Epistemological implications…
Estudia: Phi, About that proof of the primacy-of-existence. What were you going to say?
Philo: No can do. It is self-evident in the understanding of consciousness. As we discussed it is implicit even in a child’s first realization of consciousness. In order to prove something like a theorem, you have to establish ideas and concepts that make the process of a proof possible. You have to accept the primacy-of-existence idea in order to prove anything.
Estudia: Why’s that?
Philo: In order to prove something you have to have facts. Facts that don’t change because someone or something thinks about them. You can’t prove anything if the “facts” you are building a case on can be manipulated by any consciousness. In that case you wouldn’t need to prove anything as things could be anything a powerful enough consciousness wanted them to be and not necessarily what the facts would indicate. No, forget proof for now. We are still working with axioms and corollaries of axioms.
Estudia: That makes sense. So what does the primacy-of-existence principle tell us.
Philo: Well, we have some knowledge now. Metaphysical knowledge, but it is real knowledge of reality, and consequently it has to be included in our study of the nature and means of gaining knowledge. Remember what we call that?
Estudia: Let’s see… metaphysics is the study of the universe as a whole. The study of knowledge is epistemology; so you are saying that our metaphysical knowledge affects our epistemological …. What?
Philo: That’s right. Our new metaphysical principle leads to a particular epistemology. It has epistemological implications in other words. You see the primacy-of-existence principle identifies a fundamental relationship between our minds and existence. If, as we showed, existence is independent of consciousness, then you can only learn about the world by looking outward, by extrospection. Objectivism would say you have to only use reason to understand reality, not feelings or extrasensory perception. Every thought should be in accordance with the observed facts and only the observed facts.
If you accept the primacy-of-consciousness principle, then you would believe that consciousness controls existence and introspect to learn the truth about reality. You might ascribe to the use of intuitions, revelations, yogic energy or chi. You would rely on unreason to learn about reality. You would consider the source of your information as above reality. It would be the source of facts which would be the consciousness that created the facts.
Estudia: Objectivism holds existence primary and not consciousness you said. Don’t most philosophers accept this idea now?
Philo: Poor child, you must be kidding. With rare exception the opposite is true. Most all Western philosophy and all Eastern philosophy have accepted the primacy-of-consciousness idea. I’ll give you some examples next time you drop in.
Estudia: OK, again I can’t wait. This is fascinating.
Philo: No can do. It is self-evident in the understanding of consciousness. As we discussed it is implicit even in a child’s first realization of consciousness. In order to prove something like a theorem, you have to establish ideas and concepts that make the process of a proof possible. You have to accept the primacy-of-existence idea in order to prove anything.
Estudia: Why’s that?
Philo: In order to prove something you have to have facts. Facts that don’t change because someone or something thinks about them. You can’t prove anything if the “facts” you are building a case on can be manipulated by any consciousness. In that case you wouldn’t need to prove anything as things could be anything a powerful enough consciousness wanted them to be and not necessarily what the facts would indicate. No, forget proof for now. We are still working with axioms and corollaries of axioms.
Estudia: That makes sense. So what does the primacy-of-existence principle tell us.
Philo: Well, we have some knowledge now. Metaphysical knowledge, but it is real knowledge of reality, and consequently it has to be included in our study of the nature and means of gaining knowledge. Remember what we call that?
Estudia: Let’s see… metaphysics is the study of the universe as a whole. The study of knowledge is epistemology; so you are saying that our metaphysical knowledge affects our epistemological …. What?
Philo: That’s right. Our new metaphysical principle leads to a particular epistemology. It has epistemological implications in other words. You see the primacy-of-existence principle identifies a fundamental relationship between our minds and existence. If, as we showed, existence is independent of consciousness, then you can only learn about the world by looking outward, by extrospection. Objectivism would say you have to only use reason to understand reality, not feelings or extrasensory perception. Every thought should be in accordance with the observed facts and only the observed facts.
If you accept the primacy-of-consciousness principle, then you would believe that consciousness controls existence and introspect to learn the truth about reality. You might ascribe to the use of intuitions, revelations, yogic energy or chi. You would rely on unreason to learn about reality. You would consider the source of your information as above reality. It would be the source of facts which would be the consciousness that created the facts.
Estudia: Objectivism holds existence primary and not consciousness you said. Don’t most philosophers accept this idea now?
Philo: Poor child, you must be kidding. With rare exception the opposite is true. Most all Western philosophy and all Eastern philosophy have accepted the primacy-of-consciousness idea. I’ll give you some examples next time you drop in.
Estudia: OK, again I can’t wait. This is fascinating.
posted by Rp | 1:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home