Submitted by BernardJOrtcutt t3_101da0m in philosophy
ViniciusSilva_Lesser t1_j2uqtcq wrote
I'd like to post here a meditation I've been doing.
I participate on a study circle online for about 8 years, and it always bothered me how there are people there who know the circle and study with it for about 20 years and , yet, they seem like didn't understand what is the main point here and how the other points relate to the main. This difference actually became the study topic that I got more interested about. I tried many hypothesis, about lack of knowledge, lack of culture, about luckiness, love, about amount of free time, accumulated hate, or envy, or boringness, about vocation, even castes (this idea really bothers me, though, something like predestination on the capacity of understanding).
Then today it appeared to me one that I'm posting here because it showed me something about philosophy itself.
My memory is pretty bad, so since I don't trust it, and I'm damn curious, I save data on my computer or phone. I photograph things, and I got really full of files, then I have to organize it in folders so that I may recall it when I need in the future. Well, that's a primary form of categorizational thought (like, in the most developed way, Aristotle's work and Plato's technique).
Then I realized that this may be it. I mean, since I collect a lot of data and try to categorize them, eventually I have a map of how things are conected together. Like on the study circle I'm into. There are a lot of groups, I look for all of them, and then I got a sense of the story of the place, how the pieces fit together, who is who, who is smarter, at what point, how his/her point relates to the work of the teacher we follow, and so on. That gives consciouscness of "whole", of "unity", plus the parts I have documented, even though I did it without really planning to get this result.
I also do it about college and so on. In my country the best colleges are public, so "free" (you know, "free enough"). So I actually frequented undergraduate classes from different courses, got acquaintance with researchers, and once again, documented all of that, just because my memory was pretty shitty. As a result, and that's the point I wanna get as for a contribution to the community, this gives a sense of "whole" also on the production of knowledge.
Of course I don't have more knowledge than any of the researchers, but at the same time this gives me the skill to have a sense of unity of how the knowledge is produced and spread on society. That is something by itself, and I'm starting to think that this is actually what could be called philosophy in the classical sense.
I mean, philosophy nowadays is also an academic practice, so this means the subjects studied are based on a curriculum. But this curriculum itself, let alone the rest of the curriculum or the relation of these knowledges to society, isn't the topic! So it creates a difference between philosophy as a college grade and philosophy in the classical sense.
I don't know how to develop this thought further. Just found it interesting and decided to share. If someone would like to share views about it, I'd be glad to read.
Maximus_En_Minimus t1_j3197em wrote
I don’t believe you will have an exact map of unity from your collection; it’s naive optimism. Perhaps a child’s rendition of a map.
That’s likely due to the fact that I am now a Nihilist and Anti-realist.
However, there is a big danger irregardless:
There was a old ambition in scholastic monasteries that one single person could become master of all the studies: Theology, Philosophy (though it technically just theological tools at this point), Law, Medicine, etc.
When the enlightenment finally came knocking on their big oak doors, that ambition faltered, because their finely interweaved premises and conclusions were - strand by strand - proven to be incorrect, and the whole web eventually just collapsed.
You risk the chance of creating a fantasy map pointing to the locations of apparent trolls under bridges and dragons in caves; you risk being shown up when the map’s constituents, and their relation to one another, are proven to be inadequate or totally wrong.
——
If you really want three things which can help you go forward, though:
Firstly, critique your paragraph above and the premises that made you write it. You have to remove any bad meat before you let the rest mature.
Secondly, study Siemens connectiveness theory of learning which “emphasises the idea that knowledge is a series of interrelated webs from not only social interactions, but experiences, digital observations (commercials, websites), or even organizations. In the end, the interconnectedness of all of the knowledge leads to learning.”
Third, recognise that learning is not knowledge; that coming up with a theory of learning and having understanding is not the same as having a genuine absolute accurate map such as knowledge.
ViniciusSilva_Lesser t1_j31i92z wrote
Thanks for answering. I didn't know about Siemens. I'll answer you part by part, but don't take it personally. If you still enjoy the discussion, we may go further.
>I don’t believe you will have an exact map of unity from your collection; it’s naive optimism. Perhaps a child’s rendition of a map.
That's actually the weirdest part of knowledge itself. Just like every science, although we don't have the full version of the knowledge, as we point to describe a reality, it becomes "truth enough". Euclides, for instance, didn't have the whole map, but those apriori objects (I call them mental objects), once the mind notice it, becomes a thing on its own.
For instance, we have the unity of an author. I can read all the works of, say, Dostoevsky, and, if I don't try to imagine there's a unity there, the pieces won't show up, even though there is one. If, though, I bet on this position, for each line I read my mind is also looking for broader connections. This decision of attention changes everything. It doesn't matter if it isn't perfect, it points to a reality (or this mental object, if you'd rather).
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>There was a old ambition in scholastic monasteries that one single person could become master of all the studies: Theology, Philosophy (though it technically just theological tools at this point), Law, Medicine, etc.
I don't know if this is quite the truth, though, but if you could show me examples, I'd love to read about. I know about the Enciclopedias, like Isidore of Seville, but after scholastic there were still Diderot and Hegel's encyclopedias. But what was regular back then, though, was the study of the 7 Liberal Arts, that is language, math and physics, the "trivial" arts of natural reason. I have this theory that the institution of liberal arts, Mortimer Adler's Great Ideas Project, Aristotle's Lyceum and Plato's Academy actually had one same principle, that is to provide an image of the "wholiness" (and how knowledge was produced at the time, the state of the art). You don't have to know everything in order to foresee and learn to deal with the fact that all the laws all the sciences study actually points to the reality, which works with the perfect version of such laws simultaneously. Knowledge is just a way to grasp some partial understanding of it in order to improve life (including curiosity).
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>When the enlightenment finally came knocking on their big oak doors, that ambition faltered, because their finely interweaved premises and conclusions were - strand by strand - proven to be incorrect, and the whole web eventually just collapsed.
I'd like an example.
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>You risk the chance of creating a fantasy map pointing to the locations of apparent trolls under bridges and dragons in caves; you risk being shown up when the map’s constituents, and their relation to one another, are proven to be inadequate or totally wrong.
I don't think that's a possibility, but I will take that in consideration. I don't think that can happen because it's not like I'm trying to understand everything and create a super final science which is bigger than everything else and puts every knowledge on it. Knowing one single science completely is impossible, since the documents produce are way more that what takes a human life. Let alone all sciences, let alone all the ones that don't exist and may exist, for instance, in 1000 years. But there are 2 points:
1- There is one "apriori object" that only appears once you try to catch unities. I call it "intelligence", but I don't quite know how to call it. It's actually the principle that is in common with what I said 2 topics above. Dante's divine comedy, for example, or Goethe's Faust is actually about that. Also sufism, which is inspired by Plato. The cosmos back then was used as an image to express how to acquire this skill to deal with unities, that is, intelligence. So Dante's work express it, either by showing the ascension in the planets (Paradise) and by showing how intelligence can be broken by our heart, that is, our sins are what makes us afraid of actually being honest with the knowledge we really have. For example, we use general phrases and ideas all the time "knowledge is x", "you are y", "John is a z person", "this country sucks", "the chinese culture is a", "men are stupid". Language can't grasp singularities, it's way, way general. To grasp the "ratio", the relation between the general and the singularity, you have to be bold to break all your past impressions and test the object as it shows, then reason it over and over again. If you have a grudge against something, you won't be able to do that. Those are, in traditional language, the effect of our sins. If you believed someone you love betrayed you, your anger won't let truth speaks even if the truth is the betrayal didn't happen (that's Otelo from Shakespeare).
2- These sciences do are connected. So the new scientific objects are born from this fact. Once you grasp this "unity of knowledge", it is possible to think with way more freedom, because you can literally create small "apriori objects" to gather new evidence for what you need. There's a great advantage on that.
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>Secondly, study Siemens connectiveness theory of learning which “emphasises the idea that knowledge is a series of interrelated webs from not only social interactions, but experiences, digital observations (commercials, websites), or even organizations. In the end, the interconnectedness of all of the knowledge leads to learning.”
I admit that, from my experience, I don't trust very much about the topic when it's spoken by a scientist. Because the training to be a scientist means focusing way too much on a object. That makes our intelligence generalize not only the object (like physicists who think everything is physics, or linguists who think everyting is language) but also the understanding through specialities, but not through wholes. (EDIT: which usually means speaking of interdisciplinarity, which is compounding a new object rather than trying to foresee the set of knowledge as the object itself). The regular folk, not-scientific, that is, the religious thought, tends to do the opposite. Although one without the other becomes easily wholiness stupidity, or speak through metaphors and applying them to facts that don't fit, the opposit becomes easily lack of comprehension, and in my country that created in humanistic sciences a great crisis. They want to transform a society that don't understand instead of understanding it and helping it to be better what it wants to be.
But I do am very thankful for your reference. I read some about it before answering, but I'll add it to my files to investigate.
Maximus_En_Minimus t1_j36jrr7 wrote
Are you able to explicate what you mean by this “intelligence” a little more?
ViniciusSilva_Lesser t1_j379szc wrote
Yes. So, even animals can think and measure. Actually, to a certain point, even plants do. But they can't perceive they're perceiving. That skill is the center of human intelligence. This is where words (and symbols) come from. And from words, all cultures, including sciences.
But I usually divide the perception of perception in 4 skills. One is this skill itself, which we call getting counscious about something, an object or an idea. Then there's 3 things you can do after it (actually more, but 3 major): analogy, go up and go down. We do these 4 things naturally, because, well, it's inherited in our culture. But the more conscious about them, the more intelligence.
Analogy means getting that information and relating to others; go down means getting the information and thinking it in details; go up means realizing that information as part of a set. That's Plato basically.
When a writer or a musician gets a motif to compose, it's going down. When someone sees a bunch of phenomena and realizes a pattern, he's going up. When someone points the direction to get to a place, or when you see someone telling an experience and you sympathize with it, or when you're reading a metaphor or story and apply it to another situation, you're doing analogy.
That was basic lunch for the biggest writers. Dante's treatises on Convivio talk about it. Also Plato's dialogues are that all the time. But we lost the track of this broader meaning of culture, and focused only on scientific production, which is basically only go down. We're not creating new objects (going up), just applying the methodology to new cases (it could be analogy, but mostly just going down).
Maximus_En_Minimus t1_j3e7gym wrote
You will have to forgive my lack of response, but I have been struggling to do so:
I found your initial response and your answer to my ‘intelligence’ question lacking in formality and cohesion. I notice on your profile that your native tongue may be non-english, though I don’t wish to presume.
I decided to browse a few more of your comments on your thread on the Atheist board and I noticed a similar problem. I think your system needs formalisation if it is to be acted upon by yourself and expressed to others.
That is not to imply its foundations are lacking and the underlying ideas not solid, I expect they are accurate; it’s just they lack proper articulation.
From my unhealthy re-re-re-reading of your threads, comments and replies, I think it is clear that the primary focus of your philosophy is that of Epistemological Realism: you hold that there is a reality we can actually grasp in knowledge - you also hold that the increasing accuracy of our models - whether small or big - is proof that there is an reality. Like an arrow drawing closer to its target; the direction of travel implies an existent reality to aim towards, referred to as Laws.
I noticed a lot of people were downvoting your ideas, and if my theory above is correct, I believe that I may have some resolutions for you: terminological and development.
———
So, the former:
I think the word which might be better suited for using, for this apriori object, is “Intelligible” - as a pre-condition of this Intelligence. Because, existence needs to have an essence and ability of comprehensibility to, thus, be perceived. This should allow you to avoid misdiagnosing your metaphysical kernel with the agency of thought, assuming it does not have it, while retaining its structural properties. It also allows you to express your Realism. If you feel there is no differentiation between intelligibility and intelligence, perhaps Logos would suffice, though the draw back would be a religious theme.
For your Going Up and Going Down the terms often associated with those concepts, I believe, are Holism and Reductionism. - if these are right, they will be easier to understand.
I suggest finding a different word than Analogy for “getting that information and relating it to others” - the word itself is used for ‘comparison by similarity’ and pointing to a direction would not really apply here. It may work idiosyncratically in your own nomenclature, but likely not for expressing your ideas to others, which is important for dialectical growth. As for the definition of ‘Analogy’ itself, information is kind of always nested in its relation to another thing, so it is superfluous in this regard.
Here is a book I particularly love:
If you scroll through the preview of the book on google it will give a list of words, a thousand or so, all of which will be useful.
———
As for development:
Similar to a hourglass passing sand through a small channel from one chamber to another, I believe your terms and theories - the initial chamber - has led you to the channel of a proto-realism. It is now your responsibility to re-enter into a broader chamber of epistemological study, interact with the ideas there and formalise your ideas in relation to the already understood terminology and history, so others can comprehend you ideas more thoroughly. Then travel through another chamber of clearer philosophical articulation.
If this is not the case in your native language, I definitely believe this is the case with English.
——-
Don’t know if any if this is alright, you clearly have interesting ideas, but your weakness is expressing them.
ViniciusSilva_Lesser t1_j3f9kwh wrote
So apparently there's a limit for the size of the answer. I'm tired of writing, you may die tired of reading. I also lost the bold I use to emphasize some things, so this may be even worst. Anyhow, since we're here, I'll post it as this online notepad.
Maximus_En_Minimus t1_j3gr0fw wrote
I won’t and did not tire, lol - though it was a handful.
So, I am counselling my response.
Your ideas remind me a lot of mine, in essential structure - that of Return - before I transitioned to becoming a philosophical pessimist.
However, I don’t want to be further presumptuous by implying understanding, and so I will get back to you in either the next few hours, or next few days.
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