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Monday
May 15, 2006

Philosophy's Vertical Time-line: Absence of Paradigm-shift by Ed Thompson

Science is often said to have undergone 'paradigm shifts.' A telling example would be the shift from the Ptolemaic (geocentric) view of the cosmos to the Copernicus-discovered, Galileo-confirmed, heliocentric model. The question can be asked whether philosophy has undergone -- or is even capable of undergoing -- such a paradigm shift. This essay seeks to answer that question. (Read more...)
Discuss this Article (30 messages)

Monday, May 15, 2006 - 7:36pm

One thing that I didn't make clear enough with the essay ...

... is that the vertical time-line is like a thread through time, tethering down what can come of future philosophy. The basic questions have only limited possible answers -- and this is what prevents a truly revolutionary change in philosophy (such as the geo-centric / heliocentric change).

Another way to say this is that -- because philosophers today wrestle with many of the same basic questions (and do so with many of the same basic premises) -- there is actually a limitation to what can be philosophically true; or, at least, a RELATIVE limitation, compared to what can be true of the special sciences.

Finally, it is possible for many of the special sciences to be turned on their heads (psychology and quantum mechanics are good examples). It is not similarly possible for philosophy to be turned on its head -- and this has to do with it's generality and the vertical timeline of truth (ie. timeless truth).

Ed

Monday, May 15, 2006 - 9:47pm

(Edited by Newberry on 5/15, 10:36pm)

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 1:21am

A talking point from this essay ...

It is not possible that -- say; tomorrow -- a new philosophy will supplant Objectivism (see essay for details).

Ed

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 10:50am

I don't understand what you mean by "active" and "passive." What little I understand of the history of philosophy is enough to raise questions. Plato's account of knowledge as the mind's striving, as best it can, toward direct knowledge of the forms would seem to me to make it active. So would Kant's account of the mind's understanding reality by imposing its built-in categories, yet you call both their theories passive.
On the other hand, when Aristotle explains knowledge as the receiving of a thing's form in our sense organs (for perception) or our intellect (for conceptual understanding), that would seem to me to be passive. Or have I misunderstood?

Peter

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 11:08am

Peter, it actually boils down to accrual of conceptual knowledge, and the "passives" act like the accrual is a perceptual process, while the "actives" act like the accrual is a conceptual process. Here's an example of this fact of reality.

Ed

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 3:46pm

Ed T. wrote:

Peter, it actually boils down to accrual of conceptual knowledge, and the "passives" act like the accrual is a perceptual process, while the "actives" act like the accrual is a conceptual process. Here's an example of this fact of reality.

Ed's example points to Locke. The contents of perception per Locke are passive in that we don't control how we perceive things (ECHU II, i, 25), and we cannot create simple ideas (ECHU II, ii, 2). However, Locke's description of reflection is NOT a passive activity. For example, see ECHU II, xii, 1-2 and ECHU III, iii, 13.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 4:00pm

I can see how this applies to Locke and to Rand, but I still wonder about some of the others. Aristotle (as I recall the De Anima) would seem to qualify as passive with his notion that the processes of acquiring perceptual and conceptual knowledge are alike in that both consist of acquiring something's (Aristotelian) form, in our sense organs in one case and our intellect in the other. Plato's notion (v. Phaedo) that we get conceptual knowledge by striving away from perception, insofar as we can, toward the (Platonic) forms, would seem to make him an activist as you explain the distinction. Finally, I can't imagine how this applies to Kant. Guess I need more facts of reality.

Peter

Wednesday, May 17, 2006 - 11:08pm

Peter, here's a half-hearted answer to your curiosities ...

I can see how this applies to Locke and to Rand, but I still wonder about some of the others. Aristotle (as I recall the De Anima) would seem to qualify as passive with his notion that the processes of acquiring perceptual and conceptual knowledge are alike in that both consist of acquiring something's (Aristotelian) form, in our sense organs in one case and our intellect in the other.

Yeah, Aristotle didn't -- completely -- break-free from Platonism (he just made great strides in the right direction). In this sense, Aristotle's form-as-the-(somehow)-knowable-essence-of-a-thing is a big step up from Platonic Forms (or Ideas). His realization that individuals are all that, primarily, exist; and his correspondence theory of truth, along with his excellent first step at defining things in terms of Genus and Species (and then cataloguing them as such) -- provided the groundwork man needed in order to use his mind actively.

To paraphrase Rand, never has the whole of living society owed so much to a single human being.

Plato's notion (v. Phaedo) that we get conceptual knowledge by striving away from perception, insofar as we can, toward the (Platonic) forms, would seem to make him an activist as you explain the distinction.

But "away from perception" uncouples the root of the tree of concepts that man has to actively climb. An 'active' imagination is no substitute for the active conceptual discernment of the things of reality.

Finally, I can't imagine how this applies to Kant. Guess I need more facts of reality.

Maybe not more facts, but better integration of the "known." Let's roll out the Kant quotes (drum roll) ...

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I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.
============

Sounds "lazy-minded" -- wouldn't you agree?

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I have no knowledge of myself as I am, but merely as I appear to myself.
============

So ... what does that mean? Knowledge IS (perceptual) "appearance." And we're supposed to take that on faith from a guy who admits that he does not even know his own thoughts -- but only of what his thoughts appear to be to him??? And what of these appearances? Can they be 'known' -- or do we have only an appearance of the appearance of his thoughts, ad nauseum?

Now, just imagine if I had made this a 'whole-hearted' answer.

;-)

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/17, 11:10pm)

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/17, 11:12pm)

Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 3:18pm

Ed,

I think Rand's position is a little more complicated. As far as consciousness goes, man is metaphysically passive but epistemologically active. Now you did tell us that you were "Utilizing the subject of Epistemology" so you may ask why I brought the distinction up. Simply to show the similarity between Rand and Kant. For Kant man is metaphysically passive but epistemologically active. One can see this if one remembers Kant problematic, to wit; how can man have synthetic a priori knowledge of a reality he did not create? If this is correct, then one cannot consider Kant epistemologically passive. In fact, Kelley claims in EVIDENCE OF THE SENSES that Kant is toooooo active! I disagree and have detailed my reply in chapter 4 of my book AYN RAND, OBJECTIVISTS AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.

And I was shocked to see you put Hegel down as "passive." The usual rap against him is that, as Absolute Idealist, he actively creates all of reality!! (Recall Rand remark about "triple somersaults inside [Hegel's] head.) Now while I think this is unfair to Hegel, it certainly would seem to place him in the "active" column.

Fred

Thursday, May 18, 2006 - 11:11pm

Fred (the 'doctor') Seddon,

Thanks for the response, Doc. In my essay I should have demarcated -- instead of passive vs. active -- perceptual vs. conceptual. What the "passives" don't get is that conceptual awareness is a conceptual process. For them, conceptual awareness -- as distinguished from perceptual awareness -- is a perceptual process.

Another way to say this is that man doesn't have a mind, in the objectively-correct sense of the term (but merely an inner sense organ, capable only of perceptual awareness). This is what Rand alluded to with the following phrase ...

===============
Kant and Hegel and all the worst destroyers of the mind, of individualism, of freedom, had to claim that there is a higher reality, a higher reason, a higher freedom. They don't dare proclaim that men are better off without their heads. --Ayn Rand Answers, p 167
===============

So, in this new sense (the one I should have used in the essay), Kant and Hegel take the mind to be an organ of perception (capable of sense-perception, memory, imagination, and crude -- ie. non-logical -- associations). Here are some Hegel quotes to show this noncontradictory integration of the facts of reality ...

"It remains for philosophy in its own element of intelligible unity to get hold of what was thus given as a mental image, and what implicitly is the ultimate reality ..." -- Encyclopaedia, trans. W. Wallace, 384

Here, Hegel is saying that something is "given" as a mental "image" (note the passive, perceptual nature of these 2 things) -- and that thinking is merely the job of getting hold of (read: perceiving) the mental images inside our minds. Pretty clear to me. And here's Hegel slipping into Kant's (blind-because-I-have-eyes) epistemological quicksand ...

"For if knowledge is the instrument by which to get hold of absolute Reality, it is obvious that the application of an instrument to anything does not leave it as it is for itself, but rather entails in the process, and has in view, a moulding and alteration of it.

If, on the other hand, knowledge is not an instrument which we actively employ, but a more or less passive medium through which the light of truth reaches us, then again we do not receive the truth as it is in itself, but only as it exists through and in this medium." --Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller, p 46

Here, Hegel is saying that there is a conundrum. And -- if Hegel had actually been correct in his presumption that truth is something that is passively "received" by man's mind -- then there WOULD be a conundrum, instead of this false dichotomy (a dichotomy that only troubles folks who see the mind as a purely perceptual organ, like Hegel did).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 5/18, 11:14pm)

Friday, May 19, 2006 - 12:25pm

Ed,

Some food for thought. You wrote �Kant and Hegel take the mind to be an organ of perception� but did you know that Rand used to define reason as �the faculty that PERCEIVES, identifies and integrates the material provided by man�s senses.� (Atlas Shrugged 1016) According to Branden, (in a conversation we had at the TOC summer seminar in 2004) he pointed out to her that reason does not �perceive� and that word was then dropped from the official definition on July 17, 1962. For details, see footnote 97 in my book AYN RAND, OBJECTIVISTS AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. So if Rand once thought that reason was a perceiving faculty, maybe, just maybe, we could cut Kant and Hegel some slack.

As to Hegel. He is really tough. Since he is a dialectical thinker, he is extremely difficult to quote, since what he says on p. 46 may not represent his final thoughts on the matter at hand. (Then again it might�and that can be tricky) But let me take a crack at your reference to p.46 of Hegel�s PHENOMENOLOGY.

You write, �And here's Hegel slipping into Kant's (blind-because-I-have-eyes) epistemological quicksand ...�

But I think you get it exactly backwards. Here, on p. 47, Hegel is actually attacking Kant�s position. I first become aware of this via Kelley�s book THE EVIDENCE OF THE SENSES, fn. 45 on p. 39. Actually Hegel is attacking all of those philosophers who distrust reason until it passes a Critique (and this includes Locke as well�cf. the opening section of ECHU).
Hegel�s position seems to be that in order to do a Critique of reason, we have to do the Critique using reason�which we are trying to Critique. This begs the question. We have to distrust reason to suspect she needs a Critique, but at the same time we have to trust her to do a good job of Critiquing. Bullshit says Hegel. This is bad because it leads us to a �mistrust of Science.� (47) Prior to any Critique, science, �in the absence of such scruples gets on with the work itself.� (47)

And look at the following quotation that you give.

�If, on the other hand, knowledge is not an instrument which we actively employ, but a more or less passive medium through which the light of truth reaches us, then again we do not receive the truth as it is in itself, but only as it exists through and in this medium.�

This is (a small bit of) Hegel�s critique of the �diaphaneous model� that Kelley is as pains to critique, albeit much later in history. So you can actually read Hegel as on our side. (Well, maybe that�s a bit of a stretch! Tee hee.)

You write,

�Here, Hegel is saying that there is a conundrum.�

But it is a conundrum only for those attackers or critiquers of reason like Locke and Kant. Hegel will have non of this. Reason is fine, thank you very much. Now let�s get on with our work.

Fred

Friday, May 19, 2006 - 1:59pm

Fred, great response.

I vaguely remembered the Rand thing.

=============
So if Rand once thought that reason was a perceiving faculty, maybe, just maybe, we could cut Kant and Hegel some slack.
=============

Doc, I'm not saying that these past philosophers were total idiots (they were among the geniuses of THEIR day) -- I'm saying that they were wrong (and showing WHY).

=============
As to Hegel. He is really tough.
=============

Ain't that the whole ... er, I mean the truth.

=============
You write, �And here's Hegel slipping into Kant's (blind-because-I-have-eyes) epistemological quicksand ...�

But I think you get it exactly backwards.
=============

Well, I admit I WROTE it backwards. I had noticed Hegel's 'breaking free' from this conundrum., too -- I just don't like his solution (he doesn't recognize that the actual solution to the conundrum as proposed -- is the recognition of an active, conceptual awareness in man, not a mere defense of the proper manipulation of images in the mind).

Ed

Friday, May 19, 2006 - 2:23pm

Hi Fred,

You wrote:

Hegel�s position seems to be that in order to do a Critique of reason, we have to do the Critique using reason�which we are trying to Critique. This begs the question. We have to distrust reason to suspect she needs a Critique, but at the same time we have to trust her to do a good job of Critiquing. Bullshit says Hegel.

But what is Reason in Hegel's view? It is a series of flip-flops so numerous it would put Lindsay Perigo and Diana Hsieh combined to shame. Although to be more accurate in Hegel's case, maybe we should call them "flip-flap-flops" to better match his three-step process thesis-antithesis-synthesis. :-)

(Edited by Merlin Jetton on 5/19, 2:29pm)

Saturday, May 20, 2006 - 8:03am

Hi Merlin,

The stars must be in just the right places. Talk about serendipity. Let me get concrete. You wrote,

�But what is Reason in Hegel's view? It is a series of flip-flops so numerous it would put Lindsay Perigo and Diana Hsieh combined to shame. Although to be more accurate in Hegel's case, maybe we should call them "flip-flap-flops" to better match his three-step process thesis-antithesis-synthesis. :-)�

On pp. 46 and 47 of the Miller translation of the PHENOMENOLOGY, I have the word �flip-flop� written three times. When teaching any philosopher, and especially Hegel, I try to use terms the students will have an easier time with. Instead of using �dialectic transformation� I took to using the expression �flip-flop.� But for me it wasn�t a term of derogation, but an attempt to accurately describe Hegel�s method. So I might quibble with you just a bit and say that it is not Hegel�s view of reason, but rather his use of reason. There are a lot of ways (all good I think) to use one�s reason. One can describe, classify, identify, integrate etc. Hegel uses reason to take his opponents to the mat. He gives them just enough rope to hang themselves. By examining, in the opening paragraphs of the Introduction, what Locke�s and Kant�s project actually comes to, we find that their positions do not represent a �fear of error� but a �fear of truth.� (47) Now that�s a neat kind of �flip-flop.�

As to the �three-step process thesis-antithesis-synthesis� I have long since stopped reading Hegel that way. Under the influence of Walter Kaufmann I have come to see that trichotomy as more applicable to Fichte, while for Hegel the real method is the immediate vs the mediate. A flip-flop kind of deal. (One can really see this in the famous �master slave section where we flip-flop from �the master has the truth� to �no, the slave has the truth� to �no, the master has the truth� etc.) Sellars called Hegel the great enemy of immediacy�I call him the great enemy of those who don�t check their premises.

Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag. The PHENOMENOLOGY is definitely my favor Hegel work.

Fred

Saturday, May 20, 2006 - 11:37am

Ed,

Good post. On Hegel you wrote,

�Well, I admit I WROTE it backwards. I had noticed Hegel's 'breaking free' from this conundrum., too -- I just don't like his solution (he doesn't recognize that the actual solution to the conundrum as proposed -- is the recognition of an active, conceptual awareness in man, not a mere defense of the proper manipulation of images in the mind).�

And yet I think this is Hegel very complaint against revealed religion as opposed to philosophy. Revealed religion is the �sphere of picture-thinking� [Vorstellungen] and what remains to be done is �to supersede this mere form� with the Concept [Begriffe]. (479)
Solomon puts it this way. �The replacement of religious Vorstellungen with philosophical Begriffe . . . is in fact the rejection of everything significant to Christianity.� And I�m for that.
Another thought on �images.� I think the notion that all thinking involves images comes into the history of philosophy with old Aristotle. And this distinguishes him from the Socrates of the PHAEDO. Remember when Socrates proposes his second way, a way of LOGOS, but warns Simmias and Cebes that he does not mean by LOGOS �images� but rather �imageless thought.� Aristotle rejects this in the De Anima. All thought requires images. At De Anima 432a10 he writes, �even when we think speculatively, we must have some mental image [PHANTASMA] of what we think.�

So, in this respect, you and Hegel (and me) are with Plato, not Aristotle.

Fred

Saturday, May 20, 2006 - 1:41pm

The Doc wrote ...

==================
So, in this respect, you and Hegel (and me) are with Plato, not Aristotle.
==================

[runs away, screaming]

Saturday, May 20, 2006 - 6:59pm

Ed,

Don't run away and don't scream. Aristotle hung with Plato for 20 years; he just could not have been that bad.

Fred

Saturday, May 20, 2006 - 9:16pm

[running faster, screaming louder]

Sunday, May 21, 2006 - 10:52am

Ed,

All you need (I'm exaggerating of course) is to read my chapter on Plato in my book AYN RAND, OBJECTIVISTS AND THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. There you will find a lovable, cuddly, sweet and very wise Plato--a proto-Objectivist, if you will.

Fred

Sunday, May 21, 2006 - 5:13pm

[calming down, turned around, cautiously approaching]