From: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: WHAT IS LOVE?
Organization: Boise State University Math Dept.
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 16:15:16 GMT

In article <1992Sep7.193002.16712@mips2.ma30.bull.com> fjc@mips2.ma30.bull.com (Frank Casper) writes:
>Randall Holmes writes:
>>Of course, what we really need to worry about is the _metaphysical_
>>status of _reality_.  There is too much epistemology going around.
>>(Thus the proliferation of "subjectivity" and "objectivity").
>
>>We should think about what we know (reliably or not so reliably)
>>before we worry too much about how we know it (epistemology should be
>>a critical activity, not the basic activity).  Otherwise we will never
>>get to the point where we know anything.  Exorcising the terms
>>"subjective" and "objective" is a good place to start.
>
>>It would be nice to return to the common-sense view that there is
>>simply "the world".

I should point out that "the world" will not necessarily end up
looking like the common-sense world when we are done analyzing it!


>
>Perhaps you could be a bit more explanatory of what you mean by
>"too much epistemology"? How has that led to the "proliferation
>of subjectivity and objectivity"?  How is it that you propose to
>"exorcize" these terms? After all, wasn't it Descartes who began 
>with the question that you have in your second paragraph? Did'nt
>he want to know what can be known reliably?

Precisely.  I think that the search for "reliable" knowledge in the
sense in which Descartes was seeking it is not useful.  The grammar of
"I think, therefore I am" is deceptive; all that we can tell by bare
introspection is that something is going on; both the "object" and the
"subject" of experience would be quite difficult to derive logically
from experience.  We should start where we _actually_ start; with
the "common sense" understanding of the world which we pick up as
children.  This knowledge is _not_ "reliable" in any absolute sense;
it needs to be revised as we go on.  Science is built on common sense
(with revisions), not on the _cogito_.

I think that we know something when we have a correct model of part of
the world in our heads; the correctness of our knowledge depends on
the correlation between our model and the world, which is not usually
accessible to introspection, or to _any_ kind of examination of the
purported "knowledge" itself, on our end of the correlation.
Sometimes what is being modelled is also directly accessible to us, so
we can use introspection, but this is not always the case.  Knowledge
is generally _not_ "reliable" in any absolute sense.  My answer to
"What can be known _absolutely reliably_?" is "Almost nothing; but
this is not a sensible question".

I believe I am following Quine here, more or less.

  Did'nt Hume
>conclude, at least for metaphysics, that there's not much we can 
>"know" except the patterns passing before our  eyes? 

In the peculiar sense of absolutely "reliable" knowledge, this is the
case.  But this is not what knowledge is.

 Did'nt Kant
>think the question so important as to devote his whole energy to
>answering it?   Again, there surely is such a view as the 
>common-sense view that there is simply "the world", but what 
>does that explain? On the whole few if any would deny that there
>is  "a world",  but after that there is serious disagreement of
>just what the character of that world is. It is not "that" it exists
>but the "how" and the "what" of it that are the important 
>questions. 
>
>I wrote :
>>But I take Whitehead to be the guide here,  that philosophy is explanatory of 
>>abstraction, and not of concreteness. In other words, it is the business of 
>>philosophy to explain how the more abstract things emerge from the more 
>>concrete things.
>
>Randall Holmes responds"
>>But what if they don't?  What if "abstract" is a deceptive term (it
>>presupposes the notion that what I prefer to call "formal" objects are
>>obtained by a process of "abstraction" from concrete objects)?  What
>>if the "abstract" objects come first?  What if all objects, "abstract"
>>and concrete, are coeval?  What if the influences run both ways?  All
>>of these are philosophical questions which need to be answered before
>>you can say that this is the business of philosophy.
>
>You're right about that, these issues do have to be thought through before
>making pronouncements on the task of philosophy.  I think Whitehead
>has thought these matters through, that is why he can make such 
>statements.

But then the statement only applies to philosophical analysis which
follows the derivation of these conclusions.

 Moreoever, you might be interested to know that you
>echo, in a way, some of the things he has to say about subjects and
>objects and consequently, epistemology. For example:
>
>When Descartes, Locke, and Hume undertake the analysis of
>experience, they utilize those elements in their own experience which
>lie clear and distinct, fit for the exactitude of intellectual discourse. It is
>tacitly assumed, except for Plato, that the more fundamental factors will
>ever lend themselves for discrimination with peculiar clarity. This assumption
>is here directly challenged.
>
>No topic has suffered more from the tendency of philosophers than their
>account of the object-subject structure of experience. In the first place,
>this structure has been identified with the bare relation of knower to
>known.  The subject is the knower and the object is the known....It then
>ollows that the more clearly any instance of this relation stands out for 
>discrimination, the more safely we can utilize it for the status of 
>experience in the universe of things. Hense Descartes' appeal to 
>clarity and distinctness.
>
>This deduction presupposes that the subject-object relation is the 
>fundamental structural pattern of experience. I agree with this
>presupposition, but not in the sense in which the subject-object is
>identified with the knower and the known. I contend that the notion
>of mere knowledge is a high abstraction, and that conscious discrimination
>itself is a variable factor only present in the more elaborate examples
>of occasions of experience. The basis of experience is emotional. Stated
>more generally, the basic fact is the rise of an affective tone originating
>from things whose relevance is given....

I don't think that "direct experience" is knowledge at all; I think it
is simply existence.

>
>A.N Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas, Chapter 11, Objects and Subjects.
>
>
>fjc


-- 
The opinions expressed		|     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"	|     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person		|     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.			|     holmes@opal.idbsu.edu
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