Epistemology…

Estudia: Okay, Phi, now that we are clear on metaphysics I think we can move on, or is there more to explore on the topic?

Philo: On metaphysics, no. Yes, I mean no there isn’t anything else to discover about the fact that existence exists and the corollaries derived from that. You exist with consciousness… A is A ... Causality. No you’ve got it all if you have understood what we have been discussing so far.

Estudia: Well, I think I do. No I’m sure of it, it’s just so hard for me to retain. Everything you said is logical and all that, but I can’t seem to just expound about it without looking over your lectures and my notes. Why is that?

Philo: It’s just that you haven’t talked about it enough or written about it. Keep going over the material and you’ll learn it soon enough. You do have to use it. You are trying to gain knowledge and you need to know the nature and means of gaining human knowledge. That is a science and it is called epistemology.

Estudia: How to you study knowledge? I mean, what you know is knowledge and any idea would count wouldn’t it?

Philo: Epistemology is a study of the means of gaining knowledge and of its limits. You again have to start somewhere and the basic premise of epistemology is that we can acquire knowledge only if we do certain things. You can’t just accept ideas at random even if you read them on the internet or in a text book and count those ideas as knowledge. You have to perform certain definite processes in order to acquire knowledge.

Estudia: Why not? Why can’t I count things I read as knowledge?

Philo: First, you have to realize that anything you learn about is something in reality. Knowledge is knowledge of existence in other words. Your mind has to conform to or follow the rules of existence because existence has primacy over consciousness. Remember it comes first.

Estudia: Existence, right?

Philo: Right. If your mind could create reality by just thinking, you wouldn’t need epistemology. You could just think and reality would obey. Second, you are human and possess a different type of consciousness than any animal. You don’t just know things by direct perception like a dog, but you can conceptualize and the formation of concepts is not automatic or infallible. You have to take sensory data, the input from your senses, and do something with it to form concepts. But in order to do that and know that the conclusions you reach are valid, you must discover a way of thinking. If you have the correct rules for using your mind, you can reach conclusions and validate them. That way you’ll know how you know something is so.

Estudia: And epistemology will do that for us?

Philo: Absolutely.

Estudia: So how do we get started?

Philo: Well, before we can study conceptual knowledge, we must be sure our sense perception is correct and that we are free to use our minds. You see, if we hold that concepts are an integration of sense experience, we must be sure the senses are valid. You don’t have any automatic ideas, or instincts that let you form ideas about reality. You are born with a consciousness that works, but which has no content. You have to derive everything from the evidence of your senses. That’s why we have to study it first. We must know what is the precise role of the senses in human knowledge and if they are valid.

Estudia: I can see that if my senses aren’t valid, then I could be misled by them and might make an error in learning. But … I CAN be misled by them. Seeing is believing but sometimes what you see is an illusion or a trick or distorted in some way.

Philo: We’ll handle that, but what I mean is that if what your senses detect is wrong then thinking is worthless as well.

Estudia: Oh.

Philo: Also, we must establish that the conceptual level is not automatic. Any philosopher would have to define what their philosophy states as far as our power of volition. Can we think and do it freely or do we not have a choice in the regards to the use of our consciousness. If we don’t have a choice, or things are determined for us then we couldn’t discuss how we should use our minds. There wouldn’t be any normal acceptable way to think. We’d just know and have no choice in the matter.

Estudia: So we have to explore sense perception and volition before we start, right.

Philo: ¡Exactemente! Más tarde. ¡Hasta luego!

Estudia: Buenas.

Materialism …

Estudia: Phi, last time I saw you, I had rejected idealism as a rational position and I was wondering … does that make me a materialist by default?

Philo: Not at all. First of all, be clear about what you mean by materialist. This is a philosophical position advocated by the great names like Democritus, Marx, Skinner and others. These guys believe in existence alright, it’s just that they deny that there is any such thing as consciousness.

Estudia: How can they do that? After all, we showed that we exist and possess consciousness which is the faculty we use to perceive reality. That became obvious and you showed me how silly it was to deny that I didn’t have it.

Philo: That’s right, but the materialist see it as either a myth, which no one can find, or some chance useless brain function. They deny our means of thinking and hence all knowledge. They are really rejecting reason as absolute. We are just bodies without minds and our belief in consciousness is some kind of mystical hoping.

Estudia: This doesn’t make sense. Are you being serious or what?

Philo: You bet I am. The materialists think that their viewpoint is really the only natural and scientific approach to philosophy. They claim that if you believe in consciousness then you are really an idealist because you must believe this mystical or supernatural idea called consciousness when scientifically you can’t find it and it is just a natural process of brain function, so they say.

Estudia: Isn’t that true? I mean, isn’t consciousness really non-existent and don’t we just use our nervous system (brains in particular) to perceive reality. Isn’t this what you said?

Philo: Consciousness is not mystical. It is an attribute of us and all perceivable entities here on earth and maybe in other similar places. Consciousness is possessed under certain conditions by certain kinds or groups of living organisms. You can observe it by introspection directly. It has identity in that it has a specific nature. Yes, it appears to be centered in the brain but it follows certain laws of action. If helps us stay alive by letting us perceive the things around us and thus act accordingly. There is nothing mystical or supernatural about consciousness as we defined it. We don’t claim to separate it from matter or claim that it exists outside and/or above the individual animal that possesses it. Matter exists and so does consciousness.

Estudia: But what about the argument that I can perceive matter but not consciousness - at least by extrospection. Consciousness doesn’t have any physical properties.

Philo: Well, the same sort of thing can be said about hearing. You wouldn’t say the ear is not real just because your ear can’t perceive itself by introspection.

Estudia: Wait a minute. I’m really getting confused now. Can you define consciousness?

Philo: No, you can’t define consciousness except ostensively. It’s like an axiomatic concept. Every definition ultimately reduces to certain primary concepts — concepts you can only just point out. Look, you don’t define matter when you are talking about what objects are made out of. Physicists struggle with the definition of matter and have yet to reduce it to strings, or particles or whatever. When they do, or as they do, all that they can do to define the fundamental unit is to point at it or whatever they are looking at to detect the particle. Same thing with consciousness. We as philosophers can only point at it, but neuroscientists might some day be able to explain the attributes and functions of consciousness, but this would not alter any facts observed about consciousness.

Estudia: So the materialists are wrong?

Philo: Yes, they equate physics with science. Science is the gaining of systematic knowledge through the use of reason based on observations. You must use the methods and techniques suitable to the subject being analyzed. You don’t use biology to study history, or chemistry to understand economics. The behaviorist are materialists and they insist that consciousness is unreal because they can’t use the tools of physics to observe it. The monist are one group of materialists that insist that reality can have only one constituent, one fundamental building block from which everything can be derived. This contradicts the observations of reality. The dualist suggest that we believe in two realities. This is the Platonic or Cartesian school and it leads to the idea of mind-body opposition and to the belief that the soul is independent of the body. You must understand that this is nonsense and contradicts the facts of reality

Estudia: Well, it seems clear, I think. I better go and review my notes before you add any more to this metaphysics.

Philo: Don’t worry; there isn’t anything else to understand about our metaphysics. We’ve covered it all, maybe not in depth, but enough to get us by in any discussion on the nature of existence. Unless you come up with some question you can’t figure out on your own, we’ll move on to the next branch of philosophy.

Estudia: Ok, great. Más tarde. ¡Hasta luego¡

Idealism …

Estudia: Happy New Year Phi, I hope you had a good holiday, but I’m glad you’re back because I have a couple of questions regarding this mind-body dichotomy.

Philo: Thanks, Stew, I did have a great holiday thank you. But let me anticipate your questions and explain a little about some major metaphysical fallacies that have come out of that dichotomy. Maybe it will answer your questions.

Estudia: How many fallacies are you talking about and what are they?

Philo: Two major ones. One is called idealism and its proponents are known as idealists. These philosophers believe that reality is actually a spiritual dimension outside of (and usually above) this world. The universe is a product of their spiritual world which controls the world we can perceive with our senses. Consequently our world is often seen as imperfect. It is inferior to and deficient from the real world.

Estudia: What do they mean by a spiritual world? Are they talking about ghosts or what?

Philo: Spiritual refers to some consciousness other than human consciousness. The idealist hold the true reality is some kind of consciousness.

Estudia: So we’re back to the primacy of consciousness view.

Philo: Yes and no. Not primacy of our consciousness but of some higher consciousness. It could be a God or just an idea or some abstraction. Plato held these abstractions where the real world and we only see parts of them like shadows on a wall. This consciousness of the Idealists is a consciousness without any existence. It is pure and real to them. And yes it amounts to the primacy of consciousness approach as it holds that there is a consciousness without existence.

Estudia: I know about Plato’s abstractions but is this a popular position today?

Philo: Absolutely. The most popular one is called religion. But there all lots of versions of this besides religion. All of these various forms of idealism believe in the supernatural.

Estudia: You mean religion in general believes in a God or something outside and above the natural. That would be super – natural right?

Philo: Yes, but the idea is wider than just religion. Any individual or group that believes in and advocates another dimension outside of existence is advocating idealism. It is just not logical and you have to turn aside from reason and logic and proofs and philosophy and rely on faith. You have to just accept the idea of these people no matter how illogical or contradictory it is if you are to be a true believer.

Estudia: What about this popular argument for design we hear so much of these days. Things are so orderly and complex there must be a designer and that proves there is a God.

Philo: Bunk. This would mean that things are not what they are. God the designer makes them what they are and A isn’t necessarily A. Things aren’t just the way they are by chance. That isn’t the alternative to design. The alternative to design is causality. Things act in accordance with their nature not in contradiction to it. If things weren’t as they are they wouldn’t be at all. The idea of God as the Designer is a contradiction. The idea of God as the creator violates the idea of the primacy of existence. The idea of God as omnipotent violates the metaphysically given. The idea of God as infinite means it is larger than any specific quantity and that means God would have no specific quantity or lack identity. This violates the axiom A is A. Every idea for God collapses with logic and our derived philosophy.

Estudia: So we, you and I, with our derived philosophy are definitely not idealists.

Philo: Could you accept any means of knowledge other than reason? Would it make any sense to accept an illogical notion on faith and forget your senses, you mind and your life? No, I think you deserve better. To prove to yourself that your life is the highest value to you and you should live it in accordance with your nature. We have a lot to figure out. But we have to reject every idea of a spiritual dimension.

Estudia: No more, “Let the Force be with you”?

Philo: Not if you mean by “the Force” something outside of existence. Some means of gaining greater knowledge than by reason alone. I like the phase if you mean let the Force of Reason be with you. But reason doesn’t transcend existence.

Estudia: Okay. It’s official. I reject idealism and accept reality and only reality. That I love. That is a force in and of itself. May Reason be with you, Phi.