Free Republic

As the war between #MAGA and the Deep State careens towards what appears to be at least a preliminary climax with the midterm elections, I've been reflecting a bit on what I consider to be a lack of understanding of some of those on "our side" of how much all of this turns on epistemology, i.e. "how do we know what we know". I heard Rush comparing Trump's circumstance with Nixon's during Watergate, and pointing out that during Nixon's time, what we know now as the "mainstream media" had complete epistemological control; they controlled what was and what wasn't. Nixon...

WORD FOR THE DAY(2/12/18)epistemology noun epis·te·mol·o·gy \ i-ˌpi-stə-ˈmä-lə-jē \ •   Definition of epistemology : the study or a theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity — epistemological play \i-ˌpi-stə-mə-ˈlä-ji-kəl\ adjective — epistemologically play \i-ˌpi-stə-mə-ˈlä-ji-k(ə-)lē\ adverb — epistemologist play \i-ˌpi-stə-ˈmä-lə-jist\ noun NEW! Time Traveler First Known Use: circa 1856 Recent Examples of epistemology from the Web • Yet if authenticity and consistency are among Spayd’s virtues, her vices include obtuse logic, shoddy epistemology, and the sort of common-sense conventionalism that a public editor ought to be challenging rather than championing.
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The Inclination to the Truth Msgr. Charles Pope • March 14, 2016 • In a recent post (Is There a Way Back to Undeniable Reality and Universally Binding Norms?) I discussed how we today tend to “live in our heads” a lot more so than did the people living in biblical times and even those who lived up to and including the High Middle Ages and the Scholastic Period. Prior to that time, the “real world” was taken to be largely self-evident. But in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, a school of thought later called “nominalism” began...

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) The Christian who must wrestle with Roman Catholic apologists (trained and untrained) will often hear them appeal to the ancient, non-scriptural, sources as proof of what the Apostles taught. We dealt with a part of that issue in a prior post about going all the way back to the written Word, instead of just going back to the first few post-apostolic generations....

An objection, however, is often made to the doctrine of infallibility, in limine, which is too important not to be taken into consideration. It is urged that, as all religious knowledge rests on moral evidence, not on demonstration, our belief in the Church's infallibility must be of this character; but what can be more absurd than a probable infallibility, or a certainty resting on doubt?— I believe, because I am sure, and I am sure, because I supposed. Granting then that the gift of infallibility be adapted, when believed to unite all intellects in one common confession, the fact...

I'm 54, with all that entails. Gray hair, trick knee, trickier memory. I still play a mean game of hockey, and my love life requires no pharmaceutical enhancement. But entropy looms ever larger. Suffice it to say, I would love to believe that we are rapidly approaching “the singularity.” Like paradise, technological singularity comes in many versions, but most involve bionic brain boosting. At first, we'll become cyborgs, as stupendously powerful brain chips soup up our perception, memory, and intelligence and maybe even eliminate the need for annoying TV remotes. Eventually, we will abandon our flesh-and-blood selves entirely and upload...

Concepts—Simple Basic Principles and Nature of Concepts by Reginald Firehammer In the brief introduction to concepts I explained that a concept is a complex consisting of two components, a word and a definition, and that its only function is to identify something which is isolated or indicated by the definition. What a concept identifies are existents, and existents can be anything: entities, events, qualities, relationships, or other concepts; concrete or abstract. Our simplest, and earliest, concepts identify existents we can directly perceive, things we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel both externally and internally. Such existents include objects, events, qualities,...

Introduction to Concepts The Building Blocks of Knowledge by Reginald Firehammer Not all our knowledge is absolutely certain, but much of it is, and all the knowledge we must have to live successfully and happily in this world we can know with absolute certainty. One barrier to knowledge is not knowing what knowledge itself is. The purpose of this introduction is to clear up from the beginning one major problem with all attempts to understand the nature of knowledge which is the confusion that surrounds the terminology that must be used in any discussion of knowledge or epistemology. It is...

Perception The Validity of Perceptual Evidence by Reginald Firehammer Knowledge begins with consciousness. I do not mean that consciousness is itself knowledge, but that if we are to know anything we must first be conscious of it. It is not enough just to be conscious, however, if it is to be capable of providing us knowledge. If what we are conscious of is not totally reliable and valid, no certain knowledge is possible. The validity of human consciousness, called perception, has been under continual assault throughout the history of philosophy. The first concerted assault is Plato's assertion that our consciousness...

Consciousness The Metaphysical Nature of Perception by Reginald Firehammer In philosophy, the study of the nature of knowledge is called epistemology. It is the most important branch of philosophy because it answers the most important question of all: what is knowledge? If that question is not answered correctly, all knowledge is in doubt, including all other philosophical knowledge. A better way to put the question, then, since knowledge must be assumed, is what do we know and how do we know it? The meaning of the word knowledge in epistemology is very specific. The words "knowledge" and "know" are used...

Monday, July 30, 2007 The Philosophical Legacy of Dietrich von Hildebrand posted by Shawn Tribe October 12 & 13, 2007 An International Conference Presented by The Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project and The M.A. Philosophy Program at Franciscan University Recent years have seen a renaissance in interest for the thought and personality of Dietrich von Hildebrand. The Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project, established in 2004, exists to encourage and stimulate this renewal, primarily by translating and publishing the writings of von Hildebrand in English, but also through sponsoring regular events to facilitate the wider reception of his many contributions....

Metatheory and Epistemological Issues: a Philosophical Approach to Communications By Kriztine Rosales-Viray Preliminary Remarks This paper is a lot complicated than any other papers and articles I have written about communication because of the following reasons: (1) Communication was ever since of my interest but epistemology was a no-no; (2) I never had any leaning neither proclivity for philosophical studies; (3) I found philosophy intricate and complex as its proponents. Thus, if there are some flaws or errors in the manuscript, my apology. Introduction Background. The real definition of philosophy is that it is a search for truth. In ordinary...

Our brains have become too small to understand math, says a rebel mathematician from Britain. Or rather, math problems have grown too big to fit inside our heads. And that means mathematicians are finally losing the power to prove things with absolute certainty. Math has been the only sure form of knowledge since the ancient Greeks, 2,500 years ago. You can't prove the sun will rise tomorrow, but you can prove two plus two equals four, always and everywhere. But suddenly, Brian Davies of King's College London is shaking the foundations of certainty. He says our brains can't grasp today's...

1. The Enlightenment Left and its Enemies   Throughout the twentieth century, certain segments of the Left have either downplayed the horrendous crimes of, or made common cause with, totalitarian tyrannies run by the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, Pol Pot, Ayatollah Khomeini, Milosevic, Saddam, et al. In such cases, Enlightenment principles of freedom, democracy and human rights were abandoned under some sort of delusion that the regimes in question represented “anti-imperialism”, a “new civilization”, a “political spirituality”, etc. The story is, or at least should be, well-known.   The pages here provide a survey of how...

Will Nice People (in the Matrix) Be Saved? by John Hendryx "We must not suppose that if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world." (C.S. Lewis) A reader recently responded to the above quote by Lewis with the following remark: "True, but at least there would be less hatred!" His answer is really how most of us naturally think. But helping to make people nice...

Home | Feedback | Links | Books A Theory of Creation A Response to the Pretense that No Creation Theory Exists © 2000 Timothy Wallace.  All Rights Reserved.  [Last Modified:  14 October 2002] A popular practice among many proponents of evolutionism—including the “regulars” at the Talk.Origins newsgroup—is to claim that “no one has ever presented a scientific theory of creation to us,”[1] without which they find it “impossible to objectively evaluate the idea of creation.”  They then hasten to confirm this by “evaluating” the idea of creation—without objectivity!  Such an approach to the topic of origins shall be shown below...

The other day I heard a woman talking to a group of people around her about the failures of science and the need to accept “other ways of knowing” as legitimate sources of truth. I was bothered not so much by the fact that she was saying it—lunacy and ignorance abound, after all, often densely concentrated in individuals—but because others around her were nodding their heads in agreement. I wondered to myself what these people—indeed what most people—understand of science, and what precisely was meant by an “other way of knowing.” The likely answer to both questions was very little....

On Plato, the Early Church, and Modern Science: An Eclectic Meditation By Jean F. Drew God, purposing to make the universe most nearly like the every way perfect and fairest of intelligible beings, created one visible living being, containing within itself all living beings of the same natural order. Thus does Plato (d. 347 B.C.) succinctly describe how all that exists is ultimately a single, living organism. At Timaeus20, he goes on to say: “There exists: first, the unchanging form, uncreated and indestructible, admitting no modification and entering no combination … second, that which bears the same name as the...

  PerceptionA Mistake at the Heart of Objectivist Epistemology Is Objectivism a closed or open system? The entire controversy over this question, which generates a lot of heat, but not so much light, seems a bit silly to me. I personally regard Objectivism to be the specific contribution to philosophy made by Ayn Rand, nothing more, and nothing less.The argument that philosophy is not a closed field is certainly correct but with regard to Objectivism, is irrelevant. Objectivism is not philosophy, it is a philosophy, it is not even a complete philosophy, it is only a contribution to the field....

Girl 'sees' broken bones Astounding ... Natasha Demkina By LUCY HAGANTHE SUN has brought the incredible X-ray eyes girl to Britain and seen her amazing powers at first hand. Russian Natasha Demkina, 17, has stunned doctors in her home country with her ability to see medical conditions inside people. We flew her 1,500 miles to London to demonstrate her extraordinary powers on Sun reporter Briony Warden, who suffered multiple injuries when she was knocked down by a car in October last year. She is still recovering from the hit-and-run and uses crutches or a wheelchair to get around. Before...