From: danoc@earlybird.Eng.Sun.COM (Dan O'Connell [CONTRACTOR])
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Objectivism/Existence
Date: 27 Aug 1992 18:01:27 GMT
Organization: Lurkers Anonymous
NNTP-Posting-Host: earlybird

(Daniel Kranowski) writes:
 
 (1) Humanity cannot know what it is; "to know" and "to be" do not cover
     the same ground.

Some possible qualifications -

But cannot an individual "know" who s/he is just as much
as they can "know" anything? Also, doesn't saying that 
humanity can't know what it is imply an objective knowledge
of what humanity is that humanity itself can't know?
     
     I define:
         Consciousness = awareness of thought and feeling; perceptions of
                     sense-data (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste), and
                     conceptions in reaction to sense-data (cogitation
                     and emotion).

Would you agree that one can "know" something "un" or "sub"
consciously which still informs the consciousness? (Probably
just a side issue)

                                 Therefore, our understanding is governed
 by the laws of epistemology: we must perceive sensual stimuli, such as
 print on a computer screen, and form an interpretation of it based on
 what we already know and think.  An *interpretation of sense* is what
 knowledge is.  The objects that stimulate us give us impressions, and
 we can "know" them, but we cannot reach their *being*.  "To know" and
 "to be" are in different realms, although we flatter ourselves to think
 they overlap.
 
Cannot there be a priori knowledge? "Natural" knowledge inherent
in a being's genetic makeup that is not based on experience?

>the truth, but I do not.  (1) allows that the truth may *be*, and that
>all our delusions and interpretations may indeed be correct, but we can
>never *know* for certain.

                                                      I've said repeatedly 
 on this thread, the *thought* of a thing is not identical to the *thing 
 itself*.  An easy proof of this I mentioned earlier: we can conceive of 
 time travel and sentient flamingo beings, but that does not guarantee 
 their existence.  Therefore I also disagree with his lumped definition 
 of the science of metaphysics.

Another example would be the paintings of Matisse, where in 
one instances he makes the point that a representation of
a thing is not the thing itself; i.e, a picture of a 
pipe with the words "This is not a pipe."
 
 Ayn Rand writes...
         Since axiomatic concepts refer to facts of reality and are
         not a matter of "faith" or of a man's arbitrary choice, there
         is a way to ascertain whether a given concept is axiomatic or
         not: one acertains it by observing the fact that an axiomatic
         concept cannot be escaped, that it is implicit in all knowledge,
         that it has to be accepted and used even in the process of any
         attempt to deny it.

It seems her statement attempts to follow the rules it
is setting up, but still fails. I thought axioms by 
definition were a matter of "faith".
 
                           I like the way Rand says facts of reality 
 "are not a matter of 'faith'," so therefore, we are to understand, if 
 you don't believe the facts of reality the way she interprets them, you 
 must be stark raving mad.

Precisely.

Dano
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta