A new(?) way of looking at an old way of looking at things

[paulhope]

Consider this model: the "system" S is a (propositional, I guess) description of a domain and all its happenings. There's a set of operations which are the operations of reason--call them R

Comments

[doclabyrinth]

Conceiving of knowledge is dumb.

[paulhope]

Why?

[doclabyrinth]

I don't really have a basis for that claim.

Conceiving of it as a string seems just as good as any other way to conceive of it.

Are there any concrete implications of a choice between these two schools?

[paulhope]

Between rationalism and empiricism?

Well, neither of those labels are fully qualified by any stretch, but traditionally, the breakdown results in something like this:

- If you are a rationalist, you believe that there are universal truths about reality or math or ethics or beauty which you can discover with not too much trouble from your armchair and from which can can build the rest of your knowledge in comfort. You tend to be infallibilist about certain things, meaning you think there's no way you can possibly be wrong about certain things.

- If you are an empiricist, then you still believe in universal truths about a lot of things, but you can discover them only fallibly and through constant experimentation. At its extremes, this leads to skepticism, either because of the endless problem of the paucity of evidence, or because you believe that sense experience is not enough to derive certain kinds of knowledge (like moral knowledge).

That's a pretty good first pass.

[jeffrock]

Not that this has anything to do with your post, but reading the intro I was reminded that in the time since I more-or-less abandoned LJ-philosophizing I have come to believe that rationalism is really just a form of empiricism and that the real wedge in this debate lies between Platonism and positivism.

[paulhope]

What do you as the distinction between Platonism and positivism, and how is it different from the distinction between rationalism and empiricism?

[jeffrock]

Platonism => idealism and positivism => materialism, as far as I can tell. Rationalism, as you say, says that knowledge is rooted in reason, whereas empiricism says that it is rooted in experience, or "that which has been presented to us". An error of mine in the past has been to associate empiricism with materialism (a la the classical empiricism of David Hume). The thing is that at any given time our reason only has access to ideas which have been presented to us through some mode of experience-- the thing, and this stems from a Platonic idealist stance, is that we can also consider the "inner sense" as well as the outer ones, which suggests a different mode of experience (where the "objects" are simply ideas). For example, my knowledge of mathematics is empirical insomuch as it is certainly a form of experience through which I derive said knowledge. The catch is, of course, that the objects of mathematics are perceived inwardly as opposed to externally, and as you know, as a Platonist I will maintain that said mathematical

[anosognosia]

"An error of mine in the past has been to associate empiricism with materialism..."

Yeah, if anything it's the opposite. Empiricism really leads to idealism -- see Berkeley. The positivists and materialists are really very rationalist. You don't get the idea that everything "really is" bits of homogenous, unbreakable, unperceivable matter whizzing around by prioritizing our experience, which never gives us anything like this story.

[epictetus_rex]

Well, since K is uncomputable, that just about wraps it up for epistemology. ;)

[paulhope]

Rookie mistake.

[epictetus_rex]

Mistake? What do you mean? This is the most important result in epistemology ever! A meta-proof of the nonprovability of epistemological positions? GOLD!! PUBLISH that motherfucker!

[doclabyrinth]

and not a moment too soon!

I have no idea what you are talking about

[greebsnarf]

Does this mean I should get more high? Less high?

Re: I have no idea what you are talking about

[paulhope]

Less if you want to understand.
More if you want to think you understand.
Even more if you want to forget you ever read it?