Epistemological Ponderings
One thing I've pondered many a time involves points of disagreement with Objectivism. A lot of my friends bear somewhat similiar philosophies to mine, and as I've discussed them further, I find even more agreement, as well as a better notion of the point of disagreement. Usually, I've been finding, it's one fundational point that they disagree with, and that causes all the other higher level issues. To some extent, I've wondered where this disagreement lies with me and religious people, and to another, I've wondered if all the people who I find close to my philosophy possible disagree with me on the same point.
On the religious aspect, you could say that they believe in God, and I don't. I've never found this to be the fundamental difference however, as I've never found people to just believe in God. For any belief, there is a psychological explanation for it. Ultimately, I think the explanation must be psychological, but the point of disagreement will be philosophical. In this case, I think the point of disagreement is what counts as knowledge, and the psychological reasons for this disagreement can be extremely varied.
With the people who I've been studying, those who have somewhat similar philosophies, I find that again, the problem fundamentally lies in epistemology, which is weird. My business partner, Mike, agrees with like 90% of Objectivism, but can't accept it as a whole. We've talked about where the disagreement lies, and have narrowed it down to concept formation and, of course, what counts as knowledge.
I believe that concepts are mental constructions that refer to an innumerable amount of entities. They are constructed out of a larger group based on some similarity, which becomes the differentia, or the essense of the concept. As time passes, we may refine the essense, find a more accurate defining characteristic that better captures the group we want to isolate form the larger one. So the essense is not fixed for any given concept. But the characteristic chosen must be the best given our context of knowledge, so it must satisfy certain criteria. The characteristic may change, but it's not arbitrary, in other words.
What else is there to believe? From what I've gathered, Plato had one of the earliest explanations of concepts, which he refered to as ideals. Somehow, every entity in this world was an instance of an abstract ideal, differing from it in possibly many unknowable ways, but all attempting to approximate it. Actually, I'm not sure "unknowable" is the correct term, but presonally, I don't see how we could know anything about ideals the way he's defined it.
Simutaneously, I believe Aristotle tried to determine concepts in terms of metaphysical essenses. So, he too believed that concepts refered to a subgroup of entities out of a larger group, but that the concept refered to this subgroup by means of some metaphysical essense the subgroup had intrinstically, or independent of man. This contradicts the Objectivist viewpoint as the defining characteristic of a concept is very much dependent on man. Some concepts are defined in terms of the roles the objects play in our lives, for example. I don't see how that could be reduced to some sort of metaphysical essense for the entities involved.
In any case, it's a tough thing to explain, why the Objectivist view is right, the others wrong. For me, I just introspect and see that the world is a certain way, but its much harder to explain it and argue for it. So, in the meantime, I ponder if all philosophical disagreements somehow boil down to epistemology, and some sort of fundamental disagreement as to the nature of knowledge and what counts as knowledge. If so, then understanding this stuff could really benefit me and the people I care about. If not, well, then it's a start at least to understanding how people reason.
Either way, I want to know more.
On the religious aspect, you could say that they believe in God, and I don't. I've never found this to be the fundamental difference however, as I've never found people to just believe in God. For any belief, there is a psychological explanation for it. Ultimately, I think the explanation must be psychological, but the point of disagreement will be philosophical. In this case, I think the point of disagreement is what counts as knowledge, and the psychological reasons for this disagreement can be extremely varied.
With the people who I've been studying, those who have somewhat similar philosophies, I find that again, the problem fundamentally lies in epistemology, which is weird. My business partner, Mike, agrees with like 90% of Objectivism, but can't accept it as a whole. We've talked about where the disagreement lies, and have narrowed it down to concept formation and, of course, what counts as knowledge.
I believe that concepts are mental constructions that refer to an innumerable amount of entities. They are constructed out of a larger group based on some similarity, which becomes the differentia, or the essense of the concept. As time passes, we may refine the essense, find a more accurate defining characteristic that better captures the group we want to isolate form the larger one. So the essense is not fixed for any given concept. But the characteristic chosen must be the best given our context of knowledge, so it must satisfy certain criteria. The characteristic may change, but it's not arbitrary, in other words.
What else is there to believe? From what I've gathered, Plato had one of the earliest explanations of concepts, which he refered to as ideals. Somehow, every entity in this world was an instance of an abstract ideal, differing from it in possibly many unknowable ways, but all attempting to approximate it. Actually, I'm not sure "unknowable" is the correct term, but presonally, I don't see how we could know anything about ideals the way he's defined it.
Simutaneously, I believe Aristotle tried to determine concepts in terms of metaphysical essenses. So, he too believed that concepts refered to a subgroup of entities out of a larger group, but that the concept refered to this subgroup by means of some metaphysical essense the subgroup had intrinstically, or independent of man. This contradicts the Objectivist viewpoint as the defining characteristic of a concept is very much dependent on man. Some concepts are defined in terms of the roles the objects play in our lives, for example. I don't see how that could be reduced to some sort of metaphysical essense for the entities involved.
In any case, it's a tough thing to explain, why the Objectivist view is right, the others wrong. For me, I just introspect and see that the world is a certain way, but its much harder to explain it and argue for it. So, in the meantime, I ponder if all philosophical disagreements somehow boil down to epistemology, and some sort of fundamental disagreement as to the nature of knowledge and what counts as knowledge. If so, then understanding this stuff could really benefit me and the people I care about. If not, well, then it's a start at least to understanding how people reason.
Either way, I want to know more.