Concepts and Percepts--Are They Different? Are They Certain?

Nathan,

In addition, I don't recall Ed ever actually addressing this issue: Is 'knowledge' only that which we have personally corroborated?
No.

I agree, but do we not then have to allow for "knowledge" which is less than certain?

No. My point was merely that the knowledge which others possess is real (a kind of anti-solipsism).

In principle, then, this includes almost all historical statements. Are you now allowing that "knowledge" might include DEGREES of certitude?

No. Knowing means knowing why or how it is that you know. Knowledge is not something that could ever be falsified--as opinions can. Here is our previous interaction ...

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17. I say 'existents' is a weak form of justification because, as I showed in other posts, the FACTUALITY of a True Belief (veridical concept) is insufficient justification if that belief were arbitrarily acquired.
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Right! And I say that that which is acquired by the dual-epistemological process appropriate to man (the marriage of perception and reason) is a conclusive justification of things. Something (FACTUALITY) that is only later found to be found factual, or "right"--was always true, but was not always knowledge. On this point, we seem to agree.

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18. So, you would not consider what we learn from encyclopedias to be "knowledge"?
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Much of what we learn from encyclopedias is merely expert opinion. Notable exceptions would be axiomatic concepts, empirical falsifications, logical deductions, openly subjective inferences (perspectives that are transparently explained as such), and most relational matters, such as the geological position of one landmark in relation to another.

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19. You point out that demanding omniscience before we call something knowledge (your pi example) is a fallacy, and I would point out that demanding certitude (your CJBT) before we call something knowledge is just as fallacious.
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Omniscience is not the standard, effective differentiation is. We can be certain (having certitude) of how something relates to other things (Canada north of Mexico, etc).

Post 201

Wednesday, May 25, 2005 - 9:12pm

Nathan,

You seem to be claiming that the problem of induction disappears if we apply the right DEDUCTIVE methods to it.

Is that a fair encapsulated assessment of your position?
I'm saying what Matson said: the problem of induction (as Hume had outlined it) rests on a mistake--the mistaken view of Hume (and many, many others) that we're limited to merely possessing perceptual powers of awareness (ie. limited to "remembering" the relative frequencies of events; aka: limited to mere enumerative "ability").

Ed

Post 202

Wednesday, May 25, 2005 - 9:27pm

Daniel,

Your "a priori zone" theory, where knowledge moves to after experience, seems to be a reply to Kant. However, it involves a basic misunderstanding, in that the whole meaning of "a priori" wrt Kant is that it is knowledge *prior* to, not after, experience - and that includes *any* experience by *any* human at *any* time. So obviously despite your intentions, your theory does not reply to Kant.

Daniel, the a priori zone is one of (a priori) understanding, not one of (a priori) knowledge. A priori knowledge is a contradiction in terms. A priori understanding is a new understanding of old facts and how they hang together (it is inherently relational).

An inductive process would be more like *observing a number of star shaped cookies* and then on that basis predicting ...

Merely "on that basis" (by enumeration?)? That is Humean induction. But Humean induction is an artifact that contradicts growing bodies of knowledge. Humean induction does not allow for the increasingly actualized understandings of scientists, for example (as I alluded to in my essay).

Ed

Post 203

Wednesday, May 25, 2005 - 9:34pm

Nathan,

Nathan, Hume's result applies not only to *absolutely certain* but to *likely* or *probable* too.

Which result? Applies how?

Are you saying that things cannot be known (using induction) with ANY degree of certainty or likeliness?

Yes Nathan, Daniel is calling the uniformity of nature into question. When one chooses to use only perceptual powers (perception, memory, and imagination), then this type of skepticism-solipsism slippery-slope is automatically entailed. To repeat a telling quote:

On this mistaken philosophical path, Adler puts it succinctly:
"If all we have are sense-perceptions and images derived from sense, then we can never be aware of anything but a particular triangle."

Post 204

Wednesday, May 25, 2005 - 9:42pm

Ed: I picked a tool (cookie cutter) because tools are that of which we NECESSARILY have mechanistic understanding� We DESIGN the mechanics to work, in general, in reality.�

In that case, the argument is quite different, viz: 1) Star-shaped cookie cutters produce star-shaped cookies; 2) this is a star-shaped cookie cutter; 3) therefore, all the cookies cut with this cookie cutter will be star-shaped. But that�s not an inductive argument, it�s a deductive one.

�Tools are special phenomena which can be--and often are--completely understood.�

But inductive arguments are supposed to take us beyond what we already know, not just confirm it. If we already had complete understanding of an issue � and if such a state were possible -- induction would be a pointless exercise.

Brendan

Post 205

Wednesday, May 25, 2005 - 9:58pm

Nathan,

This sort of tree, and its verbal equivalent, is invariably seductive to some. Unfortunately it is also often USELESS in the real world.

Agreed.

Some nonhumans are more rational than some humans.

Got proof?

Speech? Chimps are as capable as many humans who use sign language.

Got proof?

If you can show me how what you just said actually SOLVES the problem I posed above, I'll be impressed. I keep hearing people say "we just need to" do this or that for identificatory problems like this, but they never seem to get around to a demonstration.

How about 4 examples ...

Nathan, take any of the 4 examples of knowledge in this thread:

1) Morning Star-Evening Star-Venus
2) Helium-Sulfide
3) Living-Room-Ponies
4) Canada-North-of-Mexico

... and see if you can argue against them in a cogent manner--I think you cannot.

Remember, considering the pony, I had to first make it impossible to be wrong about it, and so I selectively utilized the 2 axioms (which limit what can be true of the world): Existence exists and Existence is Identity. This helped me to conceptualize that ponies take up space (and that they cannot ever cease to), and that rooms have limited space.

... ?

It fails because there is no "essense of chimp" to compare with an "essense of human."

I assume you mean metaphysical essence. The only viable candidate for a metaphysical essence is a thing's capacity for change (which, itself, never changes). Otherwise, we are deep into epistemology with the first communication of an essence. We are into known characteristics. We are into known relations among characteristics--both within and between particular objects. Saying that there is no essence is tantamount to saying that there is no relation between or among particulars, whether it is individual particulars, or groups of them (this is a wholly solipsistic view).

As I say, when someone can ACTUALLY do the defining they keep claiming is possible, I'll be impressed.

See above.

I don't actually regard the problem as all that difficult, but it is NOT solved by discovering the genetic cause of raven blackness. If that were true, then an albino raven would not actually be a raven even though descended from raven parentage.

Nathan, the Raven Paradox rests on a mistake, you can never get from the particular to the general (by mere enumeration), if you do not adequately understand the nature (the mechanics) of a property of something. I was not quite right in saying that science will "solve" the Raven Paradox--as it rests on a conceptual mistake. Science will only find the cause of the characteristic--it will not justify enumeration as a means to real knowledge (nothing can do that).

Ed

Post 206

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 12:00am

Brendan, see my post 202 reply to Daniel (it seems to answer your post 204 inquiry).

To define a new term ...
Induction-by-mechanistic-understanding: a new understanding of old particulars--or of a whole group of them (awareness of "particulars"--ie. perceptual awareness--precedes, but does not directly give rise to, conceptual awareness of a "grouping"--ie. a new a priori understanding of how said particulars can, or even must, "go together")

Ed

Post 207

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 12:22am

Ed:��awareness of "particulars"--ie. perceptual awareness--precedes, but does not directly give rise to, conceptual awareness of a "grouping"--ie. a new a priori understanding of how said particulars can, or even must, "go together")

You seem to have got it backwards. The a priori is a type of knowing that �precedes� -- is logically prior to/independent of -- observation. That�s why this type of knowing is called a priori � literally �what comes before�.

But taking your remarks at face value, if perceptual awareness does not give rise to a �new a priori understanding�, then what does give rise to this new form of understanding, and in what way is it different from knowledge?

Brendan

Post 208

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 1:39am

Brendan,

Perceptual powers of awareness--filtered through our conceptual faculty--afford knowledge of particulars, while conceptual powers--without any extra perceptual input--afford knowledge of generalities (relations). The increase in conceptual understanding--which I refer to as an increased a priori zone--comes without "increased" perceptions (ie. it comes purely conceptually; ie. a priori).

Knowledge of particulars (largely perceptually-derived) and knowledge of generalities (conceptually-derived) are the 2 main kinds of knowledge. The one allows for the identification of the existence of particulars; the other for the identification of the existence of relations among particulars.

Ed

Post 209

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 6:26am

I'd like to ask a question, for people who like to watch their insights coruscate only in their imaginations (Ed stands out in this regard - I'm waiting for a major philosophical peer reviewed publication from him):

Please be honest - has any of this rumination on the nature of knowledge improved your understanding of anything that has made a tangible difference to your lives. If so, how?

You'll find that anything of practical value you are studying has often been studied far more practically and usefully by psychologists and cognitive scientists.

Post 210

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 9:36am

Abolaji: "Please be honest - has any of this rumination on the nature of knowledge improved your understanding of anything that has made a tangible difference to your lives. If so, how?"

Bravo Abolaji.

Post 211

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 10:23am

Jeff,

I've read that stuff plenty, thank you very much. The authors -- and probably you as well -- do not appear to understand or appreciate the problem of induction. The problem of induction does not dissolve if we hold essence as epistemic rather than metaphysical (although positing epistemic essense does get rid of other problems). But you're welcome to (politely) persuade me of otherwise.

Ed,

Hume's problem doesn't depend on his view that the mind has perceptive but not conceptual powers. Hume's problem depends on our non-omniscience. Plenty of folks who fail to surmount Hume do accept that our mind has conceptual powers. That is, they accept that we can reason by analogy, classify objects, contemplate possibilities without acting them out, etc. In short, they acknowledge that we can abstract and imagine. But abstraction and imagination don't help us escape the problem of induction.

Again, what your view appears to do is broaden or narrow a category after observing things that you'd like to keep or exclude from it. Again, categorization is no substitute for prediction, and the problem of induction is all about prediction.

-Jordan

Post 212

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 11:08am

Laj, thanks so much for your vocal appreciation of my talented earnest!

Jordan, Matson's helium-sulfide argument validly GENERALIZES to all the relevant atoms--ie. it successfully predicts their behavior. Now, with this counter-example in mind, your only defense seems to be for you to then say that Hume's problem is not about GENERALIZATION--is that your response to this contradiction I've marshalled?

p.s. Regarding the vocal acceptance of the prospect of conceptual prowess, what is said and what is done are 2 different things. A great example would be the axioms.

A common saying may be something like: "Everybody believes in all the axioms--they're banal." Yet those same folks will often be found championing things such as:

-Cartesian Dualism (where mind is a distinct entity)--which violates the primacy of existence

-Vulgar Materialism (where mind does not exist)--which violates consciousness

-omnipotence, omniscience, or infinity--which all violate identity

-Creationism--which violates existence and consciousness

It's not enough to verbally acknowledge axioms, Jordan (or the prospect of conceptual prowess, for that matter), these aspects of reality have got to be integrated into behavior, without contradiction. Saying something's true, and acting on acknowledged truth--are 2 different things.

Ed

Post 213

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 1:44pm

Hi Ed,

Jordan, Matson's helium-sulfide argument validly GENERALIZES to all the relevant atoms--ie. it successfully predicts their behavior.

Matson's argument doesn't predict anything. It just says that if we observe an atom with atomic number 16, then it'll be sulfer, and if we observe an atom without atomic number 16, then it won't be sulfer. That's categorization, not prediction.

As I recall, Matson goes on to say that an atom with an atomic number of 16 can't combine with an atom with atomic number 2. Hume would respond: how do you know? Matson would have to reply: (1) Because I've observed what I call helium and what I call sulfer, and I've observed the two together many many times, and they've never combined. This of course easily falls prey to the problem of induction. Just because they didn't combine before, doesn't mean they won't tomorrow. The fact that his prediction, thus far, has corresponded to observation 100% doesn't necessarily mean they will in the future.Or (2) Matson might insist that "not combining with an atom with no valence shell" is a necessary characteristic of sulfer. Then he could engage in categorizing again by saying that if an atom with no valence shell combined with an atom with a valence shell, then those two atoms wouldn't be sulfer and helium. But this doesn't tell us anything new. It's not induction. And it doesn't overcome Hume's problem.

It's not enough to verbally acknowledge axioms, Jordan (or the prospect of conceptual prowess, for that matter), these aspects of reality have got to be integrated into behavior, without contradiction. Saying something's true, and acting on acknowledged truth--are 2 different things.

I haven't mentioned axioms, but since you brought them up, noting that existence exists doesn't tell us that existents behave regularly as opposed to irradically. Noting that things have identity doesn't tell us what they will do next, only whether they'll cease to exist under various conditions (e.g., a bachelor ceases to exist the moment he gets married; a rectangle ceases to exist the moment one of its angles changes from 90 degrees). And noting that consciousness exists doesn't tell us how things will behave, only that they exist and have identity. Incidentally, axioms are most helpful when categorizing -- they help delimit categorization.

Jordan

Post 214

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 2:12pm

Ed,

In addition, I don't recall Ed ever actually addressing this issue: Is 'knowledge' only that which we have personally corroborated?
No.

I agree, but do we not then have to allow for "knowledge" which is less than certain?
No. My point was merely that the knowledge which others possess is real (a kind of anti-solipsism).

We're not talking about the knowledge of "others," but about knowledge itself.

The question is obviously, "Can we call something we believe 'knowledge' if we have not personally verified it?"

If yes, then we each have knowledge, like that of astronauts walking on the moon, that is less than certain.

If no, then we each have very little which actually qualifies as knowledge.

Which is it, yes or no?

In principle, then, this includes almost all historical statements. Are you now allowing that "knowledge" might include DEGREES of certitude?
No. Knowing means knowing why or how it is that you know. Knowledge is not something that could ever be falsified--as opinions can. Here is our previous interaction ...

Sigh. Many Objectivists do LOVE their certitude. This is gonna be a long, tough sell.

I've deleted the remainder as mere repetition, Ed. If you just answer the question above, yes or no--or 'I don't know'--without recourse to papering over a nonanswer with verbiage, we'll make some progress.

If you do NOT answer that question, that will also be evident.

Nathan Hawking

Post 215

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 2:44pm

Ed,

You seem to be claiming that the problem of induction disappears if we apply the right DEDUCTIVE methods to it.

Is that a fair encapsulated assessment of your position?
I'm saying what Matson said: the problem of induction (as Hume had outlined it) rests on a mistake--the mistaken view of Hume (and many, many others) that we're limited to merely possessing perceptual powers of awareness (ie. limited to "remembering" the relative frequencies of events; aka: limited to mere enumerative "ability").

Sigh. That's utter baloney.

Five minutes worth of research shows that Hume understood that we use conceptual processes, and does NOT limit us to 'perceptual powers of awareness.'

He simply identified that some of our knowledge uses deductive reasoning, and that much of our other knowledge, less certain, uses A PROCESS OF CONCEPT FORMATION we call induction.

Take the 'laws' of physics. Do you have ANY deductive justification for the belief that they will operate tomorrow exactly as they operate today? No. Your belief is entirely INDUCTIVE:

Premise: The laws of physics don't seem to have changed in the past.

Premise: Things which behave uniformly in the past tend to behave the same way in the future.

Conclusion: The laws of physics will [probably] operate the same way in the future.

Many of the premises you use for your "certain" deductive conclusions have a multitide of implicit, smuggled-in assumptions based upon INDUCTIVE reasoning.

Whether you're aware of it or not.

Dismissing induction with a 'that's just perceptual' is nothing more than a wave of the hand. Your inability to DEDUCTIVELY justify the laws of physics (among many other things) demonstrates that.

Nathan Hawking

Post 216

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 2:54pm

Ed,

Daniel:

Nathan, Hume's result applies not only to *absolutely certain* but to *likely* or *probable* too.

Nathan:

Which result? Applies how?

Are you saying that things cannot be known (using induction) with ANY degree of certainty or likeliness?

Ed:

Yes Nathan, Daniel is calling the uniformity of nature into question. When one chooses to use only perceptual powers (perception, memory, and imagination), then this type of skepticism-solipsism slippery-slope is automatically entailed.

Well, I look forward to his response.

I've questioned the "uniformity of nature" as well, but more precisely, our ability to know it with deductive certainty.

I say we know it, to a HIGH degree of certainty, using inductive methods.

Moreover, it does NOT 'automatically' entail the 'slippery-slope of hard skepticism' boogeyman.

On this mistaken philosophical path, Adler puts it succinctly:
"If all we have are sense-perceptions and images derived from sense, then we can never be aware of anything but a particular triangle."

Whom do you imagine is actually claiming that's "all we have"?

Specifically.

Nathan Hawking

Post 217

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 3:14pm

Ed:

This sort of tree, and its verbal equivalent, is invariably seductive to some. Unfortunately it is also often USELESS in the real world.
Agreed.

LOL. We may actually agree on much more than our conversations would suggest.

Some nonhumans are more rational than some humans.
Got proof?

Speech? Chimps are as capable as many humans who use sign language.

Got proof?

Ed, I've posted links and references to proof of this many times in this and other threads.

You can lead a horse to water...

Now, if it was me, and someone made claims which so fundamentally undercut an argument I was making, and posted references several times, I think I'd be DYING to check it out. But maybe that's just me.

I won't post links to evidence here. I'll save the details for a forthcoming article. But nothing is preventing you from finding your own way to the plethora of primate and bird studies. Look up a parrot named Alex and a gorilla named Koko on Wikipedia for starters, and follow the off-site links. Apply the same standards to their abilities, vis-a-vis what they indicate, that you would apply to human children.

NH:

If you can show me how what you just said actually SOLVES the problem I posed above, I'll be impressed. I keep hearing people say "we just need to" do this or that for identificatory problems like this, but they never seem to get around to a demonstration.
How about 4 examples ...
ET:

Nathan, take any of the 4 examples of knowledge in this thread:

1) Morning Star-Evening Star-Venus
2) Helium-Sulfide
3) Living-Room-Ponies
4) Canada-North-of-Mexico

...

That's the usual response, Ed. The proponent points to a trivial problem and declares the unsolved problem solved. Sorry, shell games are not permitted.

I notice that you snipped the problem I posed. That certainly facilitates an intellectual disconnect, but neither is that acceptable.

Restated:

NH:

PROBLEM: Now tell us, without referring to lineage, which differentia make one being a pan and another a homo sapiens?

Rationality? Chimps are rational.
Bipedalism? Chimps can use their feet alone, and some people are born without them.
Anatomy? Some human are born with unusual anatomy.
Speech? Chimps are as capable as many humans who use sign language.
If you cannot, that should be sending you a signal that your concept-formation by classification has some serious defects and/or limitations.

Now, are you actually going to solve THIS problem, or point to a trivial straw-problem again?

It fails because there is no "essense of chimp" to compare with an "essense of human."
I assume you mean metaphysical essence. ... Saying that there is no essence is tantamount to saying that there is no relation between or among particulars, whether it is individual particulars, or groups of them (this is a wholly solipsistic view).

The problem you avoided, above, is your means of demonstating what you just said.

As I say, when someone can ACTUALLY do the defining they keep claiming is possible, I'll be impressed.
See above.

I just saw a loquacious defense of essentialism, but absolutely NO evidence. I'm not impressed.

If you wish to impress me, ACTUALLY solve the simple chimp-human problem I stated above, don't just keep proclaiming it solvable.

I don't actually regard the problem as all that difficult, but it is NOT solved by discovering the genetic cause of raven blackness. If that were true, then an albino raven would not actually be a raven even though descended from raven parentage.
Nathan, the Raven Paradox rests on a mistake, you can never get from the particular to the general (by mere enumeration), if you do not adequately understand the nature (the mechanics) of a property of something. I was not quite right in saying that science will "solve" the Raven Paradox--as it rests on a conceptual mistake. Science will only find the cause of the characteristic--it will not justify enumeration as a means to real knowledge (nothing can do that).

To repeat: Ed, you apparently don't actually grasp that the purported paradox entails more than the nature of ravens or reasoning from the particular to the general. Wikipedia has a decent article on the subject.

Nathan Hawking

Post 218

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 4:17pm

Abolaji:

I'd like to ask a question, for people who like to watch their insights coruscate only in their imaginations (Ed stands out in this regard - I'm waiting for a major philosophical peer reviewed publication from him):

LOL

In my experience, people who use the word 'coruscate' are coruscating.

(You had that one coming, you know.)

I don't appreciate your snotty, condescending remark about Ed. Appearance in "major philosophical peer reviewed publication[s]" says nothing about someone's ideas.

After all, your nonsensical, doubletalk "compatibilist determinist" 180-degree redefinition of volition, choice, and freedom as circumstances where the inevitable happens has doubtless appeared in such publications.

Please be honest - has any of this rumination on the nature of knowledge improved your understanding of anything that has made a tangible difference to your lives. If so, how?

The first thing I notice is that you're here reading and posting. One wonders, if this makes no tangible difference in YOUR life, your apparent implication, why YOU would be doing so.

To answer your question, at least in part, understanding these things has made a tangible difference in my life.

To reveal HOW would be to get more personal than I wish, however. Suffice it to say that these subjects are the tip of the iceberg, and how we perceive the iceberg is determined in no small measure by how we understand the nature of ice.

Beyond that, I have no wish to quarrel on the value of these discussions. The fact that I'm here is enough.

You'll find that anything of practical value you are studying has often been studied far more practically and usefully by psychologists and cognitive scientists.

And you believe that these individuals operate in a philosophical vacuum?

Nathan Hawking

Post 219

Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 4:22pm