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All right, this is Introduction to Philosophy part two of [Epistemology], which is part
three. I do actually change my shirt from time to time, but I've decided to keep going
because I'm for sure going to get lost if I try to wait a day or two before doing the
next one, because I kind of have a lot of balls in the air when it comes to epistemology.
So I'm gonna keep going, and hopefully we'll be able to close this topic off, then, relatively
quickly and move on to all of the juicy stuff that comes after it.
Why is it important to talk about epistemology? The larger question, why philosophy? But that
will come. Let's talk about this one for now. Why is it even important to talk about epistemology?
Human beings disagree with each other. I know you haven't disagreed with anything that I've
been saying so far. Let's just imagine that you did, that you disagreed with even one
syllable of what I am saying here. The question is, the reason that the study of philosophy
is so important, and the reason that the idea that reality exists independent of consciousness,
and that human beings have to rely on logic and empiricism, is because human beings disagree.
I know I'm going a little bit towards the effect and putting the cart before the horse,
but this is why it's so important to talk about things and to understand epistemology,
so that you can understand how conflict resolution can occur using philosophy, how it is that
we can end up coming to greater brotherhood as mankind, as a species. Philosophy will
help us with that because it takes mad, absolutist opinions out of the mix as far as things that
are true and things that are false. Only philosophy will do that.
But before we get into how philosophy will do that, let's talk about how science does
that. Why is this approach to epistemology so important and so helpful?
Picture that you and I are scientists, both physicists. I didn't have time to go get more
fruit, so we're going to bring our famous little orange back into the mix. Let's just
say you and I are scientists, and we have differing beliefs about gravity. You think
that things fall up, and I think that things fall down. Maybe we're not the most modern
or enlightened of scientists, but this is the debate that we're having. Things fall
up vs. things fall down.
The reason that epistemology is so important is, how do we know who's right? So many disagreements
in the world, so many things human beings don't agree on. The real question is, how
do we resolve those disputes, disagreements, hopefully without pulling out guns or sticking
knives in each other? Epistemology will actually help us with that. Philosophy will actually
give us the answer as to how we disagree without violence and war, etc.
What epistemology says is that truth is relative to objective, tangible, matter-and-energy
reality. Not inner states of nirvana or my vision of Zeus's instructions from Mount Olympus
or anything like that. That truth is relative to what happens in material, objective reality.
So if you and I are physicists, and we have a disagreement about whether this orange is
gonna fall up or down, we get into a room, we hold up the orange, and we let it go. Gee,
I wish... It doesn't really sound that big, now that I'm talking about it, but let's just
say, I think it is. It's not so big in the realm of science, but when we start talking
about other disciplines of human knowledge, you'll see just how important this proposition
becomes.
This fundamental thing, the fall or the rise of the orange, this is the fundamental thing
that philosophy and epistemology can provide to us.
Maybe there's another guy who says it falls sideways. Well, the up guy and the sideways
guy are incorrect. The guy who says it falls down when you hold it up an let it go, is
the guy who gets to take home the prize for being Mr. Truthiness.
That is a very, very important and fundamental thing. How do we know what truth is with reference
either to logic or to external reality? The reason that epistemology gets so mucked up
is because (and this is my theory, so forgive me if it seems obtuse), the reason that these
rather basic and simple principles get really mucked up by a lot of people in the world,
is because a lot of people in the world don't like the conclusions of philosophy. Maybe
you know where this is going, we'll continue on this journey, and I know it will be a value
to you, it just may be a little surprising to you at times, and maybe even a little shocking.
The reason these basic ideas get so mucked up, confused, convoluted, is because there's
a lot of people who don't like the conclusions that logical, empirical philosophy will provide
to them, so they muck it up in order to keep their beliefs intact. We'll get to that in
a little bit.
The question, really, then becomes, and the reason why in the definition we talked about
in the last podcast is so important, is, How do we acquire knowledge? It's a big question,
and there's no real answer to it. There are some general principles that I think are worthwhile,
but it really comes down to two approaches to knowledge: the Aristotelian versus the
Platonic, or the Kantian versus the Lockean.
Doesn't matter [which], we'll just go over the basics and you can let me know what you
think.
In the realm of how we acquire knowledge, why is it even important to talk about? Well,
it's important because if we only acquire knowledge through the senses, if we only acquire
concepts, if the contents of our mind fundamentally (not completely, but fundamentally) come in
through the evidence of the senses, then if there is a contradiction between our ideas
and the evidence of the senses, our ideas must give way. I'm going to say that again,
but it's really important and fundamental. If there is a contradiction between the evidence
of the senses and the ideas in our head, which one gives way? One of them has to. Contradictions
can't exist, 'cause matter doesn't contradict itself. I mean, contradictions can exist in
our head, but they're not valid. You can't put them forward as true, because true is
logical and consistent. Something that is true has to be logical and consistent.
If I say up is down because black is white, it's not really a true statement, because
it's not consistent or logical. If there's a contradiction between what comes in through
our senses and what is in our minds, which one wins? They can't both win, contradictions
can't exist. Which one gives way? This is why Plato focused so much on this world of
the higher realms, and on making the argument that we have in this floaty kind of hypnotic
way all of these ideas and Forms we talked about. Remember, it was a different piece
of fruit, it was the banana. The essence of banana. That we have these ideas of concepts
within our minds before we're born, which we then come into the world: "I have seen
a perfect orange before I was born!" (I think that's, is that a poem?) "I come into the
real world, the 'sensual' world, there's this dim memory of a perfect orange I saw before
I was born," etc.
Why would Plato and so many philosophers focus so much on that? Well, it's because of this
question of, Which wins? The sensual evidence or the concept? Hugely important, and we'll
get to why in a moment, but I want you to simmer on that question.
The reason Plato focused on having a kind of knowledge in the mind that was not derived
from the evidence of the senses was because he wanted to be able to retain the primacy
of consciousness in this conflict. You've got things that are banging against each other,
evidence of the senses and ideas of the mind. He wanted for the ideas of the mind to be
the ones that could kick out sensual evidence. So if everything that is true and valid within
our minds is derived from and consistent with sensual evidence, then if we have a belief
that is not supported by direct, tangible, physical evidence of some kind, or logic at
least, then we gotta kick that idea out, as a bad tenant, not paying his logical rent.
Throw him on the street, don't look back.
In this conflict between what we have as ideas or propositions within our mind, and what
the evidence of the senses are, the real question is, Which one wins? The mind or sensual reality?
Science says, of course, between these two, sensual reality wins every time. So if I have
an idea in my mind that the orange is gonna fall sideways, but it instead falls down,
I can't say "Yes, but it still falls sideways." I can, but I'm just not right. I'm fundamentally
wrong, because I've got a proposition in my mind that is not borne out by what actually
happens in physical, tangible reality.
So in conflicts between what we have in our mind and what occurs in reality, what goes
on in our mind always has to give way. Always is incorrect. I said at the very beginning
of this, the mind is capable of error. The world looks flat but is really round. The
sun and the moon look the same size; they're really not. The human mind is capable of error,
and that's actually a good thing. That's part of how we progress as a species, because we
can make mistakes. One of the mistakes we make is looking at the world and knowing that
it's round despite the fact that it looks flat. We can talk about that another time,
mistakes are pretty important as to how we move forward, denying the evidence of the
senses is important, because as I said, the evidence of the senses are that the world
is flat, when it's really round. Denying the evidence of the senses is pretty important,
a very fundamentally powerful and positive thing that human beings do.
But the human mind is capable of error. The question is, Error in relation to what? Error
in relation to two things:
sensual evidence and logic
Logic is derived from sensual evidence. For instance, (you probably don't remember this,
and neither do I. You may, and if you do, let me know, because this may make sense to
you) at the very beginning of your life, 6-12 months into your toddlerhood, you would play
with a ball as a very little baby, and the ball drops and rolls under the couch. For
your mind, it's like "Bing! Ball has just vanished beyond my reach, other than baby
land." That process is an important one to understand. It's out of sight, out of mind.
Or in the baby's world, it's out of sight, out of reality. Doesn't exist. It's like the
baby ball exists, exists, goes out of the frame, it ceases to exist. Oh! It's back.
It's this idea that when you blink the whole world vanishes and then reassembles itself
when you stop blinking.
Then around 6, 8, 10, 12 months, whatever, you begin to get the magical thing called
object constancy. What that means is that, when you drop the ball as a baby, and it rolls
under the couch, you go crawl and look for it, because you get in your mind that it has
not ceased to exist because it is no longer visible. It has gone under the couch, you
can reach in there and get it back out.
That is an important thing. Just because it's no longer directly part of your sensual framework.
You're looking at the ball, you can see it, and it rolls away. You can no longer see it,
touch it, taste it, etc. You still know that it exists, though, because you've started
to understand that matter has properties. That things that roll under a couch don't
simply go into an alternate dimension, cease to exist, turn into ash, or whatever. It seemed
to me at times when I was a bachelor that they would turn into dust bunnies, but that's
another story.
Once you start to get object constancy, you start to understand a little bit about the
nature of matter. This is a whole process you can look up in psychology, a whole process
that goes on about how we slowly begin to mount up to get different ideas, all of which
are derived from things in the world, from the behavior of matter, energy, atoms. It's
because matter is so consistent in its behavior that we derive the concepts of logic. Object
constancy would be impossible if balls that rolled under a couch really did vanish into
another dimension, and then pop back up there in a shelf somewhere, or maybe never return
at all, or turn into a set of car keys or dust bunnies, etc. If the behavior of matter
were that inconstant, of course, we wouldn't exist, because we'd be a baby, then a bonfire,
then a tree, etc.).
We get the idea of object constancy because objects are in fact constant. We derive the
idea of logic, of something existing and continuing to exist even though we can't see it, because
that's how things really are! Just because we can't see something doesn't mean that it
doesn't exist. I've just closed my eyes, it's not like you've just vanished or anything
(laughs).
So because matter predicts in very predictable and stable ways, we can develop logic, object
constancy, conceptual organization of our thoughts, etc., all of which is dependent
on or derived from the constant properties and predictable, stable behavior of matter
and energy.
This is very important, because if truth within our minds, concepts within our minds, are
valid because we derive the principles of validity from the behavior of matter (Lord,
am I ever getting complicated, let me try that again):
If, within our minds, we have logic because the material world is logical, then in any
contradiction between what is in our mind and what is in the real world, what is in
our mind has to give way, because what is in our mind is derived from what is in the
real world. We have the idea of logic in our mind because of the consistent behavior of
matter. What that means is that matter wins over ideas. This is the basis of the scientific
method. I have a proposition; that's fine, that's great, let's make some predictions
based on it, but let's go measure what actually happens in the real world, and the real world
wins.
Science only exists because of the existence of atoms, of stable and predictable properties
and behaviors of matter and energy, universal, stable, predictable laws of physics, etc.
Science only exists because of the behavior of matter; therefore, in any contradiction
between a scientific theory and the behavior of matter, the scientific theory must be thrown
away, must be reformed until it perfectly conforms with the behavior of matter. Matter
wins, ideas lose.
Because we only have ideas because of the stable properties of matter, so we can't dominate
(laughs) matter with our ideas. We only have ideas because matter does what it does. I
think I've bounded that point far, far down into the ground, so I'm sure you understand
that.
Then, when we start to talk about human conflict, then we can start to see what a powerful tool
philosophy, and particularly epistemology is, in helping us resolve those conflicts.
In the Middle Ages, and also prior, you had a discipline called scholasticism, where they
would argue about the properties of matter, etc., and they would simply argue about it,
and they would never actually go out and do experiments (this is a generalization, even
Aristotle suggested that experimentation was very important). Generally, people would talk
about things within their own minds in the Middle Ages, but they would not go out and
do experiments to test the validity of those theories. That really only came along after
Francis Bacon a couple of centuries later.
This is really how science and philosophy work. That if we have logic, truth values,
within our minds, if truth is how close our ideas reflect material objects in the real
world, in other words, if things are only true as they accurately represent things in
the real world, then truth can never be superior to the behavior of things to the real world.
It would be totally the tail wagging the dog, putting the cart before the horse, however
you want to put it; it would be completely invalid. If truth is only the degree of accuracy
by which we describe things in the real world, to say "My truth doesn't have to accurately
describe things in the real world; my truth can be completely independent from what happens
in the real world; my truth, my opinion, is physics! I am physics!" (laughs) That wouldn't
make any sense. We only have logic because of the behavior of things in the real world;
the truth value of our propositions is only worthwhile relative to the degree with which
it accurately talks about things in the real world. If I say "My theory is that this falls
down," then it's good. If I say "My theory is that it falls up," my theory has to be
thrown out because it falls down. I can't say, "This falls down, but I'm gonna keep
my theory." I can say that it falls up, but it's false.
This, as I mentioned in the first section on epistemology, this is the difference between
opinion and truth, between opinion and fact. Fact is that which accurately describes the
behavior of things in the real world. Opinion, not so much.
I think it's fairly easy to understand, then, when we talk about Plato's idea that we have
these perfect ideas within our heads of which material reality is but a pale, inconsequential,
shadowy derivation or substitute, the reason he says that is because for Plato (and a lot
of philosophers like Plato)... [holds up fists] Let's get back out our two fists of thinking:
sensual mental
In the scientific method and empiricism, and certainly in what I believe, physical always
beats mental. So in any conflict between the two, you throw away the mental, and you re-wrap
it around the physical.
For Plato's world, though, the physical is much, much less important; the mental is superior.
In conflicts between though, he throws out the physical, and keep the mental, because
the mental is the idea of the perfect Form, the pure Ideal, that that which is not sensually
derived. The question around epistemology is where do we get our knowledge from? The
truth value of our statements? Is it through divine revelation? Is it through floating
in some ethereal perfect world before we're born? Then you can legitimately make the claim
(based on the premises, I don't think legitimately over all), that in any conflict between sensual
reality and ideas in your head, you throw out sensual reality, because the ideas in
your head, now they're the ones that really count.
But in empiricism, and certainly what I think is valid, the ideas in your head are only
derived from the material world, and therefore you can't have ideas in your head and call
them valid if they directly contradict the properties and behavior of the material world.
That's a very important thing to understand in the realm of epistemology.
There are HUGE consequences to each one of these two positions. (laughs) Just before
I alienate you completely from these videos/podcasts, I won't get into them right now. We'll save
that for next time, when we start to talk about truth. But there are huge consequences
to each one of these two opinions. Massive consequences, directly related to your life.
Your life as a citizen, your life as a lover, as a family man or woman, your life in your
community, in school, as an ethical human being. There are absolutely enormous consequences
to each one of these two positions. I'm going to argue for what I think is the right consequence,
both in terms of logic and practical effect, but I definitely want to try to make the case
for the other side as well, just so you understand that I do know the other side, I've just studied
it and rejected it.
I think that's very important to understand. Massive, massive consequences, and I think
not just in terms of right and wrong, but in terms of good and evil, which we'll get
to in time, my friends. Thank you so much for listening, as always. I look forward to
chatting with you in the next one, where I may in fact have a different shirt on. Thanks
again.