Metaphysical Realism as Epistemological Disease
Diagnosis: One can interpret our demonstrable failure to make metaphysically real claims as an argument for epistemological skepticism (a la Rorty or our LJ friends who think we can only know “what works”), or we can interpret it as an argument for epistemological constructivism (a la Kant and Hegel). Rorty buys into the widespread, uncritical,
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The other thing to note about Rorty is that while he has a pragmatic theory of truth, he is not a "pragmatist" in the common sense of the term. The correspondence-theory of truth, while not necessarily a total philosophical success, has enormous pragmatic applications throughout the human race, and is probably one of the most useful beliefs we have. How could an organism survive or develop without operating under the basic assumption that the things it believes correspond in some way to its environment? What impetus towards science would there be in an organism which did not believe that it was regularly encountering a reality which contained facts?
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And what I'm arguing is that he's right insofar as he denies that it is possible to have knowledge of the mind-independent real as it is in itself, but he's wrong to assert that this is the only or even the best normative standard of cognition. He's neglecting the alternative pursued by Kant and Hegel: empirical realism.
How could an organism survive or develop without operating under the basic assumption that the things it believes correspond in some way to its environment? What impetus towards science would there be in an organism which did not believe that it was regularly encountering a reality which contained facts?I disagree with you. I don't think it's indispensible to survival at all. Representationalist epistemology is a relatively recent phenomenon, coming on the scene for the first time with Descartes. So unless we developed into a new species ( ... )
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How would you characterize epistemology before Descartes?
I think you're confusing the abstract, philosophical standpoint with the standpoint of lived experience. The two things are quite different.
I think that one of the insights of pragmatism (the old kind) and the pragmatic method was to try to eliminate this difference by making lived experience the generative locus of normativity.
If I reflect upon what I'm doing and theorize it, I'm liable to wrap my car around a tree.While this may be true, I think the argument preceding this line is a rhetorical one. Lived experience is not as starkly separated from reflection as you make it out to be. Certainly I can reflect on driving a car or making a sandwich at some point and in a way that's important (if not essential) to my lived experience, reflect on my beliefs in a way that's important to my lived experience, and so on up to what is arguably philosophical ( ... )
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What about Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature?
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But if Kant and Hegel are right, it's possible to provide universal and necessary answers to these philosophical questions without having to do that, by remaining "immanent" to the human perspective.
Surely we can have our differences about whether or not they were successful. But I think it's difficult to deny that the project itself, if successful, would be immensely interesting.
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Empirical realism is the middle road. Or at least it's one middle road available, once we don't have to choose between simple binary opposites like real and ideal. This is the lesson Fichte and Hegel are trying to teach.
For instance, how the world appears to us tends to work in getting us around in the metaphysically real world, whatever it may be like.
How do you know that?
First of all, what's the proof that "getting around" works, even in the limited sense of getting around the reality immanent to our experience? We're fairly limited in what we can do, even compared to many animals, and dangers abound. We're suited to some things in the world, and unsuited to a great many others.
Secondly, even if you assume that we're suited to some things in the world as experienced, it doesn't follow from this that we're suited to some problematic conception of reality beyond experience. I mean, if you weren't suited to it, how would you know? Unless what we've observed so far is wrong, it's not like ( ... )
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um, serious?
First of all, what's the proof that "getting around" works, even in the limited sense of getting around the reality immanent to our experience? We're fairly limited in what we can do, even compared to many animals, and dangers abound. We're suited to some things in the world, and unsuited to a great many others.i guess you are. well, the successes we have in finding food, building bridges, getting robots to mars, curing polio, mapping genomes, ad infinitum. if you really want to question whether we're able to successfully navigate the world, you've got the entire history of evolution, science, and culture working against you ( ... )
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The question isn't whether or not human beings can fix cars or build skyscrapers. The question is whether or not being able to do these things enables us to speak intelligently about a metaphysical reality -- that is to say, a reality that is entirely divorced from cars, skyscrapers, and all the other empirical objects we're familiar with. It doesn't, as far as I can tell, and you've given us no reason to think that it ever could.
it is the world beyond experience that impinges upon our sensory systems. it is the world beyond experience that we interaction with through our motor functions.What? If it "impinges upon our sensory systems", it can be observed or inferred by experience. That makes it empirical, not ( ... )
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Why are people still on this subject? Oh yes, the Cartesian hangover and all that jazz...
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Only in West Michigan...
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