EPT+ Show Spoiler +
a draft. i lost my trainof thought after greeting some friends as i was getting off the bus. this will be written over the weekend.
woot, a good line has been found. will work on it tomorrow.
do we need metaphilosophy
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + a draft. i lost my trainof thought after greeting some friends as i was getting off the bus. this will be written over the weekend. woot, a good line has been found. will work on it tomorrow. | ||
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BuGzlToOnl
United States5918 Posts
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QuanticHawk
United States32051 Posts
can i reserve a space for comment too?? | ||
micronesia
United States24671 Posts
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Wizard
Poland5055 Posts
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Deleted User 3420
24492 Posts
can anyone put into laymans terms what he is trying to say | ||
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Rev0lution
United States1805 Posts
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HeadBangaa
United States6512 Posts
"What is then meta-philosophy, or attempts thereof." - what? "An empirical description of an activity." - noun, check - adjective, check - ... "talking about logic as a natural process would assume certain characteristics of the logical process and invalidate" - what? I don't mean to nitpick, oneofthem. I have some breadth in philosophy, and was looking forward to reading this. Maybe you could revise your wording? | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i am trying to be nice to too many theories of language at once. it is much easier to just criticise one theory, so at least i'll have a language to use. | ||
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zer0das
United States8519 Posts
Sorry. :d | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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Hot_Bid
Braavos36374 Posts
look at this sentence: the color problem in philosophy of mind says, sense-datum is incommensurable with empirical description, the reverse is true, empirical description is incommensurable with the activity so, while that statement sounds really complicated and smart, it basically means, in normal speak: you can't prove data from your senses. "philosophy of mind" = philosophy that deals with whether mind or body is one or separate "sense datum" = data from your senses. "incommensurable" = can't compare "empirical description" = description able to be proved i'm guessing you mean that "you can't prove data from your senses" because it's all just perception in your mind. please stop loading your sentences with excess verbiage and intentionally complex terms. i know it makes you sound smart and there are subtle distinctions and arguable reasons for why you use the words you do, but those distinctions don't matter to 99.99% of this forum. i'd advise taking a writing course on how to write simplistically and without so many grammatical errors. it's much harder to convey complicated meanings simply than to do what you're doing in this entry. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
granted that line is utterly confusing taken out of context, but that 'normal speak' is way off. it is not in the ball park. the problem is normally understood as, the impression of colors is not necessarily accounted for by a sufficient causal theory of color, or, a sufficient causal theory of color does not have to account for the impression of color. (this account is not getting the useful picture here, but essentially it is the same. the impression of color is a feature of active expression of the faculty of color that also has some rational value, so to speak. the causal description is entirely another way of looking at the situation. incommensurability refers to the way languages involving these two aspects do not seem to connect to each other.) but thanks for the other points, i should not have used sense datum and there are grammatical errors or awkwardness. i realise i need to work on me communication skills, but i want to lay out some drafts first. it is still a work in progress. in any case, it is already hard enough to find a word that is even expressive of some of these ideas, asking for many of them is a bit too much. i will try to make up the lack of good words with more examples, hopefully one will work. i wrote this on a train of thought i lost, and im really writing to myself first, then smoothing it over. it is not a presentable product. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
on topic: i think you can't make a case like yours complete without taking in to account the dream world and what happens there. "claim: reason as activity." do people reason in their dreams?. the activity is present but it is the result of reasoning?. is the conscient state a prerequisite to reason?. is ones dream world his mirror? your whole case can be explained more easily and have scientific weight if you would simply explain how the brain works and why (how - it's decently easy, why - it's not known). basically you have to answer to this question: why, when he same stimuli are applied to different brains, they "light" (react) differently. more, if you can prove that the way a brain reacts is determined by experience and association and not by some intrinsic value which it has since god knows when, not only you will be able to quantize people but you will be able to create a collective intelligence which will share the same traits. if you can't, the relativism wins and the only way for you to uphold absolute logical truths is by force. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
here's an analogy: amy likes coffee, she says 'yay coffee" had amy not been to england, she would not have liked coffee/had amy not been does amy still like coffee, yes. the 'amy not been england' is not amy. if you are familiar with sellars' myth of the given, that is a good introduction to this problem. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
From what I know, language is the expression of causal logic, so as long as you're writing stuff, you can't metaphilosophize outside of the limit that language has set. And I don't think anyone has. Besides that there's still tons of metaphilosophizing to be done. And from the post above me, there are concepts of synchronicity in Jung, unconscious, etc, but those don't get very far because they're based on deductive reasoning, although very brilliant and sick deductive reasoning. These issues were addressed very nicely by Bertrand Russell at the start of the 20th century. It's been a long time since then so I assume there's been plenty of new stuff since. All the continental concepts such as discourse, deconstruction, etc, attacks what we assume, or our contingencies in society, science, literature, philosophy, etc, and not the logic part after them. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
IS there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it? This question, which at first sight might not seem difficult, is really one of the most difficult that can be asked. When we have realized the obstacles in the way of a straightforward and confident answer, we shall be well launched on the study of philosophy -- for philo sophy is merely the attempt to answer such ultimate questions, not carelessly and dogmatically, as we do in ordinary life and even in the sciences, but critically, after exploring all that makes such questions puzzling, and after realizing all the vagueness and confusion that underlie our ordinary ideas. In daily life, we assume as certain many things which, on a closer scrutiny, are found to be so full of apparent contradictions that only a great amount of thought enables us to know what it is that we really may believe. In the search for certainty, it is natural to begin with our present experiences, and in some sense, no doubt, knowledge is to be derived from them. But any statement as to what it is that our immediate experiences make us know is very likely to be wrong. It seems to me that I am now sitting in a chair, at a table of a certain shape, on which I see sheets of paper with writing or print. By turning my head I see out of the window buildings and clouds and the sun. I believe that the sun is about ninety-three million miles | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
http://www.ditext.com/russell/russell.html Talking about color, sense datum To return to the table. It is evident from what we have found, that there is no colour which preeminently appears to be the colour of the table, or even of any one particular part of the table -- it appears to be of different colours from different points of view, and there is no reason for regarding some of these as more really its colour than others. And we know that even from a given point of view the colour will seem different by artificial light, or to a colour-blind man, or to a man wearing blue spectacles, while in the dark there will be no colour at all, though to touch and hearing the table will be unchanged. This colour is not something which is inherent in the table, but something depending upon the table and the spectator and the way the light falls on the table. When, in ordinary life, we speak of the colour of the table, we only mean the sort of colour which it will seem to have to a normal spectator from an ordinary point of view under usual conditions of light. But the other colours which appear under other conditions have just as good a right to be considered real; and therefore, to avoid favouritism, we are compelled to deny that, in itself, the table has any one particular colour. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
and reading russell is a bad experience for me, since i dont think he's clear at all, perhaps because of the sincerity with which he uses certain terms when he's bungling them. "The same thing applies to the texture. With the naked eye one can see the gram, but otherwise the table looks smooth and even. If we looked at it through a microscope, we should see roughnesses and hills and valleys, and all sorts of differences that are imperceptible to the naked eye. Which of these is the 'real' table? We are naturally tempted to say that what we see through the microscope is more real, but that in turn would be changed by a still more powerful microscope. If, then, we cannot trust what we see with the naked eye, why should we trust what we see through a microscope? Thus, again, the confidence in our senses with which we began deserts us. " "Thus, again, the confidence in our senses with which we began deserts us." well, hold on there, it is the confidence in our conceptual derivatives from our senses that desert us. if you were to authentically engage in teh process of feeling the table, it feels the same, but you'd be less apt to say it is smooth as your conceptual scheme has now been shifted by an awareness of the microscopic texture. but of course, such an observation as russell's did something, and this is because, the argument is tracing the logical structure of 'table' the concept as it felt to russell. similar problem with teh color sense. it is not necessary for you to say 'table is red,' a certain conceptual framework, when you want to physically see the red. you open your functional eye and that's it. does it still make sense for you to say, the table looks red to me, yes, but the trouble is that, your conceptual framework has now extended beyond seeing and into the realm of reasoning with other logical objects of certain shape. if you have come to doubt 'table is red,' you are not abandoning the red, but the logic scheme of 'table is red.' "yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing " the questino here would be, 'why does this make sense.' 'a sign of something existing independently of us' is a logical category with a distinct shape. it is not 'Something.' it is fine to do honest analysis with these concepts, being sincere to its logical shape, but one is apt to substitute another in its place, such is the temptation of the language. And russell takes the plunge! "But if the reality is not what appears, have we any means of knowing whether there is any reality at all?" "but if the reality is not what it appears," this is in itself an expression of hte logical structure of 'reality' the concept. not 'the' expression, but it uses the logical relation between 'reality' and 'concept' and hope to make some confusion out of it. if your awareness of reality changed because of 'looking at the table through a red glasses,' it does not mean 'REALITY' changed, it is merely an operation in the conceptual framework of 'reality,' that a concept of reality has been replaced. everything is normal, nothing to see here except a torture of reason. now look, the above is a descriptive account of what russell was doing. the part of russell that was criticized was a similarly descriptive argument. what would make one of us right or wrong is in analysing the things we talk about, and this analysis derives its 'data' from actual operation of the thinking mechanism. there is no hope of solving metaphilsophical problems without paying close attention to the logical form of the concepts we use. the rest are confused babble. regardless of what becomes of this particular argument, it has not changed anything in a person saying 'table is red' except the metaphilosophical attitudes 'inferred' from such notions. I had the whole thing clearly mapped out during dinner, but hey, what can you do about an lost idea. one benefit of working out ideas in your head is the lack of a referential or descriptive layer. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the main point is, the immanent nature of logic is an integral part of the logical structure of actual operations in logical thinking. to talk outside of them and attempt to marginalise them is either careless or wrong, an attitude of disrespect for what hilary putnam would call, the 'normative,' this is present in both analytical and continental philosophy. (i cited putnam's normative because i think it is used in an unconventional http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/PUTREN.html) again, things are much easier if i could have something to attack and deconstruct, a positive position is rather difficult to map out. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
"SELLARS AND THE "MYTH OF THE GIVEN" WilliamP.Alston Syracuse University (deconstruct that) a quote in which he speaks of perception: "On this view the heart of sense perception of external objects consists of facts of "appearing", facts that some object or other looks, feels, sounds, smells, or tastes in a certain way to a perceiver. These appearings are nonconceptual in character. There is a crucial distinction between 'The tree looks green to S', on the one hand, and 'S takes the tree to be green' or 'S applies the concept of green (of tree) to what S sees' on the other. (I take 'S sees the tree as green' to be ambiguous between these two.) In order for the tree to look green to S it is only necessary that S visually discriminate the tree from its surroundings by its color (not necessarily only by its color). Though it is often supposed nowadays that 'X looks P to S' can only mean 'S takes X to be P', this runs into the obvious objection that the former might be true even though S lacks the concept of P and so can't possibly take X to be P. X may look like a mango to me (present the kind of visual appearance typical of a mango from this distance and angle, in this kind of lighting, etc.) even though I have never formed the concept of a mango and hence am incapable of taking X to be a mango. " "For a quick fix on this notion of a direct awareness of external objects, consider a naive view of perception. Take a case in which first your eyes are shut and you are thinking about the scene in front of you, say your front yard. You remember the trees in the yard. You wonder whether there are squirrels and robins out there at the moment. You hypothesize that your neighbor across the street is working in his garden. That is, you form various propositional attitudes concerning what is or might be in front of me. Then you open your eyes and take a look. Your cognitive condition is radically transformed. Whereas before you were just thinking about, wondering about, remembering the trees, the squirrels, the houses, and so on, these items (or some of them) are now directly presented to your awareness. They are given to your consciousness. They are present to you, whereas before you were merely dealing with propositions about them. It is this kind of awareness, one that makes the difference between actually seeing something and just thinking about it that the Theory of Appearing construes in terms of relations of appearing. " fuck me if i can see the relevance of that. isn't it more simple to just say: ones perception does not alter the state of X?. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
it is obvious that, by relating to a certain conceptual framework, 'the state of x' will be relevant to 'perception of x.' if we were doing neuroscience for example, and the 'perception' mechanism is causally figured out, it would be fair to say, 'state of x' causally determines 'perception.' even though, saying such would not alter your perception. the point is, there is a link here, that certain conceptual framework, that is sometimes assumed. to determine this framework is a matter of empirical investigation through the actual performance of thinking, and there is no way around it. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
questions: isn't the mechanism host dependant?. even if you determine the state of x you still wouldn't know why it works the way it works or you will be satisfied by knowing it's pattern. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i dont understand that last part. are you saying, there is something besides causal mechanism that we could know about. well yes, there are other things, or more precisely, there are other things we could do (as in, think, believe, etc). but to answer hte causal questions, the causal framework is enough. i feel i've been too attacted to the particulars of the problem. i'll simply lay out the general point when i recover it. the basic line is, thinking and logic are distinct activities. even though a description of them may be 'accurate' or 'true' as descriptions, but they do not substitute the activity, and are reliant on conceptual frameworks in need of empirical investigation. as relevant to philosophy and so forth, the language used by actual processes of thinking, operating with concepts and so forth, is not the same as the language of description. saying, it is true that 'a believes/thinks k is true'' uses two 'true' and they are incommensurable, with their own system of logic and so forth. even though one may get a sense of relativistic scepticism when describing logic as 'something people just do,' this force is not something substantive, it derives from the insubstantive character of the 'just do.' i had hoped to attack relativisms voiced like "oh, that's just your belief." | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
as to my other question. assume that you find your language. after you understand it you think that it exists another way in which the language (mechanism) could operate. so the normal question is why it operates like it does and not like you thought it could. even if the causal mechanism is determined you can't say for certainty that is the only one that can exists. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
a causal mechanism for relating 'it is true!' will dictate 'it is true!' even if the underlying concepts etc are different, by way of linguistic form we should be able to construct a criteria for relevantly true, and since this mechanism is only observing what we have been doing until now, it changes nothing, it will not be problematic to our usage of true etc. although, mind you, talking about concepts is itself working in a conceptual framework with some assumed relations and such. the possibility of different causal mechanisms for each person may be illusionary. this is ironically the best case for god. even if the causal mechanism is determined you can't say for certainty that is the only one that can exists. "a causal mechanism for what?" at this point, two things are clear. there is a causal mechanism, for thinking etc, and that we can think, and understand ideas. you should know what these activities are. (i do not mean to say anything in your head is logic, quite to the contrary, logic is only a very small part of what you believe and confide in. the thrust is methodological adherence to rational and empirical inquiry, the practice of these faculties) then, by the causal mechanism, you know that this particular mental activity is logic, and it is just this way. but also, by way of performing the logic, you come to logical conclusions which you think are absolutely true. (the shape of hte logical objects. a platonist notion, and i think a correct one but a tricky one as well) there is no force in trying to overthrow your beliefs in truth of this kind by appealing to a different casual mechanism with differnet results, since the former is the status of given, and by causal integrity you cannot appeal to 'a different causal mechanism.' it is practically impossible to establish this kind of link anyway. but of course, you can err in coming to trust a logical conclusion, (the point of the above though, is that the way you would come to realise error is by still a commensurable practice of logic, with all the logical expressions of truth etc remain as they are, respected as true) and this calls for more thinking and ironing out logic etc. logical explorations should be done in logic. the case for unique rationality is i think unnecessary. because, even if some other rationality exist, you have noway of access unless you assert some causal relationship to it, and logically this make them both one mechanism. as for confidence in our expressions of logic, the same still holds, you can't argue it unless you argue it. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
i don't think they have to attack them. the relativists and skepticists will just up a notch their believes. assuming that such mechanism will be proven to exist in such a manner thath it's state of being can not be disputed they would just say that infinite thinking processes can be build on this mechanism. so even if you have your cause the determination of all it's posible states (of thoughts) will be unknown to you. i guess it all depends on what the hell you'll find up there. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
let's use the is/ought problem. i would declare that 'ought' is a different discourse from is and these two have their incommensurable concepts. but, the 'ought' process can itself be an 'is' but this does not render the concepts used in the 'ought' discourse of the 'is' nature. nor can you get any sort of 'ought' conclusions without undergoing the 'ought' discourse. this is incommensurability. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
"But if the reality is not what appears, have we any means of knowing whether there is any reality at all?" means "But if the thing-in-itself is not the reality that appears to our senses, have we any means of knowing whether there is any reality at all? thing-in-itself is Kant's term for a thing's essence separate from outside perception, a thing in its true nature. Russell did not intend to confuse at all, Russell simply does not intend to confuse, that's what I admire him for. What he is saying, in a very straightforward way is, assuming the Kantian concept of thing-in-itself exists, our perceived reality, what we gather by our sense datum, can never be proven to be equal to the "true reality". His exact point is the point you mentioned, which is that when we view a table through a glass, the actually reality does not change, it is our perceived reality that changes. And about the table, I really think you're just nitpicking, the table is used as an example. He means to say that every object we perceive changes depending on how we perceive it. The basic point is, when you see a table, do you see little atoms and and a piece of wood at the same time? It's impossible, but the table is both of those things. But our senses can not perceive both at the same time. The "logical structure" of that sentence is assuming table is one object, which to us who perceive it using our senses, it is. "regardless of what becomes of this particular argument, it has not changed anything in a person saying 'table is red' except the metaphilosophical attitudes 'inferred' from such notions." the book this quote is from is an introductory level book, so the table is a very simple example of a much more complicated philosophical concept. Which deals with the changing nature of reality, assuming there's a reality, the reliability of our senses, etc, etc. I think it was a response to phenomenology. I take it you've read wittgenstein and his "language game" ideas, but I don't see how they make Russell's philosophy weak here. The example of the red table is obviously assuming the metaphilosophical attitude of Hume or Locke or whoever, I forgot, that a table can be safely called red because our senses is all we have to trust or something like that. Empiricism. I just simply don't get where Russell's logic fails. You can attack what he assumes, but his logic is rather perfect. Also, if you could elaborate more it would help tremendously, we are all discussing language and logic, so we ourselves should try to be as understable as we can. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
the questino here would be, 'why does this make sense.' 'a sign of something existing independently of us' is a logical category with a distinct shape. it is not 'Something.' it is fine to do honest analysis with these concepts, being sincere to its logical shape, but one is apt to substitute another in its place, such is the temptation of the language. I don't get what you're saying here. I've never read wittgenstein and all the knowledge I have of the concept of "language game" is from wiki, though they give quite a incisive description there you reaaaaaaaaally still have to clarify what you're saying. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
their occurence = the inductive conclusion that objects appear different depending how on our perception is a sign = is a conclusion we can derive a new conclusion from of something existing independently of us = that the true nature of objects, assuming there is one, might be different from what we perceive. something differing = something differing this makes sense because in the tradition of Descarte and later empiricism, philosophers and scientists rely on experience and sensory perception as tools to empirical "truth". And Russell counters that stance with a very simple yet effective example of the table that may or may not be red. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On September 29 2007 12:39 zulu_nation8 wrote: "yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing " the questino here would be, 'why does this make sense.' 'a sign of something existing independently of us' is a logical category with a distinct shape. it is not 'Something.' it is fine to do honest analysis with these concepts, being sincere to its logical shape, but one is apt to substitute another in its place, such is the temptation of the language. I don't get what you're saying here. I've never read wittgenstein and all the knowledge I have of the concept of "language game" is from wiki, though they give quite a incisive description there you reaaaaaaaaally still have to clarify what you're saying. what i meant is, there is a step of conceptual formulation before an 'impression' like 'red table' becomes, 'the table that is red'. take the 'red table' to be the sight of the red table, the 'table that is red' the conceptual table. the two corresponding activities are, seeing, and conceptual reasoning. it is improper to equate these two, even though the concept may relate to the sense perfectly. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On September 29 2007 12:46 zulu_nation8 wrote: 'objects appear different'yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing their occurence = the inductive conclusion that objects appear different depending how on our perception is a sign = is a conclusion we can derive a new conclusion from of something existing independently of us = that the true nature of objects, assuming there is one, might be different from what we perceive. something differing = something differing this makes sense because in the tradition of Descarte and later empiricism, philosophers and scientists rely on experience and sensory perception as tools to empirical "truth". And Russell counters that stance with a very simple yet effective example of the table that may or may not be red. quite obviouisly, you need some kind of 'object' for it to 'appear different.' here we are examining the logic of the 'object.' i dont think russell's analysis was a retreat from empiricism, he was doing empirical research but arrivingi at a puzzlement that shouldn't be there. he was examining the statement 'table is red' against some thought experiments in which different empirical data were present. one could say, he destroyed the 'red table' concept that took 'red' to be a property of the table (this is not translatable really), or that concept of 'red table' first adopted. the puzzle then seemed to him to suggest a lack of reality when what simply happened was an improved account of 'red table.' edit: damn i lost a big paragraph by browser death i would not count russell's effort as againsts empiricism, it was rather an attempt at empiricial examination of the concept of reality by some thought experiments. it is just that he took the conclusion the wrong way. talking about the 'red table' would only make sense wihtin a given conceptual framework. (make sense means, what hte concept entails.' 'the red table' is quite fully formed concept and in it is contained all the talk about 'property' 'reality' 'sense' 'ideas.' one could say that reality and 'something existing independently of us' talks are both one and the same, contained in a conceptual framework that just is. in saying 'the red table,' all of the logic of this framework is admissible to frame 'properties' or 'existence' of such a table. the key here is not that 'red table' is an idea, but hte metaphysical attitude toward 'mere ideas.' since these ideas containi in themselves the logic of reality, glossing over their logic and attepmt to deny reality is just a shell game. the temptation for this move is in teh way 'ideas in my head' is seen as something of a logic substitution for 'red table.' the former is only descriptive of the latter in a conceptual framework in which 'ideas' and 'the red table' have different positions. yet when you substitute in 'ideas in my heaad' with 'the red table,'' you are impressed with the 'mereness' of 'the red table' when in fact you are just impressed with the mereness of 'ideas in my head.' russell is not exactly confusing, he is just confused. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
And about the table, I really think you're just nitpicking, the table is used as an example. He means to say that every object we perceive changes depending on how we perceive it. The basic point is, when you see a table, do you see little atoms and and a piece of wood at the same time? It's impossible, but the table is both of those things. But our senses can not perceive both at the same time. The "logical structure" of that sentence is assuming table is one object, which to us who perceive it using our senses, it is. i did not attack his whole talk, just that one little part where he substituted 'the description of 'red table', an idea' with 'the red table,' and claimed that he found a hole in space. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
let's see "logic and the operations of conceptual language is an activity." "logic and the operations of conceptual language as an activity." former is description fo the latter. what is description, a conceptual activity with its logic and such. you may call the sentence 'former is a description fo the latter' as a description of 'description' anad its logic. th epoint is, the logic of description seemingly warrant substitution of descriptions for what they are describing. this is all assuming that these are 'ideas.' when we say 'logic and the operations of conceptual language is merely an activity,' we substitute the status of 'merely something people do,' and the actual 'doing.' when it is something like logic and concpetual thinking, the description of it is not substitutable, since the "something people do" is not the same as what "something people do" is describing. this unwarranted substitution makes the actual activities themselves seem arbitrary and easily different. simply put, you cannot evaluate something that people do by evaluating the description. the description has no substantial contribution to the concept, it is merely a mirror, if you will, used in reference. aside from the referential it cannot substitute the original. i think i just broek the mirror! | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
On September 29 2007 13:08 oneofthem wrote: what i meant is, there is a step of conceptual formulation before an 'impression' like 'red table' becomes, 'the table that is red'. take the 'red table' to be the sight of the red table, the 'table that is red' the conceptual table. the two corresponding activities are, seeing, and conceptual reasoning. it is improper to equate these two, even though the concept may relate to the sense perfectly. well i don't think it's improper because "table" and "red" are concepts that are pretty universal to everyone who reads that sentence. So from the sense table to the conceptual table is a step of deductive reasoning I think everyone can accept for the sake of argument. More so, if you're saying it's improper to make that connection then it'd be improper for a loooooooooot of things in philosophy to be said, like the fact that you're saying that sentence is an improper "conceptual formulaton", you took the sentence and what YOU think is the conceptual formulation and made a connection to the conceptual "conceptual formulation" you got from wittgenstein, etc. If you're able to make that leap then I dont see why Bertrand can't make his. And can you link me to some stuff that talks about what you're talking about | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
On September 29 2007 13:14 oneofthem wrote: 'objects appear different' quite obviouisly, you need some kind of 'object' for it to 'appear different.' here we are examining the logic of the 'object.' i dont think russell's analysis was a retreat from empiricism, he was doing empirical research but arrivingi at a puzzlement that shouldn't be there. he was examining the statement 'table is red' against some thought experiments in which different empirical data were present. one could say, he destroyed the 'red table' concept that took 'red' to be a property of the table (this is not translatable really), or that concept of 'red table' first adopted. the puzzle then seemed to him to suggest a lack of reality when what simply happened was an improved account of 'red table.' edit: damn i lost a big paragraph by browser death i would not count russell's effort as againsts empiricism, it was rather an attempt at empiricial examination of the concept of reality by some thought experiments. it is just that he took the conclusion the wrong way. talking about the 'red table' would only make sense wihtin a given conceptual framework. (make sense means, what hte concept entails.' 'the red table' is quite fully formed concept and in it is contained all the talk about 'property' 'reality' 'sense' 'ideas.' one could say that reality and 'something existing independently of us' talks are both one and the same, contained in a conceptual framework that just is. in saying 'the red table,' all of the logic of this framework is admissible to frame 'properties' or 'existence' of such a table. the key here is not that 'red table' is an idea, but hte metaphysical attitude toward 'mere ideas.' since these ideas containi in themselves the logic of reality, glossing over their logic and attepmt to deny reality is just a shell game. the temptation for this move is in teh way 'ideas in my head' is seen as something of a logic substitution for 'red table.' the former is only descriptive of the latter in a conceptual framework in which 'ideas' and 'the red table' have different positions. yet when you substitute in 'ideas in my heaad' with 'the red table,'' you are impressed with the 'mereness' of 'the red table' when in fact you are just impressed with the mereness of 'ideas in my head.' russell is not exactly confusing, he is just confused. ok i think i got it. The red table is a bad example and poor Bertrand confused himself, did wittgenstein break him? cuz it must've been someone like ultra ultra ultra ultra brilliant to see past this. Basically Bertrand just went around in circles | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
wittgenstein, i think, did break this. although he didn't do it in writing i get the general attitude of it. i think this could be a way of looking at wittgenstein's work in a new light. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
and i htink representational usages are fine as long as they are being treated as ways of talking about things. they are not really good subjects for analytical analysis. the thing is pretty tricky. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
This puts foucault in a clearer light for me, he examines the subject and objects which are essentially short for transcendental subject and object, in society. Their origin, purpose, characteristics, etc Like sexuality is a quality of the western subject, which was created by medicinal and some other scientific discourses for some purpose, and he traces the history of this concept, and etc etc etc ec | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, most biased encyclopedia ever, 109310983 entries on russell, heidegger doesn't even get his own page | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
or, even if i don't speak it's language i can make it aware of things it does not understand by using floating points (viable projected frameworks). now, i am sure that the casual mechanism will not change it's values, it's truths, it's framework but when it 'evolves' it will possess both the truths of it's former self and those of the projected theories. floating point = a different casual mechanism that 'works', in the same environment (my refference point) as your mechanism. | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
and i really dont think this is the right direction for this thing. what causal mechanism means is just the way the description 'describes' and gives the description seemingly valid substitutional value. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5281 Posts
 what else could you say.i can guarantee you that if you will be able to define 'a what', and 'a how' (as principles of your casual mechanism) i will be able to describe 'a why' which will not only be influential to your mechanism but it will never be a part of it. (lulz i just realised that i wrote casual in all of my posts, instead of causal) | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On September 29 2007 15:33 zulu_nation8 wrote: i dont think i laid out the complete version of it, but at the moment it is not very smooth. maybe by next friday. i need to talk with mor epeople about htis. anyways upon second thought I think this is much more complicated, I will read a lot of stuff first | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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