a chance of error and works to reform systems that are known to produce error. Thus when a knowledge claim is made it is made with the realization that no matter how solid it seems it could still be wrong and when it is then the belief will be remade to be less wrong. Our belief about knowledge is constantly being revised as we improve our systems of knowing and gain knew information which changes previously agreed upon beliefs. Pure procedural epistemology is the system that has results which are generated from their statements. The example used in the reading is logic. A conclusion in logic is done with pure procedural epistemology because its conclusions are produced through the rules of logic thus when the rules of logic are followed then the conclusion must be correct.

The first of these three does not sound appealing to me at all but the other two I can see a use in. I guess the imperfect epistemology is what I am more inclined to lean towards because of the class moral truth. It did a great job of convincing me that we hold beliefs when they cohere and we have justification for them but must also accept the fact that any one of our beliefs or all of them could be wrong. This seemed best because then I am not stuck with any beliefs that I hold as a priori facts(they make me uneasy). In this chapter there was something about coherence not being enough, that we must be able to balance everything. I am not sure I completely understand this idea and would love to talk about it more in class. I feel like the argument is just that we need to know how to balance our justification for beliefs in order to have the best reason for believing it and thus being closer to correct. But this is probably a much simpler understanding than he was going for.

Elgin 1/2

I find appealing qualities is all three of the epistemological stances (perfect, imperfect, and pure procedural) and am having a difficult time ascribing exclusively to any one of them.

Perfect procedural epistemology is, from my personal ideological perspective, the most appealing. It has the most stringent requirements for truth, yet is so naive to think itself infallible. I am drawn to its mathematical/logical approach, but since any error is unthinkable(according to Elgin) it ends up dogmatizing, and any error that does result from this process becomes entrenched.

The appealing aspects of imperfect procedural epistemology are its ability to answer difficult questions, and more importantly, the admitted fallibility of the process. Any sort of knowledge obtained through this process is only tentatively believed, and the believer is willing to abandon any belief once a better one presents itself. If only there were some middle way between perfect and imperfect epistemologies!

I do not find pure procedural epistemology particularly appealing, but I do find it necessary. We often come across technological devices we do not fully understand and places we are not familiar with, so we must rely on a manual or set of directions to operate independently. We have faith in the procedure itself, and when it does not produce the expected results, the actor generally assumes that he/she somehow screwed up the procedure.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Computers Cannot be Wrong

(those not in lab, ignore the following)

From the reading it struck me odd that they didn't make the claim that I am about to make.

Some say that if I have a calculator and ask it 2+2 it will say 4 and we will say it's right, but if it states 3 then some say it is wrong. I feel like this point justifies the claims made by the two authors. To compare we can ask ourselves if we hop on the 3'clock train to Minnesota, are we expecting it to go in Texas? No, because the tracks are made so that when we hop on the train the system will do what we planned it to do. In the same way, if we look into a mirror, can we say the mirror is wrong?

So another person will say, well then how can a human be wrong. They know the system of addition and substraction? To answer this I can also say that in the same way a computer can't be wrong, a Nueron can't be wrong. If you remember in psychology the biological stimulas known as action potential has close resemblencies to a computer. A Neuron will either fire or not fire based on if it is triggered. so where is the casual properties? The choice of what is triggered or not is built upon our experiences. It is the reason why we say 2+2 = 4 (mathametical) and not two plus two equals twotwo (linguistic?). For example, their was an instance in which a harvard graduate had a problem in her brain in which one hemisphere became deffective. Her neurons were now transmitting in differant ways. She stated that she felt "free" and saw things in differant ways, and started to preach about nirvana afterwords. She was seeing the same things she was before but her perception changed becouse her brain was relaying information in a differant way.
So if we were to say a human is wrong, it would mean that some nueral connections were triggered that led to the wrong end based on what neural network was stronger at the time. For example I may think that the stimulas package is not actually beneficial, but more of a statment to infuse confidence. That is becouse my experiences in politics, history, and economics outweigh my acceptance of basic rhetoric. However the key point remains; I may be wrong.
If a computer had part of it's "brain" altered, basically we would see an error becouse unless someone difines where it's tracks are headed it won't be able to reach a destination. If computers could answer everything, it could answer what it didn't know, and their would be no need for software support. Viruses try to destroy the "answers" in a program and when you see an error, lots of times you will see: "_____ _____ exception fault", meaning their is an exception to the rules that are in place and I have no idea what to do so I'm showing you this screen so you can tell someone to tell me what to do.
A computer cannot be wrong by the mere fact that a nueron can't be wrong. It may lead to a conclusion that we feel isn't true, but if the program remains the same it will never change it's answer.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Lynch, pt.2

Blake Daniel Brown
Paths to Knowledge
7 February 2009

Truth and Happiness

Lynch takes time in part III of True To Life to discuss a very personal reason we ought to care about truth: “…caring about truth is deeply connected to happiness.” How is this so? Lynch says that truth is connected to happiness because one can only live a happy, flourishing life if one lives with both integrity and authenticity, both of which are contingent upon truth. Let’s look more closely at these connections.
If truth is connected to happiness via a life lived with integrity and authenticity, then what is an authentic life? What is a life lived with integrity? Before analyzing the connections Lynch makes, I would like to consider these terms myself.
When I think of an authentic life, I immediately think of Martin Heidegger, given the amount of time I’ve spent studying his work. For Heidegger (very, very roughly speaking), an authentic life is one where Dasein (German for “there-being”) lives to its ownmost potential. The possibility of Dasein living to its ownmost potential consists of both recognizing the parameters within which Dasein has its life (radical finitude), and living concernfully with others in light of these parameters.
Now, let’s look at how Lynch makes the case, and see if there are points of connectivity. To begin, Lynch says that for an authentic life to be possible, we must follow the Oracle of Delphi’s charge to Socrates, to “know thyself.” Why is this the case? Knowing thyself means that we know the truth about ourselves, and when we know what the truth about ourselves is, we can see where we fall short and where we thrive. Without the truth component, we couldn’t distinguish right from wrong, or measure successes and failures. Without being able to distinguish right from wrong or being able to measure successes and failures, how could we possibly live authentically?
Lynch’s authenticity and Heidegger’s authenticity indeed seem to have points of connection. First, Lynch requires knowledge of the self, and Heidegger indeed does also, although their conceptions differ. Heidegger’s knowledge of the self (again, roughly speaking) consists in recognition of our imminent end (death), and living futurally in light of our past. Lynch’s knowledge of the self consists in knowing what is true about the self. At first glance, Lynch’s conception seems more nuanced than Heidegger’s, though for any of us who have studied Heidegger, we know that Heidegger is quite nuanced, and more often than not, what seems quite comprehensible at first often requires further looking.
For Lynch, knowledge of the self consists in knowing what is true about the self. So I can say that it is true that I am a male, that I have certain propensities and aversions, and that I go to Drake University. Apophatically, I can also say that it is not the case that I am a female, nor is it the case that I go to Iowa State University. More deeply, I know that I am agnostic, that I value in particular ways that are truth-functionally inconsistent with the paradigms of some of those I love deeply, yet truth-functionally consistent with my own conception of my paradigm (I will not try to name or make explicit my conception of my paradigm at this time).
For me to live authentically in a Lynchean sense would be to come to better understand my paradigm, and within those parameters discern where I conduct myself in truth-consistent manners and where I fail to do so. Having this understanding will provide me with justifiable criteria to know when I’m right or wrong in most cases, and therefore I can discern if I am living authentically or not.
Let’s now look at Heidegger’s authenticity, given its sway in my thinking at this point in my life. For one to live authentically in a Heideggerian sense is to live in the world with concern for overcoming oneself. We concern ourselves with various problems that need understanding or overcoming, and it is in these moments of understanding that the world opens up to us, or truth is unconcealed.
This is much different language than Lynch’s to talk about truth and authenticity, but I see connections. For a Heideggerian to experience truth in terms of Lynch, she would recognize a problem in her world of possibilities (have concern; and for such a problem to be recognized there must be an existing truth norm), and succeed in aligning herself with a truth-consistent mode of thought/conduct, and in the successful alignment she would be truth-consistent in both paradigms of thought.
Okay, I’m going to desist at this point, as this post is getting too long, and I’m getting into some pretty technical language which is better-suited for a paper. To close, my point is that I saw a lot of contiguity between my understanding of authenticity and Lynch’s understanding of authenticity, though I think that at more length and with more precision we would begin to diverge.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

sad to see truth go?

I finally understand what we're talking about and we have to move on :(

But I really appreciated Lynch's final chapters despite the fact that they were not full of new "ism's" and were not necessarily debunking other philosophies, much like the previous chapters. I liked these because they seemed very practical. Like we discussed in class today, Lynch wrote this book for the non-philosopher, and I think he is able to defend his truisms best with the final chapters on happiness, lying and democracy. Because he is able to relate his truisms to things we experience on a daily basis.

The most interesting thing about this book for me is that in beginning it, I was almost afraid because I felt I could no longer believe in what I thought was true, when in fact, the end of the book made me feel much more confident in my feelings of truth.
I'm not sure that I am convinced that being true to ones self is the same as knowing the truth or having knowledge that is justified or verified. Isn't it possible that even if I am being true to myself and you are being true to yourself that our truths may not be the same or don't match up with reality and then we are back to the problem of whos truth is true.

Lies and Damned Lies

Lynch had me with everything he was saying throughout chapter 9 about the value of honestly and truth and the multiple layers of destruction that can come from lies... until he shouted out this loophole. When explaining something such as "tall tales," he explains that those are lies, but they're okay due to the fact that the person knows they're being lied to. Although embellishing the truth is something I know many people do routinely, I'm not with him in saying that they're harmless in such a manner. I think that someone who routinely tells you fibs will eventually start to degrade their own integrity. If lying is speaking something that you know is wrong, I'm leaning more toward the Kantian view that even these kinds of acts are degrading to one's own integrity. It's true that some people would weigh this description at different weights, as I'm sure we all have some relative who makes up stories and we think it's adorable. But at the same time, can we safely say that we'd trust these people to tell us the truth in a serious situation? I have trouble defining when people are embellishing the truth as a means to be cute, and when they're embellishing the truth because they're looking for more power, ie. messing with your emotions by making the story more impactful.
I don't agree with Kant that there is never a good time to lie, indeed if it's the matter of saving someone's life the answer is clear to me, and in turn I feel that this kind of lie can add to someone's integrity. Here's what I mean: Say I'm hiding out at my friend Jessica's house, and I hear wind that someone is coming for me. If she hides me and lies to the kidnappers about my being there, she has technically told a lie to them. However, it adds to her own integrity because the lie she told wasn't to hoard power over the kidnappers, it was to ensure my own unalienable rights, such as the one to life. In addition, her own integrity can get a little boost due to the fact that she is trustworthy with not only the truth about me, but when it's more important to sacrifice her own morals about lying for a friend's rights.
Lynch is sure to emphasize the power of intention early on, and it's something with which I truly agree. The same result can come as a consequence of differing intentions, but since it won't always be the case, having moral truths to guide your actions is the best policy. In the end, if everyone does what they feel is right by maintaining their moral integrity in their actions, the good will come out in the wash.

Are We Orwellian?

In Chapter 9 Lynch describes how truth is so vital as compared to lying. It is disrespectful to humans to not give them truthful information. In the same way in Chapter 8 Lynch states how happiness can be derived from truth. Finally in Chapter ten he states that for us to realize a true liberal democracy we must stand up for what is not always in the majority.

It seems that for us to avoid a Orwellian situation like he had stated in chapter 10, we must have more than just the authority as a source on what is happening. This is usually the invisible hand which is considered the media. In the Vietnam war, reporters were trying to get the truth and finding out as much information as they possible can. They were skeptical, they were full of inquiry and they didn't falter in going against popular opinion. However in the Iraq war we see a different story. Reporters were embedded into the army units which made them feel like they were a part of the team, it enhanced the US vs. Them mentality. Furthermore the U.S. didn't allow press that they had pre-filtered to being hostile toward the inititive. Their was many problems that resulted, one of which was deception.

Lynch is right that we must individually strive to find out what is true, but it becomes very hard to do when avenues of information are being tainted to fit one viewpoint. The public oppinion test also fails when the path of destruction laid down is as extensive as it were. From the rendition and illegal torture of terror suspects, to the pre-emptive take over, when not equipped with the instrument in which to find truth, there is no grounds in which liberalism can flourish and have an goverment represent them accuratly.

Last Chapters...

I agree that I have become a little tired of Lynch's at times "flakey" reasoning, but I just try to attribute this to the fact that all that he is discussing honestly does not have a definite answer. In my mine, all of the discussion of truth and happiness and everything else is not necessarily to find one definite answer but is more of a general exploration of these concepts (which does not always make it any less frustrating). I did find myself coming to a better understanding of truth in chapter 8 when Lynch applied it to happiness. For some reason it clicked with me when he discussed truth in terms of how it is good for an individual's life and happiness and not how it is good in a sort of broad sense. 

Once again, I interpret Lynch's urging us to work towards truth as just urging us to seek it, even if we never see definite, concrete results. I have always thought that keeping an open mind and listening to the viewpoints of others make a person wiser than if they just think they have all the answers, even if the majority of them are the "right" answers. So I think caring about truth (to me) is not as much about always needing to say the correct thing or making sure that everything one believes is backed by the most solid of facts but about always being open and knowing that there is always room for change or growth in one's belief's. This does not mean that no one can ever have confidence in his or her beliefs, just that thinking that our beliefs are completely set in stone is unproductive and a little naive. This may go against what Lynch has said earlier about individuals having to believe their beliefs are true in order for them to be beliefs in the first place, but this is where my mind starts chasing its tail. After finishing the book, I think the overall discussion of truth is more important than coming to any definite conclusion about it.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Lynch 8/9/10

As I near the end of the book, the less I am convinced by Lynch. It is not that I think he is wrong, I just find his arguments somewhat unconvincing and flaky. There are points he has a tendency to "cop-out" on: "Is the truth about yourself discovered or created? This again is a much larger question than I can answer here..." (145).

One point that I must disagree with Lynch on, however, is his point that an attitude directed towards the pursuit of truth is requisite for a liberal democracy. I argue that such an attitude would in fact impede democracy; voters vote not for those that speak the truth, but for those who have convinced them most passionately. Even if a candidate holds good intentions, his/her speaking the truth will likely offend people and their carefully constructed notion of reality, and thus must withhold some truths. If politicians were somehow incapable of lying, their careers would not only be ruined, but the government would either dissolve or become a dictatorship, because the constituents would find no candidate worth voting for!

Rant over!

A helpful passage

As I was reading Lynch's discussion about how we know that it's true that we have rights, I went back to find a place where Lynch defines his conception of truth and found a place where he says some stuff that might be useful -- page 98 with paragraph starting "Here's the pay-off" to the end of the chapter on pg. 100.

Finally! A chapter I understand!

I posed the question in my very first blog about whether the opposite of the truth was a lie, and finally there is a concrete answer to at least one of my questions.  His assertions about the differences between truthfulness and the value of truth helped me to grasp the idea that this truth he has been referring to does not mean the opposite of a lie (If that makes sense). 

First, I want to comment on his definition of lying: "as saying one thing while believing another."  He adds that the liar must have an intention to deceive.  What if you are posed with this problem: lie and harm yourself or someone else, or be sincere and tell the truth but hurt someone or something else?  Is the truth better (even though it is going to harm someone) or is the lie better (even though it is also going to harm someone)?  How do we weigh the outcome of a decision like this?  And which decision would be "good" according to Lynch's ideals?  Is this where our subjective moral truths come into play?

I also want to say that I believe this chapter should have come much earlier in the book.  I am understanding his four truisms, and believing in them much more, now that I see the contrast between a world of lies and a world of truth.  

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Moral Truth

I found it interesting when we started to discuss the idea of moral truth at the end of class, today. It seems that when we throw the idea of morals into the spotlight, all of our conceptions of truth that we have established so far simply melt away. I came away from class with a few of the more interesting points written down.

"What's moral depends on context." Or, to rephrase the statement and retain a similar meaning, moral truth depends on context. How is it that we consider moral truth to be so radically different from regular truth that we suggest it is merely relative. So far, it seems like everyone has been on-board with the idea of an objective truth, unaltered by what we happen to believe; doesn't it make sense that moral truth ought to behave similarly? Perhaps I misunderstood the discussion.
Leslie,
I think we decided that Lynch's definition of truth is that it "matches up with reality" and then we looked at the different "ism's" he presented and related them back to his reality belief. I also have written down that, "truth is independent of believer/believing," which we decided was pretty important too. Also for your "yellow" question, I'm thinking that is similar to the example of the marker being true in class today, the reason we can't define it is because "yellow" just isn't a concept like truth or knowledge. Granted, we could define it, according to dictionary.com.

Yellow: a color like that of egg yolk, ripe lemons, etc.; the primary color between green and orange in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 570 and 590 nm.

As for the rest of our discussion today, I think I am a fan of verificationism, at least for right now, because I am someone, like most, who enjoys being correct, but not just for the sake of being right, but for actually being right. If that makes any sense.

Also, regarding moral truth, I do not think that there is a definite, objective moral truth, like the obejctive truth because morality is subjective in my view. I wouldn't be opposed to hearing others' views on this because I feel that an objective moral truth is possible, but right now I can't figure out how to prove that.

This probably makes no sense

In chapter 6, Lynch describes how certain things (like the color yellow) can't be defined any further. My question is this: Is it possible that the word "truth" is in the same category as yellow. By that I mean, are we trying to hard to define something that really can't be defined any further?

Also, have we as a class come up with the definition of truth that Lynch has been using? Did I miss that?

Verificationism

Like someone said today in class, I am also believing (or being influenced by Lynch's explanation) in the ideas of verificationism to an extent. Even when I was really young, everything has needed a concrete explanation. I was the little girl who asked tons of questions and then responded to every answer with "why?" In order for me to wrap my head around a concept or an idea or even a belief I need concrete evidence to back it up. Lynch claims that this has something to do with humans always wanting to be right (which could be true) but I think that it has more to do with the amount of wrong or crappy information we are exposed to every day. It seems that it is ingrained in our minds to always question where our information comes from until we have solid proof that it is the truth.

On the flip side of that, there are still beliefs that I hold that can't be proven by any scientific means. I am not religious, but I am spiritual and I belief, somewhat, in a higher power. D i have scientific proof of this? No. But do i have good reasons for believing this? Yes. This is why I could never be a pragmatist. Believing in spirituality is not necessarily corresponding to any type of reality, but it does make me feel good sometimes. I'm getting more and more interested to hear about what Lynch's ultimate opinion is on truth and to see where exactly he is going as he debunks (or critiques) all of these theories on truth.

Moral truth?

This may not make any sense but at this point in the book I found it useful to go back to the four truisms to understand Lynch’s justification against other arguments about truth and his belief in his own definition. Truth is objective, in his argument Lynch refers to the distant past as something which is objectively true but not verifiable by scientific standards. “It rained here 15000 years ago” could very well be objectively true but not verifiable or pragmatically useful. In addition he may refer to things beyond scientific knowledge such as the number of stars currently in the universe. There is no verifiable way to represent this, but objectively there are either an odd or even number of stars and the number is defined by what is objectively true about the number of stars in the universe. True is good, how can you scientifically prove that something is good or bad, too many factors must be tested and eventually it comes down to a matter of saying that it is good because it is true and this is just backwards thought. Truth cannot be proven good by saying that it is true, that is like saying “truth is good because it is good to believe what is true”. Additionally, in order for something to be meaningful, it must be good. Therefore how can pragmatists ever say that anything that is true is not worth believing if true and good are so interchangeable? Truth is a worthy goal of inquiry. According to pragmatists, we inquire what is useful to us, and we inquire truths based on our one system of values and beliefs. We inquire as a means of verification. If truth and verification goes hand in hand then it is worthy o inquire and seek the truth regardless of certainty. In saying this, does that mean that it is important to justify what we see as morally true? I am not sure. Truth as a value. It is impossible to prove a value, which is by definition relative to what we believe to be morally valuable. Therefore how can truth and verification be interchangeable? That is like saying it is possible to prove anything that we find morally justifiable. Lynch’s example of the death penalty gives us a great example of this.

Scientific Truth

Like Betsy, I'm also a science major but I had a different response to Lynch's argument against the verificationism view of truth. As Lynch discussed science and how science enables us to get "at the truth about how things are" I came to the realization as to why I enjoy my science classes so much. I like that there is a right and wrong answer to problems. (I say this disregarding Lynch's position which is obviously against my own opinion.) Not to say that I don't enjoy other classes in which I get to think and form opinions, just that I feel I am able to get closest to the "truth" in my science classes. 

On a completely different note, I'm hoping that we can discuss the concept of "casual realism" in class. I read the section multiple times and still am failing to grasp what Lynch is trying to say. I understand Lynch's arguments against it and agree that truth does not necessarily have to be connected to physical things with which one has a relationship, but it seemed that every time I got a hint of what he was trying to say I would then reread the passage to clarify and find myself mistaken and confused. "It seems that my belief that there is an apple on the table is true because there is an apple on the table." I have to agree with this statement but Lynch's next statement, which I might add he claims simplifies the "casual theory of representation,"says that "my particular thoughts represent what causes them." I'm just having a difficult time wrapping my head around this. 

Monday, February 2, 2009

Tackling the Unanalyzable

Although my major would possibly indicate otherwise, I was saddened to see to what lengths members of the scientific community have gone to try and prove that only things shown by experimentation could count as truth. It is a common theme of most aspects of science that the truth is sought through experimentation and research, but to use it as a weapon against other media of plural truth-finding seems to go against the point of science in the first place. If these reductive naturalists claim to defend truth, they only seem to want to defend their brand of truth. They seem to be perfectly fine with finding a cure for cancer so humans won’t suffer its physical malice and experience physical pain, but since grief is harder to test and calculate that doesn’t factor into the pursuit. Lynch mentioned earlier the vast difference between the approaches toward the same goal and what they entail, and I agree with his pluralistic view that it’s possible to place value on truths in which we cannot experiment.
Perhaps the fact that we know of “good” and “bad” things and place value upon them is because we actually do have an intrinsic cognitive reason for doing so. Lynch criticized Moore for saying that good is unanalyzable, but the fact that we are aware of it means that it had to have come from somewhere in our minds. Perhaps it is possible to approach this scientifically. Since we today are aware of “good” things, and value truth as one of those good things, maybe it means that we have encoded, through millions of years of evolution, to have a correlation to “goodness” with other adjectives such as “yellow” or “warm.” It might be the case that as human beings, we cognitively strive for what is good and truth falls into the category of what is good. Although we’re not always motivated to strive for this at all times of our waking day, we have a frontal lobe that allows us to make deep, rational decisions about “good” and “bad” things. Clearly, someone somewhere had to be the first human who had thoughts about what was really the truth and what was really good, so this search has become evolutionarily important to our survival. Even though we don’t always do what we think we should do, we should still pursue the truth, and to do so, we need to be able to recognize it. To say things like love and kindness don’t exist due to their lacking testability is selling our brains very short.

Ch. 6/7

I thought it was interesting that Lynch spent a bit of time in Chapter 6 discussing verificationism.  I found myself thinking that this theory was easier to understand and believe than some of the ideas that Lynch has proposed. Lynch himself says that many people do accept a verificationist attitude.  I think that the reason some people feel comfortable with this theory is because of the view that anything that is true can be scientifically verified.  I think that this allows for a degree of certainty that makes people feel comfortable.  I think a lot of Lynch's ideas may be hard to accept because they come along with a degree of uncertainty and the possibility of fallibility that a lot of people don't want to accept. 
Chapter 6!!! I am allowed to believe an apple is on my desk, if there is, in fact, an apple on my desk!

not related to the reading but still interesting

Given that we are talking about truth and also how we know I thought this science article about a new theory of our universe would be an interesting thing to think about so here is a link.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?page=1

Chaps 6/7

I was surprised with Lynch's extensive treatment and appraisal of logical positivism. It was a philosophy that had attracted me in the past because of how attractive it looks at first glance, but it did not take long for me to see its flaws. Most contemporary critics dismiss it outright, listing only its flaws without delving into its history or elaborating on some of its finer points. I was glad Lynch spent such considerable time with it!

The section about Nietzsche really intrigued me. To me it raises a question Lynch has yet to answer: is it more important to know the truth, or is it more important to be able to prove (enforce?) the "truth"? An example: you are hiring someone to build you a house, and must make a decision between two contractors. One has lots of experience building houses (good ones!), but has no knowledge of physics or structural engineering and could not tell you why the foundation must be built a certain way or why the trusses must be angled so; the other holds a doctorate in engineering and can explain what materials should be used to structural integrity and do so with complex formulae, but has not actually built a house before. Which one would you hire?