Kant's Symbolic Knowledge vs Materialist "Rigid Adherence" to Quantification w/ Kant, Nietzsche, Gasset, Heschel, Heidegger: "knowledge is always in the form of categories (symbols) & "complex" encoded meanings outside strict quantification: R May, E Halas McGilchrist, & Mannheim = Researcher Bias
Creators: name: Peck Jr, Charles E
Publisher: name: unknown
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: Logik (Kant, Immanuel)
subject: University of the Philippines. College of Social Science and Philosophy
subject: Friedrich Nietzsche Society
subject: University of Science and Philosophy
subject: Irish Americans in popular culture
subject: Académie internationale de philosophie des sciences
subject: Blaan (Philippine people)
subject: Philosophy of mind
subject: Science--Philosophy
subject: Symbolic logic (Carroll, Lewis)
subject: Social
subject: Social sciences--Social aspects
subject: Social institutions and social change
subject: Stereotypes (Social psychology)--Social aspects
subject: Political anthropology
subject: Political culture
subject: Symbolic interactionism
subject: Interpretive interactionism

description: There is an Inherent Conflict of Symbolic Knowledge with Materialist Methodology 
       Rollo May, an American existential psychologist and author, observed "There has been a radical change during the past three decades… Neither term, "symbol" or "myth," even appears in the index of the standard psychology textbooks." He goes on to say that this oversight was due to the "proclivity" – the materialist fixation - with data "which could ultimately be described in physiological or stimulus-response terms." – Plus there is a consensus that symbols are "complex" and encoded which places them outside strict rational analysis and materialist quantification methodology. 
      Similarly. Elzbieta Halas observes: "After all, symbolization processes are an integral part of social phenomena and are natural to people's social life. Unfortunately, they are not generally recognized as of primary significance for the examination of social life. Too often symbolism is thought of as an epiphenomenon, a phenomenon that is derivative of what are considered to be more important factors, such as business, resources, power, organization, etc. which are allegedly 'objective' facts.  	 
   This is an important point - so I should add that the Galileo Commission came to similar conclusions: "1. The underlying assumptions – or world model – that predominate in the majority [of the modern scientific community] are narrowly naturalistic in metaphysics, materialistic in ontology, and reductionist-empirical in methodology. 2. This results in the belief that consciousness is nothing more than the consequence of a complex arrangement of matter or a phenomenon emerging from brain activity. 3. This belief is neither proven nor justified." 
  The scholar and psychiatrist McGilChrist observed: "The scope of inquiry and understanding of the Materialist Doctrine with its rigid adherence to the actually arbitrary principle of quantification and over-emphasis on physiological characteristics is severely restricted and limited in the analyses that can be performed." – which emphasizes that the materialist fixation with quantification creates a serious methodology problem – flaw.
     The "extreme adherence to materialism is too restrictive and limiting"
Jeremiah Lasquety-Reyes, author and widely quoted expert on Filipino ethics - in an email reply to me, "Hi Charles, I completely agree with you that this extreme adherence to materialism is too restrictive and limiting, and frankly fails to capture so many richer aspects of human experience and psychology. It leaves the field of psychology all the poorer. I am myself looking for a framework that helps me confront it. Partly, I think an alternative metaphysics is needed, one that respects the reality and meaning of things like love, relationships, and the profound reality of other people as people and not just as a compound of atoms, chemicals, and neurons firing. Glad that we're on the same page!"
      Half of human consciousness is not strictly quantifiable: hope, art, dreams, music, poetry, true love, awe-wonder, freedom, ideals, justice, - not to mention death. I would briefly question how a methodology – described by McGilChrist in terms of a "rigid adherence to quantification" – which is appropriate to physics or chemistry - not human consciousness got applied to human consciousness. Both Kenneth Gergen and Maimone highlight the fact that social knowledge is a distinct category