Posted on 04/06/2005 11:36:46 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
Freepers began a most engaging dialogue at the end of another thread! It is not only a fascinating subject - it also presents us with an opportunity to clarify ourselves and hopefully help us appreciate our differences and thus relieve some of the contention on various threads (most especially science and philosophy threads).
The subject is knowledge - which, as it turns out, means different things to different people. Moreover, we each have our own style of classifying “knowledge” – and valuing the certainty of that “knowledge”. Those differences account for much of the differences in our views on all kinds of topics – and the contentiousness which may derive from them.
Below are examples. First is PatrickHenry’s offering of his classification and valuation followed by mine – so that the correspondents here can see the difference. Below mine is js1138’s offering.
Please review these and let us know how you classify and value “knowledge”! We’d appreciate very much your following the same format so it’ll be easier for us to make comparisons and understand differences.
PatrickHenry’s types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties:
1. Revelation: Spiritual understanding divinely communicated.
Alamo-Girl’s types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties:
js1138’s types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties
2. Prediction from scientific theory: I calculate there will be a partial solar eclipse this week.
3. Conclusion from evidence: I conclude from the verifiable evidence that ...
4. Sensory perception of something external to me: I see my dog is lying at my feet.
5. Acceptance of another's opinion: I provisionally accept the opinion of X (an individual or group) as knowledge because (a) I haven't worked it out for myself; and (b) I have what I regard as good reason for confidence in X.
6. Personal memory: I recall I had breakfast this morning.
7. Internal emotional state: I feel I'm happy, or I have empathy, compassion or sympathy for you.
Separate List for theological knowledge:
2. Faith: Belief in a revelation experienced by another.
2. Theological knowledge, indirect revelation: I believe in a revelation experienced by another, i.e. Scripture is confirmed to me by the indwelling Spirit.
4. Evidence/Historical fact, uninterpreted: I have verifiable evidence Reagan was once President.
5. Sensory perception of something external to me: I see my dog is lying at my feet.
6. Personal memory: I recall I had breakfast this morning.
7. Prediction from scientific theory: I calculate there will be a partial solar eclipse this week.
8. Trust in a Mentor: I trust this particular person to always tell me the truth, therefore I know …
9. Internal emotional state: I feel I'm happy, or I have empathy, compassion or sympathy for you.
10. Evidence/Historical fact, interpreted: I conclude from the fossil evidence in the geologic record that …
11. Determined facts: I accept this as fact because of a consensus or veto determination by others, i.e. I trust that these experts or fact finders know what they are talking about.
12. Imaginings: I imagine how things ought to have been in the Schiavo case.
2. Sensory perception of something external to me: I see my dog is lying at my feet. I am aware that this has limitations, but what choices do I have? I learn the limitations and live with them.
3. Personal memory: I recall I had breakfast this morning. Same limitations apply, except that they are more frequent and serious.
4. Logical conclusion: I can prove the Pythagorean theorem is valid and true. The trueness may be unassailable, but the conclusions of axiomatic reasoning are only as true as the axioms, which may be arbitrary. Outside of pure logic and pure mathematics, axiomatic reasoning drops quickly in my estimation of usefulness. People who argue politics and religion from a "rational" perspective are low on my list of useful sources.
5. Prediction from scientific theory: I calculate there will be a partial solar eclipse this week. I am not aware of any scientific theory that I understand which has failed in a major way. Some theories, of course, make sharper predictions than others. Eclipses are pretty certain.
6. Conclusion from evidence: I conclude from the verifiable evidence that ... Oddly enough, "facts" are less certain in my view than theories.
7. Acceptance of another's opinion: I provisionally accept the opinion of X (an individual or group) as knowledge because (a) I haven't worked it out for myself; and (b) I have what I regard as good reason for confidence in X.
In reply, let me just point out that I *was* somewhat puzzled that Congress's bill would omit any mention of de novo review...
Guess I should've known the bill was merely posturing.
Cf. the "censure plus" bandied about for Bill Clinton re: l'affaire Lewinski (nice cadence, that!), which turned out to be almost a dictionary definition of the explicity un-Constitutional "bill of attainder".
Cheers!
Good statement. History is churning right now as much as at any time. It has not come to an end, nor will it. We are off into new territory and haven't yet glimpsed the new horizon. Hopefully we can keep our individuality and keep our nationality even while this new superstructure takes shape.
I tend to do that when surfing the threads when they have reached "brown dwarf" stage--not as much heat and light as earlier, but still a lot of pressure.
My fault entirely, and I apologize.
Cheers!
We never have the luxury of complete knowledge, we must always act with the information available, try to extrapolate general principles from what we think we know, and then be nimble enough to correct course as better information becomes available.
Since in many cases that better information comes as a result of our having acted, insisting on complete knowledge before acting is a dodge to excuse paralysis.
That's the thing. I am somewhat concerned that some seem to want to dissolve nationality in favor of a global suprastate. That would probably be ill-advised. The Founding Fathers said that the Federal system would be the best way to preserve the many individual states, a good thing. I don't approve of the idea of the global suprastate, it is a foray into the unknown. But, if it is happening like it or not, we ought to insist on preserving our nationality if only because it has been and still appears to be the best thing we ever did.
Baby steps is right. If one looks at the first four years of the Roosevelt administration, you can see he tried lots of leftist things and failed at nearly all.
It took Roosevelt years to get us started down the socialist path. He first had to learn to take just a little bite and then take another and another nibble.
My huge gripe with politicans like Barry Goldwater was his belief tht he could turn thing around in one administration. With that approach he could not even make the election close.
I was not surprised that at the March for Justice there were more protesters than supporters of limiting judicial power.Judges started to increase Judicial power in 1800 and have been working for that goal ever since. First we have to change American's mimds. When that is done the courts powers will be curbed.
I was for many years one of the few conservative broadcasters in Ohio. I got into it with an elected official who decided to shut me up. He was surprised to learn that I organized most of the major media in ohio against him. The leftist knew that if office holders could shut me up, office holderes could shut them up.
Judges on the left and right will try to keep us from limiting their power. Look for all judges to stick toghether.
The good thing about the United States is that it truly is a nation of the people, by the people and for the people.
When the people are opposed some dedicated politicans will try to get their agenda passes a tiny bit at a time. They try to stay under wraps and hide what they are doing. They rarely succeed in their clandestine efforts. But it is what Democrats have been doing for years. They succeed from time to time. But success even very limited succes over time adds up to major change.
On the other hand if a cause ignores the politicans and works on getting very good voter support, politicans will show up out of the woodwork begging to do your will.
Those of us whose first thought is to petition elected officals for change are always surprised when not much happenes.
Indeed, our activism would much more effective directed to the public. We should have learned this from the Swift Boat Vets. They would not have been successful trying, as individual activists, to pressure the Bush campaign to expose Kerry.
Here are a few notes I've formed from studies in epistemology, or as I find it more appropriate to term episteology.
The simplest secular definition of knowledge I have found in literature is that of a 'soundly justified, true, belief'.
Most philosophical paradoxes I've encountered, which tend to tickle the imagination or problem solving faculties tend to form off of 1 to 4 of the following topics being slightly muddled or confused between one another.
Those topics include: Gnosis, Epignosis, belief, faith, meaning, memory, identity/identification, naming, justification, psychological certainty, perception, experience, intuition, insight, passion, emotion, logic, understanding, truth, validity, soundness, judgment, volition, image, and several other topics mentioned in these threads which I find to be composites of the above,..in hallucination, 'common sense', mistakes, error, revelation, to name but a few.
Most of these I understood or had studied in college, prior to a studious approach to Scripture.
Since that time, I firmly recommend studying some other areas not generally as well received in modern secular approaches to epistemology. Namely, discern the meanings and differences between 'body', 'soul', and 'spirit'. There is just as much, and (well arguably) more significance to the spirit and spiritual aspects of Scripture and reationship with God by His plan as in any study of the sciences upon the physical or domain of bodily things.
Within that study, especially if one begins with rudiments of Greek and Hebrew Scriptures, words such as 'pistis', sarx, soma, pneuma, nephesh, and pseuch, arise plentifully and with explicit import to topics such as salvation and regeneration of the human spirit.
Even the word pistis, which is translated to 'faith' and associated with an initial 'saving faith' for an unbeliever, is also used in context of the believer, later in thinking and frequently translated as 'doctrine'.
This topic might not seem that important or nonchalently grouped into topics of superstition or allegory by Western secular thinking, but what is sometimes more astounding to such 'empiricists' is exposure to material events where 'faith' actually coincides with a material change not explicable by practical empirical methods otherwise.
Some insight is gleaned by simply studying some obvious Scripture on topics such as miracles. E.g, Christ walking on water, and Peter also performing the same, but then sinking,...Old Testament passages of rods being cast to the ground and becoming serpants, and another one eating the other serpants,...turning water into wine...
Etymological studies into science, physics and especially chemistry reveal a significant amount of dabblings into the occult where issues such as faith and belief bore significance to empirical outcomes.
Gnostics (although I assert were heretical) still may have touched upon some truth in portions of their practices, placing importance on belief influencing reality.
Consider one gnostic counterargument to modern day rational empiricism, that the most significant aspect of the scientific method or Cartesian thinking is that it encourages a common belief in nonacceptance or belief or hypothesis until it is proven. Such a system of belief in and of itself, by gnostic methods, influences reality itself.
Events which used to be considered miracles, today are influenced by a broad based perception and belief structures which influence actual physical outcomes, hence a 'rigged game', so to speak when positing science.
Those performing the experiment, if something new and unique, might indeed have their hypostheses confirmed by empirical results, in part because they hypothesized and believed they would occur in their measurements.
Conversely, where their hypotheses failed, other thinkers may have influenced the universe to the point that consistency and significant interaction with thought counteracted the less influential hypothesis.
I don't fully agree with such a position, however, I must freely admit I have witnessed physical phenomenon, not explicable by empirical methods, and highly contradictory to even the most basic of scientifuc methods, which were very closely associated to faith and knowledge, perhaps uniquely isolated from the other categories mentioned in the first several paragraphs.
An interesting aspect of both Norse and American Indian mythology, as well as Roman and greek mythology, is how consistant the histories fit with reported geneologies of angels, fallen angels, and pre-Noahbic legends. Many were spoken of as being offspring of creatures with supernatural abilities, yet also distinct personalities. Others were described as having been chained in the Abyss.
Our country is unique with it's background firmly grounded in the self-less religion of Christianity.
Jesus said that the greatest commandments were to love God with all your heart and to love others. If you study the Bible like our founders did...you'll come to the same conclusion that they did:
True liberty comes from the Freedom to obey God. Christ's teaching puts the emphasis on others...not yourself.
I believe that the invasion of the middle east by W will change the world for the next 200 years. Marxism may seem like it's on the rise, but it's selfish teachings have always been around. Monarchies, oligarchies, etc...they are all relativists. I'm not sure we are in new terroritory, but we may be at our peak of republicanism where God's teachings are not honored or feared. We may think we are "Supermen", but we are not.
The swift boat vets did a very bright thing. They hired an advertising specialists to prepare their ads and structure their fund raising. The experts also chose the places the ads were to run.
The first ad was designed to get free major media play and cause people who were already opposed to Kerry to donate money. The second phase had two purposes. It was to continue to raise money for more ads, while at the same time convince people who were not inherently opposed to Kerry to not vote for him. The third phase was designed to just reach people who were inclined to vote for Kerry. It did not try to get people to vote for George Bush. The object was to keep people from voting for John Kerry.
About half of all veterans are Democrats. The ads caused some of those Democrats to just not vote for anyone for President. Other vetrans who normally vote for democrats, were so fearful of Kerry getting elected that they held their nose and voted for Bush.
What many of us fail to do is to structure our pitch to the people we need to convince.
There are never enough liberals or Conservatives to make a majority. But to win decisively a party has to get majority support. Ya gotta win the moderates. Some who are on the other side have to be converted.
That is why firebrand preaching to the choir always fail. The base loves it.. but elections are lost not won.
The best conservative at appealing to modereates was Ronald Reagan. Let me give you an example.
We all know Reagan got the American people in favor of the 1981 tax cuts. The question is how did Reagan get the House of Representative controled by Democrats to pass his tax cuts when it was the policy of the Democratic party to oppose tax cuts.
A conservative would tell everyone that tax cuts stimulate the economy and creates jobs. That is what Reagan said to the conservatives. But that won't get moderate support. That gets you to 35 percent. The problem is over 50 percent support is needed to get things done.
Moderates are not ideological. If ideological arguments had appeal moderates would be either on the left or right. Moderates are driven by self interest. Sometimes moderates vote for Democrats. Other times they vote for liberals. They are not changing their philosophical minds. Moderates often vote for a conservative president and a liberal senator or vice versa in the same election.
Reagan knew that moderates are convinced by things that appeal to their self interests. To the moderates he asked the question. "Why is it better for the Government to take your money and spend it the way it wants, rather than you keeping your money and spending it the way YOU want?" That was the Reagan appeal to moderates. It is a subtile but very important difference.
The Swift Boat Vet ads worked because both in the ad content and the ad reach, they targeted the people whose behaviour they needed to modify.
Boiled down the Swift Boat Vets were smart enough to get professionals to help them tell their story to the people they needed to reach in a way that was effective in reaching them.
Look at the success of FOX Vrs CNN. CNN is run by people who decide what they think we need to know, and then they tell us what they want to tell us.
Fox news tries to figure out what we want to know about, and then tries to give us what we want.
My tastes in music and news are not those of the general public. Back in my radio station management days, sometimes one of my program directors or news directors would ask me if I liked what they were doing with the air sound or content. I always gave them the same answer. "If I tune and and like what I hear, you are in a heap of trouble." "You and I both are here to please our audience."
If the audience loves what you are doing, I can hate it and I'll only be thinking about how big your raise ought to be." "If the audience hates what you are doing, even if I love it, I'll be looking for your replacement."
good observation. Dittos on issues of moral degeneracy in the form of 'do-gooder' and legalism without priority of God's plan first, and likewise on immoral degeneracy in the form of anarchy, and disobedience to legitimate authority in divinely established institutions of the soul, marriage, family, and nation.
All freedom is dependant upon a structure with implied authority.
Yes indeed, RW, something is going on, and we have "some real serious eggheads" to blame for it. Read: activist intellectuals of utopian stripe, who want to remake the world in their own image. Of course, the human race has seen all this before.
History is replete with lessons of the destruction of societies when the central truths of human existence have fallen into the shadows. Athens was destroyed because she lost her virtue -- the Sophists were the great intellectual activists who helped to bring this about, with their arguments about "man is the measure" and "might makes right." Socrates (and Plato) were the Sophists' bitterest enemies, yet they could not prevail against the spirit of a disordered age which had lost its connection to the central truths of God, man, society, and the world. The result was a sinking into irrationality, alienation, and the consequent destruction of civic virtue. And Athens lost her liberty and her independence. Alexander of Macedon was the main beneficiary.
But you don't have to go back that far in history to see an illustration of this process. Just check out the glaring parallels with the Athenian experience in 20th-century Weimar, Germany. Once again we see intellectual activists at work, denying (once again) the central truths of God, man, society, and the world. Hitler was the preeminent beneficiary of this process. An entire society -- and a nominally Christian one to boot -- descended into madness and death.
Madison, Hamilton, and Jay (in The Federalist) did their work against the background of essential, central truths about God, man, society, and the world. They viewed such truths as timeless, eternal; and evidently believed that a society that embraced such truths would have the best possible type of order, one that would be productive of individual liberty and human rights. And I do believe that these men, if they were around today, would actually be of the mind that their "biweekly pieces" were in fact "the last word" on what it takes to establish a free and just society.
In short, these men would not be standling idly by, helplessly, effeminately, supinely ruing their impending doom. They would be fomenting a second American revolution.
As for me, like them, I'd rather fight to preserve our "great idea," the source of the American nation and its greatness, rather then sit back, helplessly, and await its "impending loss." FWIW.
Thank you, oh so very much, dear marron, for this excellent, succinct description of the doctrine of the "General Will!"
It is a free ticket to ride for any ambitious, would-be tyrant, a complete justification for tyranny.
Excellent insights, I got the rope! And so very, very true. IMHO, you've got Comte down to a "T" here....
That's pretty much what the Sophist position was, back in classical Athens. Funny how this particular strain of thought keeps returning. When it does, it's usually a sign of a social decline leading up to a very big bust....
Thanks for this very fine post, I got the rope.
The short version: The more I learn, the less I know.
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