1983

December 82' -February '83

Berkeley:

'Sensible things, therefore have an 'archetypal-existence' in the divine mind an 'ectypal or natural  existence in created minds. Creation takes place when the ideas receive 'ectypal existence'

can Berkeley establish the existence of a spirit at all - finite spirits are an obvious problem

'After all Berkeley speaks of objects eternally known by God and having an eternal existence in his mind as being perceptible to creatures and thus beginning a relative

existence'

the same idea both eternal and relative? too much is admitted here.

'And this means that they must be ideas in the divine mind. But Berkeley does not wish to say that we enjoy the vision of things in God'

'Again Berkeley had already stated in express terms in the Dialogues that 'God, whom no eternal thing can effect, who perceives nothing by senses as we do .........( cannot

be effected by) any sensation at all'.

Berkeley's analysis of knowledge falls apart irrevocably when we come to consider his account of the origin of  Idealism

it is a very messy and confused analysis.

one point to begin with is that his view that it is in the mind of God that ideas are eternally perceived, cannot be reconciled with his principle esse est percipi if this is taken as his base principle. The point being that if it is true that to be is to be

perceived, then the ideas in God's mind are perceived ideas - that is they only exist because God perceives them - this is the archtypal existence of ideas

now it's an old argument to bring against Berkeley - but to my knowledge it has not been put to him in this context - if ideas are in fact what is perceived then it seems, that they in some sense are the objects as well as the subjects of perception. We can see easily enough that they are the subjects of God's perception - but in what sense are they the objects of his perception - that is in what sense can they be said to exist independently of the subject -

now it would be easy enough to say this is really a mis-reading of Berkeley's outlook - that the distinction between subject and object is not on his view a real ontological distinction - and that this criticism falls down

O.K, but in relation to the ideas of God this kind of response doesn't really work.

what Berkeley has to account for is what does exist - he knows this now if nothing else he must account for the material world - he of course wants also to include in what exists - a spiritual realm - and furthermore to reduce the material world to this

spiritual reality - so really there is no material reality - O.K. but this is the end of the analysis

what Berkeley begins with, what he addresses - is the world as it is - so it is not as if Berkeley starts out by saying God is all, all is God - in fact even at the end of analysis he is not a real pantheist or doesn't see himself as one - but it might be asked - how does he avoid this conclusion

well in a real sense I don't think he does

but if he was to, and I think Berkeley wanted to believe he did and wanted us to believe he did, he would have to show that there is an object of God's thought - independent of God's ideas - that which is perceived by God the 'esse' that 'est'.

now he attempts this by means of his archtypal / ectypal distinction -

what is the essential difference between the archtypal and ectypal - surely there must be one if pantheism is to avoided

the real point is how do ectypal ideas come to exist?

Berkeley's idea is that they in some sense come from the archtypal - but what does this mean?

if esse est percipi, then arctypal ideas exist only if they are perceived, but this doesn't make much sense.

it is incoherent to say that the archtypal ideas perceive the ectypal

it just doesn't make any sense - as the ideas archtypal or ectypal - are what is perceived - not what does the perceiving

Berkeley's problem is that his idealism provides no account of the mind

even God can be shown - if we take esse est percipi as Berkeley's - basic premise - not to have a mind

but of course Berkeley does not I think ultimately hold this principle as basic - what is basic really is God

God for Berkeley is the bottom line I think - esse est percipi must be - logically

remains a secondary principle

and the relation between the two as I have shown is not happy there are deep internal problems

God without the esse est percipi is empty - and it seems that there is no basis for anything else - or for that matter anything without the second principle

but the esse est percipi in another sense doesn't fit well with God

if to be is to be perceived then God must be perceived in order to exist

the idea of self perception makes no sense on Berkeley's principles - so we can't say that God perceives himself

10/3/83

universal statements

it seems to me that the distinction between universal and existential statements in logic might provide a basis for overcoming Hume's problem, if the distinction is used properly.

what I have in mind is this: general scientific laws are mistakenly seem as being universal existential statements, and as Hume showed - such statements are logically incoherent. i.e., we just can't formulate, an 'all' statement on the basis of some observation. I think we can accept this - but at the same time not despair that universal scientific statements can be formulated

but if they can how?

am interested in the idea that the 'all' in such a statement is not in fact a statement of fact - that if it is seen to be so it is misread - that in fact such an 'all' - or for that matter any 'all' is in fact a concealed logical hypothetical

that 'all' - statements are really to be formulated like this - "if --- such and such conditions prevail then it would be true to say - that all x are y"

in fact this may be what is referred to as counterfactual analysis of universals. I'm not sure about this though

what I do think is -that the idea that universal generalizations are logical and not existential statements does or can be made to overcome Hume's problem

'all'-statements on this analysis are hypothetical conditionals, which have been misinterpreted as universal existential

such a view would I think fit well with the practice of science as we as the logic.

11/3/83

it might be objected that the hypothetical universal is still subject to Hume's criticism.

can it not be argued that the final 'if - then' statement is open to the objection that if there are exceptions to it, or if it is possible that there are exceptions, it cannot be formulated in the 'all' form.

my basic objection to this line of argument is that, in interpreting the universal in strictly logical terms  we are only dealing -or are dealing exclusively in the realm of possibility

all that is being asserted, claimed is that 'all' statements are hypotheses of possibility - i.e. it is possible that all x are y's - that's all

and it might be asked what is the ground of this hypothesis?

traditional philosophy has taken the view that there must be a ground - a ground to hypothesis - i.e., an hypothesis must be based on something - otherwise it is empty

I both accept and reject thls point of view

first the rejection

the traditional view is that an hypothesis is based on fact (factual particular propositions), and what has to be looked at carefully is what 'based' in this context means

although there are a number of different accounts of what it is to say an hypothesis is based on the facts - all accounts as far as I am aware mean by 'based' that the hypothesis has foundations?

foundations of knowledge? there is I think prime facle something strange about thls idea

when I think about foundations my immediate image is a material image - an image to do with stone, construction and building

and thls is not facile - most of the epistemological programs I can think of model themselves on thls metaphor

knowledge - both the empiricist and the rationalist thought, should be solid as the bank of England - the building at least if not the institution - and the foundations should be similar - rock bottom very well but is knowledge this kind of thing?

I mean does it have foundations and if it does, are the foundations it is believed to have, the kind that are appropriate to knowledge let's look at the argument foundations - of any kind

the kind of question which has lead to the search for foundations for knowledge is "why do you believe that?", or "on what is that proposition based"? And the kinds of propositions which have led to these sort of questions are all kinds

whether you are to be questioned , or whether you question yourself about the basis of knowledge depends on many factors - a detailing of them is not necessary - what is important is just that such conditions are even present, and that questions like the above are asked

given thls we can ask, what does this fact - (the search for foundations to knowledge) tell us about the phenomenon of knowledge?

the obvious answer is that knowledge to knowledge need foundations, and that this is a felt need of knowledge bearers and creators

and it is on this basis that the most influential programs have proceeded.

but it must be pointed out that there is another response to the phenomenon of knowledge

it is the skeptical approach to the view - the view that the search for knowledge reveals nothing more than the search itself

that the search for foundations to knowledge is an empty search - that critical evaluation of any foundational program will show that it fails dismally

the skeptics analysis has as far as I am concerned never been taken seriously - simply because it has offered nothing substantial - and of course the skeptic replies to this objection by saying - that such is just the point he is trying to make - that there is no

substance to knowledge

I take the view that this negative response of the skeptic is not the only response, but before I get back to this I want to talk more about the idea of foundations to knowledge

there have been some brave attempts to show that there are foundations to knowledge as solid as the rock of Gibraltar.

the most notable I think was that of Rene Descartes - his cogito ergo sum - is the most impressive attempt in the history of our thought - to find a final unquestionable basis to knowledge

how can anyone doubt 'I think therefore I am'? this is the appeal of Descartes' cogito.

but let me point out a fact which I think has been overlooked by all critics of the cogito.

let us accept its truth for the moment - my question is, how does the cogito provide a basis for distinguishing genuine from pseudo knowledge?

or another way if putting it is how can an appeal to the cogito satisfy, or more to the point have any relevance whatsoever, when the questions refereed to above are asked -

the questions it will be remembered which seem to be the reason for the search - which for Descartes ended in the cogito -

when I ask for instance - what justification I have for believing a proposition, what is the significance of someone putting the cogito to me?

now this may seem at first to be a superficial  and trivial objection to Descartes, but I believe there is at the basis of this question a serious problem for Descartes.

my point is that if we are to accept that Descartes found something which cannot be doubted what is the significance of this find in the broader context of knowledge? that ls what ls its significance if the one proposition which cannot be doubted in relation to the remainder of propositions which can be doubted?

Descartes' idea was that the cogito provided a methodological basis for distinguishing genuine from pseudo knowledge. he believed that the logical structure of the cogito was the model all genuine knowledge must conform to.

Descartes saw mathematical knowledge or the form of mathematical knowledge to be the form of all genuine knowledge - and the form of mathematical propositions is analytic

what is deceptive about the cogito is that it appears to be synthetic or perhaps more accurately existential.

an analytically true statement about the way the world is, or at least the way the 'I' is - and the 'I' we see from the cogito does exist. It is a statement about what does exist namely the 'I'.

the fact is though the existential component of the cogito is quite irrelevant to its truth.

in fact the 'I' and 'exist', interpreted existentially can simply be eliminated, and what we are left with is not just any analytically true statements but the form of any analytic statement - we are really left with a statement about what analyticity is - this is really

all that Descartes achieved  -

which is no great shakes seeing that that is what he started with

what he wanted to do was to show that such a logic could be applied beyond mathematics - could be used to embrace the world or perhaps transform our conception of the world.

Descartes saw a world which could rise above the uncertainty of contingency and find itself home and hosed in the iron tight realm of analyticity

thank God he failed

but the major point ls that even if he had succeeded, his program could not be seen as addressing the real problem of knowledge, which is finding reason for believing in the truth of propositions - the cogito doesn't help

and I think that what happened to Descartes was that he confused this issue with the quest for certainty. I am not suggesting that his sole motivation for developing the critical skeptical method and its result the cogito was simply a devise to find something certain, it is quite clear that he wanted more than thls - my argument is that he got no more than thls (and that what this amounted to - analytic truth was peanuts)

Descartes however can be looked at from a slightly different point of view. His method of doubt, is I thinkthe most lastting aspect of his thought. This method showed him that there was nothing certain, nothing that could be doubted in the class of synthetic statements. This is no doubt true. What Descartes failed to appreciate was that this fact of knowledge must be accepted appreciated and explained - not away - as he attempted to do - but explained in a positive way. He saw this fact as meaning that all was not well with knowledge. Instead of asking 'what does this tell us about knowledge, what does this tell us about our own natures and the world we 'know', he

asked how can this fact be overturned,how can we show it to be false? His answer was the cogito

what he failed to see was that all that the cogito amounted to was an affirmation of analytic truth, something up to that point in the history of philosophy that had not been doubted.

well what then do we learn about the search for foundations from Descartes' philosophy?

we learn that the search for foundations ls seen as the search for certainty - and to put it sharply such a search is one that flies in the face of the fact of knowledge

To Descartes we can say that certainty if it exists is of little consequence

l want to discuss now the empiricist search for foundations

I take the view that Descartes' program failed totally that what he ended up with was what he began with - a trivial truth - the trivial truth of mathematics. In the process of arguing this he believed he had shown that empirical knowledge was totally without foundation.

And the empiricists were not about to take thls lying down. the problem for them was to demonstarate the foundation to sensible knowledge

Berkeley's answer to this was Idealist - the ground of knowledge was in the mind. Thls view has a family resemblance to Descartes' view 

Descartes' clear and distinct ideas fulfill the same function as Berkeley's Ideas

Berkeley argued that what we perceive - all we perceive is ideas.

In Descartes' terms he argued that these just naturally are clear and distinct, it is what we perceive - but all that we perceive

on his view we cannot assume that there is anything corresponding to these ideas -anything which they represent.

Descartes it seems never asked himself if his clear and distinct ideas had a correlate in the objective world - he just assumed that they did. Berkeley questioned this.

And although he never asked the question in the same form asBerkeley with regard to empirical ideas - he would certainly have agreed with Berkeley's view that they don't

However his relation to this would have been quite the opposite to Berkeley's.

Descartes would have seen Berkeley's answer as confirming his view that empirical ideas are without foundation, whereas for the same reason Berkeley saw them as being the foundation of empirical knowledge.

As with Descartes' premise let us assume the truth of Berkeley's esse est percipi

but before we do this we should look at the claim of this principle - the claim that existence is what is known, or more to the point to exist is to be known.

on this view x exists only if known

hence an unknown entity cannot be known

existence on thls view becomes knowledge

existence is at the very least a kind of knowledge

and the fact is that thls idea is really plausible

x does exist in my knowledge (of x)

how can we say that it exists beyond that (knowledge)?

of course we can ask what is the referent of this knowledge?

Berkeley can be interpreted as arguing that this is an inappropriate question. don't know of any philosopher who has developed this line but it is certainly legitimate. But what this amounts to is the claim that contrary to common sense, knowledge is not the

kind of thing that has a relation of correspondence with anything.on this view it becomes entirely inappropriate to ask, knowledgeof what? - such the question is not the kind of question you can ask of knowledge     l

thls interpretation leads to a radical reinterpretation of Berkeley - Berkeley on this view can be interpreted as putting forward a non-foundational epistemology - non-foundational in the sense that on his view there is no 'corresponding' foundation to the ideas that are knowledge.

I believe that there is somethlng real in thls interpretation, that it accords with Berkeley's spirit, that he himself may have seen this view even if he didn't develop it

his attempt to provide a referent for his ideas in other ideas (the archetypal / ectypal distinction) was a not at all successful patching up - may from an epistemological point of view (as distinct from the theological motivation of his work) - be really

just a loss of nerve on Berkeley's part - an attempt to pacify critics - critics who were in fact holding on to an epistemology which Berkeley had in fact seen beyond - but an epistemology which was, and perhaps still is too radical, for even Berkeley himself

all thls bears on the problem of existence

there is a sense in which philosophy, prior to Berkeley saw the problem of knowledge as being the problem of showing how knowledge is grounded in existence

now this is a fascinating issue

there is a sense in which Plato's philosophy is both an attempt to ground knowledge in existence, and at the same time an argument to the effect that such is not possible or even desirable

Plato's skepticism with regard to the world of sense, and his idealism with regard to knowledge, is the basis of his view of reality

empirical existence was for Plato as for Heraclitus - an ever changing flux

such a reality - the given reality of the senses, or what Plato saw as the given reality of the senses, was for him entirely unsatisfactory

and the reason I think it was so unsatisfactory was that it contradicted his intuitive beliefs, his deepest feelings, about the nature of existence

his intuition formed the basis of his account of knowledge he intuited perfection - and this for Plato was what knowledge was - the intuition of Ideal forms

I think it ls true to say that for Plato - his knowledge became for him what really exists Plato's world was the deal world of forms

knowledge for him was the intuition of this realm

Plato of course had to explain the world of sense - and like Berkeley this is where he comes unstuck - his metaphysics falls apart

my point in the context of the present discussion is that for Plato as for Parmenidies knowledge is being / being is knowledge

one ls grounded in the other

and it seems to me that difficult as this conception is, no one has come up with better less trouble free conception

to separate knowledge and existence, as of course common sense does, creates major problems

Berkeley grounded existence in knowledge. We can look at this in another way and say that knowledge is 'knowledge about knowledge' - the 'about x' or 'x' was thought to be independent of knowledge, otherwise how would there be knowledge at all? knowledge of anything?

what I wonder is, can we still accept this view of knowledge, as being 'knowledge about' and still avoid Idealism (while at the same time accepting the Idealists point that existence is not independent of knowledge - or as Kant put it - existence is

no predicate.)

I think we can but the result is skepticism

what we say is, that knowledge is about x

it makes no real sense to say that knowledge is about knowledge - the circularity of this argument is fatal. (except of course when we are making knowledge the object of our knowledge). But when we come to the question, what is knowledge about we can find no ready argument.

to say that knowledge is about the external world seems clear enough but what does it mean? how is this claim explained?

we have to be able to characterize this 'external world' in a way that ls independent of the process and_______of knowledge

and this cannot be done

but the fact that it can't be done doesn't commit us to ontological Idealism.

I think that we can accept the idealist's point that we cannot characterize the object of knowledge independently of the knowing process

but I don't think that it follows from this that there is no object of knowledge (independent of knowledge)

it is quite possible that there is, but even if there is, we have no way of knowing this fact which is of course is my position

are we talking about what exists, or are simply doing a Kant and delineating the limits of knowledge - I think the latter.

I really don't think that the idealists are justified in claiming that there are no limits to knowledge, for this is what the esse est percipi maxim amounts to knowledge is all,  and furthermore all that exists which is (given that there limits to knowledge)

jumping the gun to say the least.

but what does it really mean to say that there are limits to knowledge?

does thls claim make sense?

the crucial question for anyone who argues this is, 'how can you know that knowledge is limited?'

surely to know that knowledge is limited we must know what these limitations are?

this a problem for epistemologists

the idea of limit?

that beyond which one cannot go? fair enough

and of course we can know that we cannot go beyond a certain point, whatever it is we're talking about

and if we're talking about anything except knowledge, we can probably say what is beyond the limit - or what is not

but with knowledge its a different case

there is something wrong with saying that we know that beyond the limit of knowledge is_____________ (the 'is' of course itself has to be knowledge)

and if this is the case then a limit hasn't been achieved.

it seems to me that if we are interested in the problem of the limit of knowledge - we have to accept that, the best we can say is that beyond the limit of knowledge is its absence

beyond knowledge is what we don't know (and of course there are a number of other arguments of skepticism of one kind or another)

but in a sense the argument about what is beyond knowledge is easy - it is the unknown

and an unknown which must be left as it is - that is, we must understand that 'it' cannot be characterized

This is quite a different argument to those about whether any knowledge is possible at all - classical skepticism that is

my point is that a non-skeptic could accept my argument about the limits of knowledge, and what is beyond these limits, without being commited to my arguments about the skeptical basis and nature of knowledge

in fact I would say my argument about the limits of knowledge, and what is on both sides of the line is incontavertible

what interests me is Kant's view on this

Kant's position is in form not unlike mine

As I have pointed out before, where Kant and I differ sharply on this issue is in relation to the question of the nature of the unknown

Kant wants to characterize his unknown and make it work for him - make it do more for him than the known

so, strictly speaking Kant's noumenon is not a true unknown we simply (know too much about it for it to be an unknown)

it is I think more correctly seen as a supra realm - another plane of reality - which relative to the phenomenal world is unknown

but that is the only sense in which it is known - Kant's unknown is not an objective unknown - it is a relative unknown

in relation to my view of the history of philosophy, Kant is the major stepping stone, the 'watershed' between epistemological certainty of Platonism, and my own positive skepticism

Kant came close to embracing skepticism, to seeing its truepositive and liberating force, but he was too confined by his problematic - that of reconciling scientific and religious belief - to see the true skepticism of his noumenal conception and what it could have been developed into

now I have just claimed that Kant's problem with regard to the unknown is that he turns on the unknown by attempting to characterize it - to fill it with such things as free will, responsibility and God - and that is why the unknown for Kant looses its

character

now I think we can't characterize the unknown - we can't know what it is

and I mean 'what it is' in a technical ontological sense - in terms, that is, of what in an existential sense 'it' is -

we cannot make any pronouncements about the existential status of the unknown

but I don't want to say that the unknown is 'nothing'

or that it is impotent or dead

while we may not be able to say what the unknown is, we can I believe say somethlng about its effect - its effect that is on the knower - or in a more objective sense the effect of the unknown on the knower

what is this effect and can it be characterized?

the point is that the known and the unknown are not separate realties, in the sense that they do not interact

Kant for one I believe fully appreciated this. His phenomenon / noumenon distinction is a clear example of the conception of reality which portrays reality as being 'in essence' a phenomenon that has two aspects to it - the known (phenomenal) and the unknown (noumenal)

Kant's view in this sense is like Spinoza's - a double aspect theory - but the difference is that by time we get to Kant we have come further down the epistemological road

Spinoza's primary category was substance. His matter / thought distinction was a substance distinction. Spinoza's one substance, of which thought and matter are two of the infinite number of possible attributes is finally - all - ls God - and is would argue

unknown (except through its attributes)

But Spinoza's unknown - (and thls ls not how he would wish his pantheism to be represented) is a rich positive unknown, and which is most important, is the source of, and actually is - posslblllty

when we get to Kant his distinction ls not like Spinoza's an ontological one - it is epistemological - and this does avoid some problems but apart from that difference we still have from Kant a double aspect theory. Anything will have on the Kantian analysis a phenomenal aspect and a noumenal aspect

by the time we get to Kant as well as some gains, there have been some losses

with Spinoza there is a breathlessness - a daring an attempt to plunder the ultimate and release all its secrets

Spinoza is quite clearly knocked out by the totality he sees and feels

but it is not a mystic silent appreciation - he knows what it is that fascinates him - it is the possibility of all - possibilities -two of which exist and are perceived by existent human beings - these two possibilities which have in a sense become flesh and

dwelt amongst us - and have become us - are thought and extension - but these are only two of the infinite number of possible manifestations of it all

Spinoza's grasp - that the totality - is possibility - (and even if this is not the accepted view of Spinoza - this is certainly how I believe he should be interpreted) - is a vision, one of the few in the history of philosophy which is really of lasting value

I think though the full power of Spinoza's modalism was lost because his philosophy was led to substance.

the point being that he tied possibility to existence

and this is to narrow the full potential of possibilty

it is existence which I think should be tied to posslbility - must be - but visa versa - the tying of possibilities to existence (or substance) is quite absurd

(or is it , this is not such a simple issue)

I think I have an answer to this question

obviously we cannot talk about possibility and imply existence - possibility must in some sense exist

and at the same time existence implies possibility

the relationship is I think best described as double aspect

that is we can refer to reality from an existential point of view or from a modal point of view

either reference is valid

and either implies the other

though I resist saying the two terms are interchangeable - that they are analytically identical

and what is it that can viewed under or interns of this double aspect?

well you guessed it the unknown

it is interesting I think that throughout the history of our thought dualism of one kind -or another has always manifested itself - this fact should not be overlooked or underrated

it is fundamental to our thought - Heraclitus saw this I think better than any philosopher before or since

Hegel knew it too and with a passion - but he wanted to go beyond it - the fundamental tension of opposites that is at the core, that is our being, our reality - he wanted to make it dynamic - to use it to explain birth death growth decay - the logic of change

the point I wish to make here is that such a fundamental meta fact is what is responsible for the basic concept of western logic - the law of contradiction

P and -P is false (a statement Hegel would see to be simplistic if not false)

the point that needs to be looked at in thls connection is this: (Pand -P) and F.

what is the relationship? would we say that (Pand -P) generate F? entail? - yes, but more than this I think we would have to say that (P and -P) defines F . Hence P and -P = F.

the conjunction of a proposition with its denial is falsity

Falsity is the result - of the conjunction of a proposition and its denial

what I wonder is just how adequate a definition of falsity such is

certainly people use the term 'false' in a broader way

but still can't see why we need hold that a contradiction is false

why is it false?

and not for that matter meaningless or even true?

what I am interested in is why falsity has been defend that way at all

what does make a something - a statement false?

and what is it that is false - statements yes, but more than this?

if not truth seems a semantic concept - a concept tied to - internal to the nature of language

thls may well be a philosophically more manageable idea than the correspondence and coherence theories, but it really doesn't face up to all the issues

my real answer to this question as with all other philosophical questions is that all philosophical theories of truth, are true to the extent that they are appropriately applied

how does one decide when to use which theory?

a good philosophical question but how relevant is it outside a reflective context?

this is not to minimize the question - I just wonder how often it, or even a vernacular form of it would come up

and while this is not, or should not be seen as the deciding criterion, it still must have some bearing on the issue

anyway on theoretical grounds, how could one decide between competing theories of truth?

clearly we can't without at the same time  implicitly asserting some theory of truth.

This 'philosophical fact' makes it clear that any universal concept of truth cannot be formulated

and furthermore it makes it clear that the problem of objectivity or universally can only be resolved on skeptical grounds

and what I propose is an objective skepticism and a positive skepticism

this is a most radical claim, it is that the ground of knowledge - which is piecemeal and subjective is subjective uncertainty,

negative skepticism is the consequence of the search for objective knowledge, as distinct from objective uncertainty. It is instructive if viewed properly - it shows that such a search is bound to fail.

the attempt to form universal generalizations was shown by Hume to lead to negative skepticism

this was an important philosophical discovery

but it was not developed into a positive thesis - the positive thesis was not developed

(Positive) objective uncertainty was not seen - that is the ground for particularknowledge was not seen for what it is

my proposal at the beginning of this discussion was that universal statements can be formulated if they are formulated as conditionals

once this is seen the power of the universal dissipates - it is not as impressive - it is too laboured

and why we need the universal at all is questionable - what practical, instrumental significance it has eludes me

it seems to me to have a psychological function

it is I think man's clearest formulation of his vanity

16/3/83

Copleston, in his introduction to Descartes (vol. 4. 82) makes reference to Descartes' conception of the hierarchy of knowledge

'Physics the trunk of the tree depends on metaphysics, the roots of the tree according to his analogy, in the sense that physics cannot be considered an organic part ofscience until the ultimate principles of science have been shown to follow from meta

principles. And the practical sciences, the branches of the tree, will be truly

sciences when their organic dependence on Physics or natural philosophy has been made clear'

such  an outline of the nature of knowledge and the relation between the various disciplines seems straightforward and obvious enough. Furthermore a shot of Descartes, on the question of the relationship between metaphysics and science would do the modern world a lot of good

the prevailing common view is that the principles of science, and especially of science are rock bottom

and as Descartes explains this view is plainly false. The principles and laws of physics have meta underpinnings, and I suspect Descartes' view of the relationship - that of implication is O.K, not that the question of the relationship is that important - what is important is that science without philosophy has no foundation and thls issue is not just a verbal issue either

as the history of science, especially Kuhn's shows, the questioning offundamental conceptions or paradigms is an integral part of the growth of scientific knowledge (though Kuhn of course would argue that such of course is not strictly speaking 'scientific'')

I would venture to suggest that of any proposition we can ask one of two question

we can query its empirical support, and or its logical philosophical basis

the second kind of question is if anything more crucial than the first - for the second is to do with theory formation - the confirmation or falsification of a theory, is the easy part of any scientific process, though of course this too may require great skill and ingenuity

28/4/83

Doubt

Descartes' point in the Cogito is that in doubting my existence, that I am, I am confirming my existence

now this is not quite what I had in mind when I advocated the thesis of Positive Skepticism - this thesis is far more meta than Descartes' simple point

but I wonder if Descartes fully understood the real significance and results of his hard line skepticism

if we accept the point the conclusion is quite extraordinary

it ls that deep skepticism leads to deep commitment

this is not how I have represented positive skepticism, but it is, or can be made to be consistent with it.

it is another argument which will help rewrite the history of skepticism

of course the really interesting point is that if Descartes is right - what does this tell us about belief, disbelief and their relationship

one thing straight off -

we tend to see the skeptic non-skeptic argument as being by and large black and white

if what Descartes says is correct disbelief may not in fact be the antithesis to belief

in fact there may not be, fundamental difference in kind

one possibility is that disbelief is a means to belief - disbelief on this analysis may just be a method for coming to belief -

and there is a sense in which belief is not able to generate belief

though this is what is assumed - i.e., that belief A can and does lead to belief 'a' etc.

this view which is the commonly held view needs to be looked at in detail

what are the logical connections between beliefs?

and I am here presupposing a definition of belief

that a belief is a belief in somethlng

and this to a certain extent circumvents the view that we can have beliefs which are not beliefs in something

3/5/83

It was Descartes' belief that he had established the cogito and that from thls he could prove the existence of God

his argument is that l have the idea of perfection, and that this idea is not consistent with my imperfect nature

hence it originates outside myself

the origin of such an idea must be a. perfect being. And this perfect being is God

it is a kind of ontological argument.

it is an argument from the existence of an idea to the existence of a thing - a being

now of course there are many ways of challenging thls idea of Descartes

Iwant to argue a point that is quite different from any of those I have come across

Descartes is trying to show that from the self we can go beyond to a non-self - in this case God

the connection is the idea of perfection

now Descartes wants to say that because we have this idea of perfection - we can induce its origin

what I think has not been taken up by critics is the relationship between the self and the idea of perfection

the relationship is crucial to Descartes' argument

he must show that thls idea is essential to the self that it is an essential and not accidental property

as far as l can see all that Descartes has to say about this is that the self has, posses the idea of perfection

but he needs to say more than thls

there are many ideas that the self has but which are not essential to it

he has to show that perfection is not such an idea

now it seems to me that there is a prime facie problem here

on the one hand Descartes affirms the imperfect nature of the human being

now if this is true how can an idea of perfection - (this is assuming that we can have an idea of perfection at all) - be characteristic, essential to the self

what I'm getting at is that Descartes has not really developed an adequate idea of the self

he claims we can know its existence with certainty

but what of its substance?

apart from this question, what I am asking is -

how can such an idea be central to the self, and if itis notcentral to the self then Descartes cannot even begin his argument for the existence of God.

another point.

surely Descartes must show that the self as such and not just an idea it might posses - tends to the existence of God

that is - he would need to show that the self cannot be without God's existence how could thls be achieved?

well to begin with one would have to show that the self is not identical to the body - that the self is non-material but that it exists in a material world, and manifests itself in material behavior

and what ground could we have for such a proposal?

I can't think of any that are any good

the fact that what we perceive of the material world does not always correspond with how we feel about ourselves, does not necessarily mean that we have to assume that what we feel is ontologically different from the external world

what it suggests at least is that we do not yet have general enough laws to accommodate both statements of phenomenon, and present them as instances which are qualitatively similar

but why begin with the assumption of matter?

why assume that the world is material rather than non-material?

one can't say the world just is material you can touch hear see, smell matter

- this is no answer

analysis shows that experience (whatever this is) - we can do a Hursell and bracket it - is what it is - irrespective of our interpretations. And philosophical experience shows us that there are a whole number of potentially incompatible, but nevertheless adequate comprehensive accounts of experience

now I think we can accept all possibilities

that is we can operate with materialism, idealism, skepticism for specific purposes

I think that materialism is quite adequate is true for interaction, perception of medium range objects

I think there is an argument for adopting idealism on a microscopic level, in the realm of high level physics

And I think once we see the essential pragmatic value of philosophical world views - their importance diminishes

that is we begin to see the conventional nature of philosophical theories

this is, as far as I know quite a radical point

we are of course familiar with the view that scientific theories are conventions which we accept or reject on pragmatic grounds

but the same philosophers who have made this point with regard to scientific theories, have refused to see it with regard to their own theories

and of course, they rightly see that such a view leads to skepticism

skepticism it is thought has no pragmatic value - in fact it seems to threaten the pragmatic program if it is taken too far

the bottom line is that philosophers have been afraid of skepticism

I think this fear, as with all fears has paralyzed positive work     

the fear of skepticism

is I suggest the psychological basis of western philosophy

it is a fear which western philosophy has spent centuries justifying

and as far as I am concerned it is a fear which has never been faced

my view is that from a philosophical point of view, such a fear or the justification of it is very questionable - to say the least - let's just say I have some doubts

the point is that skepticism has been equated with despair, hopelessness, powerlessness

and if it is the case that a full skepticism does imply such

then of course such a fear is justified

but I suspect that such is not the case in fact I am sure that it is not

but before showing this let me say that the equation of skepticism and powerlessness has a dubious logical basis, quite apart from any epistemological argument

the equation is a result of committing a kind of psychologistic fallacy that is conflating and confusing logic and psychology

in this case it is equating a psychological condition with an epistemological outlook

it suggests that an essential component of the epistemology

is the psychology of despair

now no doubt the two may be related but such a relationship is not necessary

but if this is so - that is if the epistemology of skepticism does not imply the psychology of despair - a view I think any 'positive' skeptic must resist if that is so - what is the origin of their association a good question

in response to this question I think of Bacon's assertion that knowledge is power

now we can't just write such a view off as false, and it is no simple matter to show that this view id false, just simply because knowledge has given some people power - power over nature and others - and I suppose overall it has given everyone power of some kind and to some degree. The real question that has to be addressed is what is power?

now Bacon defined it as control over nature and this view has been generally accepted as true

what else could power be but control?

and surely the means of control is knowledge

how can you control a phenomenon?

unless you first know it?

this may not be as clear as it seems

we can say for instance that people have controlled nature without knowing it, and there are clear examples of where society has been controlled by individuals without them knowing in any clear sense what they are controlling

more often than not it seems to me that the claim to knowledge has been used in a defence of, a justification of a grab for power

so I would say that knowledge is not necessary for the exercise of power

I would accept that people believe that inorder to have control over a state of affairs, that in most cases, they believe that they control this state of affairs - but I would argue that this assumption can be shown to be groundless.

what I am suggesting overall is that a claim like Bacon's is not an epistemological claim - that it is in fact an ideological claim -

Ideology on this view becomes a mask that appears as knowledge, but one which is not seen for what it is

hence it becomes difficult to criticize and hence difficult to refute

ideology would not have its force if this fact was recognized

hence it is important for ideologies to maintain the illusionof knowledge, because such still functions ultimately as their supposed justification

18/5/83

my broad basic skepticism can be formulated simply as this: it is not that I think we don't have knowledge, it is rather that I think we don't know what knowledge is.

26/5/83

Wittgenstein     

Investigations Pt

"For think of the sensations produced by shuddering: the words "it makes me shiver" are themselves such a shuddering reaction; and if I hear and feel them as I utter them, this belongs among the rest of those sensations. Now why should the wordless shudder be the ground of the verbal one"?

(1) the words themselves are such a shuddering reaction

from a physical point of view given a reductionist analysis this is true, and hence as Wittgenstein says the verbal reaction is in the same class as the shudder

but what is the significance of such an analysis?

what are the results the benefits

I can't help but think that any such reduction is fundamentally uninteresting

it seems that it makes no difference - can make no difference to 'experience' - the experience of the world

what I am asking is what is the purpose the goal of a such an analysis?

what difference does it make?

some would argue that it makes science - physical science possible - this is false - or that it gives it direction - this is true, but I suspect that with the practise of science it is not as influential as many would suggest

anyway this is not really the, issue

the issue is, is a shuddering sensation ontologically of the same type as the expression of such?

now Wittgenstein in the above assumes that both are physical, but is this really the issue?

a reduction of both to physics is possible, but again this is uninteresting

what I think Wittgenstein has missed is that the shuddering is not perceived as being the same as the verbal expression and visa versa

and I don't think one can deal with this different perceptionby suggesting point blank that really both perceptions are

essentially the same

I don't think both are perceived as being the same, and why this is so is really what is interesting

why is this so? What does this tell us about man, his knowledge the world he knows

(2) Now why should the wordless shudder be the ground of the verbal shudder?

good question - there is no necessity about it

but it seems to me that what Wittgenstein has really come to grips with is that it is perceived this way - of course he knows this - but he doesn't view this fact to be of much importance or interest philosophically

he doesn't see it as being something to explain philosophically, it is rather something to explain away.

and there is nothing wrong with this - its creative, interesting, but I don't think it really comes  to grips with experience asit is

let me ask Wittgenstein why should we doubt the ordinary persons perception of the relationship between the shudder and its verbal expression?

we can say well it could be wrong, this is so, but it is also a fact that it is not perceived as being wrong

and this I think is no fact to be viewed lightly it is a large fact a 'well grounded' fact.

(3) Grounds

when Wittgenstein asks why should the wordless shudder be the ground of the verbal shudder, is he asking an ontological, psychological or biological question?

strictly speaking he is right when he suggests that there is no epistemological necessity that the two shudders are related epistemologically

but this is to suggest that epistemological relationships are different in kind from the others mentioned

and I think this is so

I believe epistemologists have tried with deductive and inductive models to find a kind of necessity that can be felt psychologically and witnessed biologically

and central to this attempt to establish epistemology is the search for the grounds of the relationships

now this to me is an incurably speculative enterprise - so when Wittgenstein says why should one be the ground of the other, he is just pointing to the nature of the animal

as regard to the psychological question, the answer is, because it is

because it is seen and felt to be this way

now this may not strictly speaking be a non-epistemological question depending an one's epistemology

but I think one would have to be very careful about e.g. equating epistemology with psychology , or attempting to absorbit into it

epistemology is by its nature a far more speculative branchof knowledge.

it is more speculative in its scope and depth

still the point remains, if we 'are asking a psychological question then Wittgenstein's question isn't all that interesting

and in fact as an epistemological question, I'm not sure it makes much sense

what sense is there in talking about epistemological grounds?

the bases of knowledge - the logico-philosophical bases -

I can't see it really - I don't see that we can talk about natural epistemological (as distinct from psychological) connections

what we can do is describe in a kind of causal way the relations between beliefs

we can see a time sequence - and perhaps even a logical sequence i.e. deduction etc.

but is there any natural epistemology -

 that is a natural logic to knowledge?

epistemology is not, a natural subject, it is a speculative -or in my terms modal - but the phrase 'modal' has a widerapplication - 'speculative' is a good contrast to 'natural'.

In fact all Knowledge is speculative to some extent - epistemologyis the purest speculation - it is meta speculation)        

in conclusion let me say that there is no reason why the wordless shudder should be the ground of the verbal shudder but the factis that it is

and by 'is' here I mean known to be, or seen to be beyond this of course one cannot say - one can speculate but one cannot say

and the ground of this knowledge

well Wittgenstein in the above quote can be seen to be suggesting that the question of grounds is not significant, i.e. 'a' could be the ground of 'b' - or 'b' the ground of 'a' - whatever it not going to make the slightest difference to 'a' or 'b' - the point is that the question of the grounds of knowledge, is an epistemological, not an ontological question.

it doesn't make any difference to the way things are - whatever the grounds of knowledge are, it still makes no difference to what (is known) to exist

30/6/83

Wittgenstein Pt. 11. (175) Investigations

'Experiencing a meaning and experiencing a mental image. In both cases we should say, "We are experiencing something only something different. A different context is proffered - is present - to consciousness". What is the content of the, experience of meaning? I don't know what I'm supposed to say to this - if there is any sense in the above remark, it is like the two concepts reflect like those of 'red' and 'blue' and that is wrong.

Can one hold an understanding of meaning as one can keep hold of a mental image? that is if one meaning of a word suddenly strikes me - can it also stay there in my mind?

If a meaning of a word has occurred to you and you have not forgotten it again, you can now use the word in such and such a way.

If the meaning has occurred to you, you know you know it, and the knowing began when it occurred to you. Then how is it like the experience of imagining something ?

If I say 'Mr. Scot is not a scot', I mean the first "Scot" as a proper name, the second one as a common name. Then do different things have to go on in my mind at the first and second Scot? Try to mean the first Scot as -a common name, and the second as

a proper name - how is it done? When I do it I blink with the effort as I try to parade the right meanings before my mind in saying the words - but do I parade the meanings of the words before my mind when I make the ordinary use of them?

When I say the sentences with this exchange of meanings I feelthat its sense disintegrates. Well I feel it, but the person Iam saying it to does not. So what harm is done? But the pointis, when one utters the sentence in the usual way something else,

quite definite takes place. What takes place is not the parade ofmeanings before one's mixid.'

Meaning and imagination

In this section Wittgenstein demonstrates that to know a meaning is not the same as having an image

now perhaps this is not as mysterious a Wittgenstein would have us believe

Wittgenstein doesn't make the point, but it seems to me that what underlies his work in II, is a distinction between knowledge and consciousness

we tend to think that to be conscious of something is to know it but this is philosophically naive. Knowledge is not just consciousness

awareness may be necessary, but I think it is not a sufficient condition for knowledge

and the real problem with Wittgenstein's analysis is that he begins with the assumption that consciousness or awareness, is 'picturing' or imaging

and as his own analysis of meaning shows this does not hold up

but he doesn't take it this way. He seems happy to leave consciousness as picturing and to ask, what then is meaning, and to imply that to know the meaning of a term must be something different from being conscious of­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_________

what I am suggesting is that he has far too narrow a view of consciousness

he is content to work with the naive picture theory and leave it at that what

we can ask Wittgenstein is, is consciousness imagination?

clearly we are conscious of entities which are not images

but the question is, how do we explicate such consciousness

how are we to describe non-picture consciousness?

and in particular, how can we say we are conscious of meaning

what does this mean?

to begin with the distinction I introduced earlier on - adistinction between knowing and______imagining and awareness

what I am getting at is that to say I know something is not in itself a clear statement - a clear and distinct idea

knowing , e.g., that God exists, that the world is material, and a certain action is good is not a question of imagining something

one has to be conscious to know, in this technical sense, but what one knows one is not strictly speaking conscious of

the phrase 'knowing_____can mean two things - knowing in the naive sense and knowing in the real sense the technical epistemological sense

what this amounts to is a distinction between consciousness and knowledge or consciousness and knowing - being conscious of and knowing that

Being 'conscious of____' and 'knowing that______'

the distinction between the two phrases, is the kind of difference that language philosophers could analyze and investigate

it is really the difference between 'that' statements and 'of' statements

it is not the kind of analysis that generally interests me very much, but it does seem to me that the 'of' statement is a, or could be seen as a statement of acquaintance and the 'that' statement is not - it seems to be a statement of assent

and if so assent to what___?

Can we say 'fact' I think not, not if we are operating with an ordinary sense of fact possibly - statement?

but. even if that were so, it doesn't' help much because we have to determine what the statement is a statement of______

one thing that we can say is that it is not a statement of what we are conscious of

but there is a very clear sense in which it is a statement of what underlies consciousness, or to be more precise what is proposed to be underlying - what is the ground of consciousness

now this is something which of course we cannot be conscious of - directly aware of

but what I think we must be aware of is the baselessness of consciousness

for why else would we search for its foundation - a ground

so this kind of knowledge is essentially a proposal

this is what I think it really is - not what it is held to be in the common mind - it is generally thought to be far more solid than a proposal, but this is actually what it is.

what this analysis throws up is the, question, how and why do we perceive the groundlessness of consciousness?

it suggests something about consciousnes itself

it suggests to be plain that we must be aware of not only the content of consciousness but also the groundlessness of that content

this is in effect to say that we perceive emptiness, or as Satre would put it 'nothingness,'

we perceive being (the content of consciousness) and nothingness (the groundlessness of that content and consciousness)

how then is this groundlessness 'perceived'?

what does this tell us about the phenomena of consciouness?

about being conscious of________

a simple answer is to say that if we are conscious of X, we must be able to be conscious of  -X

this is different from saying that we must be conscious of the absence of X

the absence of X is not -X

but what is it to be conscious of -X

In Satre's terms - non-being?

And really Satre's formulation is not what I'm on about

I'm not saying we can be conscious of nothing

rather I suggest that we are conscious of the groundlessness of what we are conscious of, and of consciousness itself

groundlessness is not non-being or nothingness, though it can be easily represented as such

mine is an epistemological argument 'Satre's is, ontological

and in a sense, Satre's is easier

nothingness is strangely enough an easier concept than groundlessness

a simple way of beginning is to say when I am conscious of XI may ask the question, what is the basis of that which I am conscious of

now this does happen - but it is not consciousness in the simplesense, it is consciousness of consciousness, and raising a critical question about consciousness itself.

it is in a sense not asking what we are conscious of - but rather what is consciousness?

now consciousness seems to require by its-nature that the subject is conscious of something

what's interesting is that if this is so, it is possible to be conscious of consciousness - to make consciousness a subject - an object of itself

I think this is in fact what happens -

the really interesting question is though - how is this possible?

that is how can consciousness be an object of itself?

we can be conscious of the fact that we are conscious

and further

we can be conscious of the fact that we can be conscious of the fact that we are conscious

ad infinitum

the process of consciousness, consciousness itself is infinitely reflective

so what we are looking at is two processes of consciousness

(1) apprehension / perception

(2) reflection

this is to say that the common sense view that consciousness is just perception is not accurate

the question now is how does this question relate to the question of meaning?

the apprehension of meaning is not the same as being conscious of an image - having an image

just a point - we do have images - but we don't have meanings

it is language that a has meaning

and is language something we are conscious of?

not in the sense that we are conscious of an image?

we are conscious of the use of language

is meaning than a property of language?

yes - but what does this mean?

what I have in mind is that we apprehend meaning

as distinct from perceiving it

this suggests fairly clearly that meaning is not a property of consciousness

but a property of? - which is apprehended by consciousness

it is a property of language

but how do we locate language ontologically?

language is clearly not private

language is public - objective, inter-subjective

meaning which is its property is the same

on this view, language is and meaning is a property of the world

a world which we have in some sense created

we are not talking here about the physical world

we are actually approaching the Popperian third world

the reality which emerges as a result of the interaction of the subject with the physical world

and what emerges is a third, independent 'world' which can then affect the first and second

meaning in this view is a third world inhabitant - as is language

this is a grand scheme

the interesting question though is what is the relationship between language and meaning?

can there be a language without meaning?

no

so there is a sense in which language doesn't just have meaning

language is meaning

so we need to know a great deal about language to know about meaning

Wittgenstein is right in saying that there is not a parade of meanings

before the mind

but the problem is, what does occur?

what I'm thinking is that the apprehension invo1ved in use is quite different from that involved in simple conceptualization - i.e. image - making 'image having' - that is, that it is a far more complex and subtle 'apprehending'

because it is clear that we don't apprehend a meaning in the way e.g. that we apprehend an object or an image -

but there is a sense in which nevertheless we do apprehend meaning

but such apprehension is dynamic

dynamic in our relations with the world

meaning requires such a relation inorder to be a necessary condition perhaps

it is the dynamism of this relation which makes it so difficult to pin down

hence we do not apprehend an object or a thing in language

rather relationships and processes

so to ask the question, what is meaning? is to put the question in object language

which is not dealing with the phenomenon

so meaning is the relationship between the individual and the world language is

but though there is a structure to language

language is not haphazard

but the world and the individual are not fixed and this is why

language is essentially a tolerance - a subtle - a supple reality(i.e. Popper's third world) - it is tough but variable - and I would suggest overall indeterminate - not that it is undetermined - but that it is not fixed

hence the problem of meaning

the search for meaning is a search for definition

and as objects appear definite fixed, stable

it is natural that man should attempt to achieve, find objectivity in the face of indeterminacy

but this is not on - the phenomenon is not object - ive

it is at this point that my Proposal theory comes into play

what we do is propose objectivity

we propose it to deal with the simple problem of indeterminacy, and the more profound problems of foundations to established language (i.e., relatively determined language)

this is the reflective process of consciousness as distinct from the process of apprehension, (be it passive or dynamic)

what we do in proposing meanings, definitions, foundations etc. is I think attempt to reduce the dynamic of our relation with the world to a static dynamic form

we do this inorder to deal better with the indeterminism of our knowledge

what I am suggesting here about human nature is that the immediacy of our images - the object - like - ness of the world is the determining factor in our relations with ourselves and the world - that these characterizations are very forceful and impressive - and hence secure

the search for such determinacy, for such objectivity  is a vain search, because what we are attempting to objectify is not an object-like entity, but a different entity altogether what we are dealing with is a process - a dynamic process -which by its ontological nature cannot be made object like

but the immediacy and forcefulness of objects suggests their 'truth' - that this is the way the world is, and further how it should be

it takes a lot of reflection and a lot of guts to see it different - and I think one never feels easy about this

but getting back to Wittgenstein for a moment -

(1) And what is the content of the experience of meaningI don't know what I'm supposed to say to this

I think Wittgenstein is dead honest here

my own answer is that the question of content doesn't apply to meaning

this is because meaning is not a content but a process.

now I do think there is some truth in this

but how one explicates this process, in this sense, in terms of specific use, is a problem

(2) Can one hold an understanding of meaning as one can hold a mental image?

my distinction between apprehension and reflection.

we can have a perceptive apprehensive understanding and a reflective understanding

how we characterize reflective understanding is no easy matter because the very act of such is an attempt to go beyond the world of objects and images, it is difficult to characterize the act in a non-objective way

and I suspect such must be the nature of the act

the short answer to this is 'no'

____ is difficult - it is not a matter of holding it is rather 'having'

(3) Mr. Scot is not a Scot,

if you change the Scots, the original meaning disintegrates for the speaker and not the hearer.

we already know there is not a parade of meanings before the mind, in normal usage

but doesn't it happen in this case

yes - it seems and the answer to (2) is yes - at least in this limited sense - when there is this disintegration of meaning.

but what Wittgenstein may not have fully grasped is that when this happens we are not dealing primarily with usage, at least in a naive sense we are dealing with

conceptualization. it appears that we are conceptualizing meaning

but what is really happening I think is that in this kind of case 'meaning' has been translated into image - and this doesn't always happen, or can always happen, but when it does we are really asking, does this image really fit this context, how does this image relate to that image - Wittgenstein's overall point, that there is not a

parade of meanings, stands -

but what he hasn't spelled out is that we can translate, that we do translate meanings into images

and that thus we do deal with the images of meanings

those images of course are a development of use - a consequence of established use of languages

the question of meaning is starting to look like an irrelevant issue

in normal usage we do not have a parade of meanings - or images -

but really if we stopped to think about it if we analyzed the statement - reflected on it - I think we would find images - well formed, partially formed and possibly even empty

the fact that in normal there is not this parade - or doesn't appear to be, is because - partly

and maybe one of the functions of language is to short-cut this image parading - language becomes a sort hand for images - for imagination in this technical sense.

2/6/83

the point I ended up with on the last page - I was pleased and surprised to find Wittgenstein comes to, in some sense, in the next section

'It is quite as if he had given a verbal description and as such a description can also simply take the place of the image'

Wittgenstein however wants to argue a more radical point than I.

He says:

'What makes an image of him into an image of him?'

He says , later on:

'Suppose however that someone were to draw while he had an image, or instead of having it, though it were only with his finger in the air (this might be called motor imagery') he could then ask, "whom does this represent?" And his answer would be decisive - it is quite as he had given a verbal description: and such a description can simply take the place of the image".

this is so - the description does take the place of the image

by itself though this point is uninteresting

I could make the same point, and yet not hold what Wittgenstein argues in preparation for this point.

it seems to me Wittgenstein is arguing with the 'finger in the air' argument that there is no necessary connection between image and description

this is so

my point is though that such a connection is made by the image haver and language user - by the person.

it is not an intellectual choice - it is a natural given connection

not much more I think needs to be said than this

the nature of the connection how it is made, is I think probably an inappropriate question

12/6/83

Wittgenstein PT.II.iv.

"I believe he is suffering. Do I also believe he is not an automation?"

Yes, but strictly speaking it would be appropriate to say I know, he is not an

automation.

"He isn't an automation, what information is conveyed by this?"

simply that he is not a machine.

why should a picture not do the same as words?

fair enough meaning is not confined to language

"The human body is the best picture of the human soul"

a good line but that's all.

"In my heart I understand when you said that pointing to one's heart? Does one, perhaps not mean this gesture. Of course one means, or is one conscious of using a mere, figure.................."

What Wittgenstein is saying here is that different kinds of expression can convey meaning

A simple point which up until Wittgenstein, was resisted by a number of twentieth century 'meaning' philosophers.

if it is not language which carries meaning, if it is generally speaking expression in its broadest sense the question we have to ask ourselves, is, what is it that makes an expression of any kind 'meaningful'?

what if we took the view that meaning is in some sense a primitive and that an expression, if it is an expression, is an expression of meaning

the point is that an expression must be an expression of something

this does not invalidate a 'use' theory - it just limits it

the point is this:

we identify meaningful expressions by the use of the meaning form

be it language, gesture or whatever

so how do we distinguish a meaningful expression from a meaningless expression?

this is probably something we cannot establish objective criterion for

we can look at standard usage and see why it succeeds - really all we can see is the response

but this is not all there is to it

the response may be wrong the meaning may still be there

it seems to me that we must look to context for a clue - and that is all we will find - a clue - no definitive answer

that is 'an expression' in a sense gets its meaning from context -in a public sense -

in a private sense this is not necessarily so

we do I think need to make some distinction between public and private meaning -

the 'sense' of an expression is its private context

and its sense in a public context

in fact I am thinking that meaning  is incurably private

but that it can be expressed publicly

I am overall not afraid to say we don't know what meaning is -

that it is a mystery - I think it is

And I do believe that meaning is one thing and expression is another

we do in a sense create meaning

but it is in a sense given - but given in a natural way, by us -

it is not out there to be found

and we can loose meaning - we can look at the world and fail to see it as meaningful

15/6/83

 Wittgenstein II. V.

Wittgenstein begins this discussion by recognizing that phenomenon can be viewed from a number of different points of view. This is fine.

then he goes on to talk of psychology

"Then psychology treats of behaviour, not of the mind? What do psychologists record? - what do they observe? Isn't it the behaviour of human beings, in particular their utterances? But these are not about behaviour".

- the point being that behaviour is not about behaviour

a hard line determinist position

in discussing a particular case he says

"Isn't the point the service they put the description to?"

a pragmatic epistemology

he goes on

"But then they make a tacit presupposition". Then what we do in our language game rests on a tacit presupposition

he gives another example and comments

"Should we really express ourselves like this: naturally I am presupposing ....?' Or do we not do so only because the other person already knows that?

Doesn't a presupposition imply a doubt. And doubt may be entirely lacking. Doubt has an end".

granted that we don't speak or often think of our presuppositions it is rarely necessary to. But does a presupposition imply a doubt? why?

I would say a presupposition implies a basis - a logical basis - an epistemological basis to everyday language and behaviour

there is no absolute basis to reality - that this is the case is no great problem

15/6/83

Wittgenstein II. V.

Wittgenstein begins this discussion by recognizing that phenomenon can be viewed from a number of different points of view. This is fine.

then he goes on to talk of psychology

"Then psychology treats of behaviour, not of the mind? What do psychologists record? - what do they observe? Isn't it the behaviour of human beings, in particular their utterances? But these are not about behaviour".

- the point being that behaviour is not about behaviour

a hard line determinist position

in discussing a particular case he says

"Isn't the point the service they put the description to?"

a pragmatic epistemology

he goes on

"But then they make a tacit presupposition". Then what we do in our language game rests on a tacit presupposition

he gives another example and comments

"Should we really express ourselves like this: naturally I am presupposing ....? Or do we not do so only because the other person already knows that?

Doesn't a presupposition imply a doubt. And doubt may be entirely lacking. Doubt has an end".

granted that we don't speak or often think of our presuppositions it is rarely necessary to. But does a presupposition imply a doubt? why?

I would say a presupposition implies a basis - a logical basis - an epistemological basis to everyday language and behaviour

there is no absolute basis to reality - that this is the case is no great problem

15/6/83

Reality is not perceived as one it is not perceived as many either 'it' whatever it is, is perceived from many different positions - different epistemological standpoints.

how then do we analyze the meaning or truth of such views?

we can only understand such in terms of their context and I think 'understand' is the best we can do

the search for the basis the origin of knowledge is endless - this is a very important fact-about our reality- about human beings

but it suggests a problem - the problem of knowledge

the problem of knowledge is the springboard - the birth of understanding

though we cannot know anything finally - the attempt to do so - which I see as unavoidable - is the most important and definitive characteristics of human beings - and it is this attempt which leads to understanding

understanding is what you know as a result of the search for knowledge -

understanding is an outcome of that process

but that understanding itself is context dependent

and I mean context in the broadest possible sense.

16/6/83

Is understanding inner process?

'given if someone has a particular capacity, only when and as long as he had a

particular feeling, the feeling would not be the capacity'?

true enough, but does this mean the capacity is not an inner process?

do all inner processes - have to be feelings - do they all have to be felt?

I wouldn't think so

words are not mirror images of feelings

feelings are private - language isn't

language is public

but meaning may still be ultimately private

words are open structures - we inflict our meaning on them

words are empty of meaning

meaning is given

people are full of meaning

how do we communicate then?

well do we - it seems so on some levels

familiarity breeds not only contempt but communication.

familiar use of words

(logical spaces)

builds up structures within the word

usage structures - structures which are not fixed

the contexts fix the structures within a range of tolerance

it is those structures which we implicitly understand

what we learn to use

the filling, meaning, is relatively unimportant, and can be relegated to the private world -

we measure our meaning against the use of word structures

a meaningless word is one who's use structure does not admit of the individual's meaning

I like this view of language as empty of meaning -

we give language meaning

this accords in part with my general theory

21/6/83

Wittgenstein: Investigations. Pt.11. VII.

'What this language primarily describes is a picture, how it is to be used is still obscure. Quite clearly, however, it must be explored if we want to understand the sense of what we are saying. But the picture seems to spare us this work, it already points to particular use. This is how it takes us in.'

(1) language describes a picture.

Wittgenstein seems not too concerned to define what the picture is of

this may be O.K. - but it would be like Hursell's bracketing - leaving the epistemological question open

we can at least say the picture is had

(2) Does the picture already point to a particular use?

how can this be

can we talk of the use of a picture?

and just how important is the picture idea to that of use

surely we can use language without its pictures

language as an instrument for action

action which is pictureless

it seems Wittgenstein confuses what with how

though he doesn't tell us much about what

this use of language may not be, or have anything to do with language as such

it seems that we can talk about language as such independently of its

use

it may be that the function of language tells us something about its nature, but it also seems that its nature will tell us something of its use.

21/6/83

'Let us speak now according to our natural light. If there is a God . He is infinitely incomprehensible; for possessing neither parts or limits, He has no relation

with as. We are therefore incapable of knowing either what He is or whether He is.'

Blaise Pascal

29/6/83

Wittgenstein Pt.II.V-VIII.

'My kinesthetic sensations advise me of the movement and position of my limbs'

this I think is a strange view

my sensations are the movement

I am not advised by sensation

it is my observation of such which advises

yet we would know without observation

so perhaps he's right

but what he's reaIly talking about is how we know of our bodily movement

he is suggesting that sensation advises us of movement

that such sensation is the source of knowledge of sensation

it is not to claim, that sensation is knowledge

but that it is the basis of knowledge

I still find this difficult

we can, and I have analyzed movement into sensation - that is reduce one to the other

now this is both correct and incorrect

for explanatory purposes, it may be very useful to reduce different kinds of bodily movement to a common basis - sensation.

this I think is O.K

but if the idea i.~., to view sensation as a real as distinct from a hypothetical, explanatory hypothesis, then there are problems

that is if we still want to talk about movement as ontologically distinct from sensation

how does this work out ?

we are left with a kind of epi-phenomenal set up

where movement is the product of sensation

which still leaves it distinct but related

if we take the first view how do we separate the two?

and if we take the second view it doesn't make much sense to still be talking about both of them

we may as well just stick with movement - and drop sensation for real as distinct from theoretical purposes

finally it seems we can only talk about our perception and then the question arises, our perception of what?

this is where realism suggests itself

but that's all it does - it really only suggests itself

when we look into the answers thrown up, it seems they don't have the hardness, the realism that the question suggests they should

this I think leads us back to a kind of 'theoreticalism' an instrumentalism

which I am sure cannot be self sustaining - it is, that is not at all satisfying or final

we end up with a form of skepticism about our'real' proposals

and what's interesting is that we cannot, as the idealists hoped and believed, fall back on raw experience - for practical purposes this is O.K - no one in a normal state -will - but the point is that the attempt to explain raw experience is always theoretical and this always leads to more questions than it answers

'Knowledge' I offers no answers, only questions

15/2/83

man does have knowledge of many things

what he does not have knowledge of is the nature of knowledge

man knows but he does not know what knowledge is

why is this so?

it seems to me that what we are dealing with is the problem of objectivity - in this sense

it is through the process of knowing that we come to know the world

this tells us that knowledge is a relation - between the knower and the world

well let's just assume that this is basically correct

what does this tell us about knowledge of knowledge?

it tells us that if the above view of what knowledge is, is true then knowledge of knowledge is not on, is not possible

why is this so?

for inorder for there to be (1) knowledge of knowledge and (2) knowledge the second knowledge would have to be properly said to be 'the world' or at least a part of it

now it my hunch is correct, that knowledge is a relation between the knower (the one who knows) and the world (what is known)

then, knowledge cannot by definition be one of the relata i.e. the world or the knower

and what is quite radical is that if the schema is true, them epistemology has been

misconceived

this argument spells the death of epistemology

obviously we can say (for the sake of the argument at least) that the reiationship exists

that is we know of the relationship

                                                  .

the question really is, how can we make knowledge an object of itself?

what I have suggested is that prime facie there is something strange about this idea

I am not denying that knowledge is made an object of itself - is made the object of knowledge

i.e. how do we know we know?

this is the central philosophical question and there is something strange, very strange about it

we can and do reflect on our knowledge, and there seems to be good reasons for this

philosophers ask, how do we know?

                                                  .

can we talk about knowledge as an object?

is there such a thing as knowledge?

is there not just knowing, the process?

of course the obvious answer to this is that there is what we know, that is the product of the process

the idea of knowing as a process - suggests the idea of knowledge as a product?

but what if knowing is a process without a product?

this is perhaps going a little too far

my point is not that we don't have any knowledge

it is rather that we don't know what it - this knowledge - is

so if knowledge is the product of this mysterious knowing process

it is a rather odd product

it is a product that can be used - but not known - unless we want to argue a use theory of knowledge of knowledge

but would it be to know knowledge

and the more general question what is it to know the world -

(and is the first kind - knowledge of knowledge different?)

27/7/83

the search for the ultimate constituents of matter

I have for a long time thought that the search for the fundamental physical particle is finally a futile endeavour

this is not to say that it has no heuristic value in the short term, or that it can and has led to very destructive and anti-humanitarian results

this problem is separate, though not unrelated to the issue of rationality, as distinct from the morality of such a search

the standard realist view is that the more precise knowledge and technology, the more precise will be our knowledge of the foundations of our physical universe.

it is simply the idea that we can break the one down to the many, and then show that the many can be seen to be really forms of a more basic or fundamental 'one'

the history of physics shows that this process seems not to come to a finish - why is this so?

the realist answer to this is that the fundamental particle has not yet been sighted

and this answer seems to satisfy those involved in the search

but what does this answer really mean? Is it really an answer?

but inorder for this to be an answer we need to know what criteria it must fulfill that is what an answer to the question, what is the fundamental particle would look like?

put more succinctly, the problem is, how do you know when you have discovered the fundamental particle? - the emphasis being on know

now I suppose the realist answer to that question is, we have found the fundamental particle, when what has been discovered cannot be further reduced

but what does this mean?

does it mean that it cannot be reduced further in an experimental sense?

if so, how serious can we take such a view?

the history of science shows us that continually more elaborate and precise experimental methods are being developed

and if by such a view is meant, no further theoretical reduction - development - then this is more obviously not on

it might be conceivably be the case that all theoretical scientists stopped working at a point in time, and that.

henceforth the most fundamental theory of the day becomes the most fundamental for days to come

still we could not, no matter how pragmatic we are say that such signaled the end of the endeavour

the simple fact is that questions can always be asked

the theoretical models we use to account for the 'given' (which by the way does not give us anything), are by their nature not hard and fixed, as immediate experience appears/is. It is because of this, the non-given, theoretical - emptiness of the models, that they are not only constantly reinterpreted, questioned, criticized - but such models - such a reality demands such

the underpinnings of our experience are foundationless

this is not a problem, it is characteristic of the 'theoretical realm' - the 'theoretical reality' ,

its a characteristic that needs to be explained and explored in some detail

but it is a characteristic which makes the search for foundations a vain search

the deception is at the level of veridical experience

immediate experience suggests certainty but this is just an immediate impression

reflection on this,which is unavoidable, challenges the security of this experience

the reflection is no aberration, it is necessary

and it is the attempt to place the immediate experience in a necessary relationship with other particular experiences

it is the attempt to find the universal in the particular

the reflective process is just this - the attempt to capture and underpin immediate experience

this attempt always fails even the most valiant and ingenious

and it is the failure, the failure to feel that immediate certainty of particular experience in the reflective process, which most seriously challenges the initial assumption of the certainty of immediate experience

what is the significance of this to the question of the fundamental particle?

well firstly I think the model I have suggested can be shown in part to apply to the history of the subject

my view is that the search for foundations inevitably leads to the conclusion that there are no foundations to immediate experience

and from the argument of no foundation to immediate experience it follows that none of the proposed foundations are secure

the conclusion that modern science draws is that the inquiry is incomplete - not that the object of the inquiry (foundations) is non-existent.

this conclusion would be fair enough if it wasn't so clear on other more substantial grounds that the search for foundations to our knowledge is bound to show that there are no foundations

I believe that my conclusion is the only defensible one that can be drawn, and I think that the reason physicists have failed to see this is because they are basically philosophically simple

they do have vested interests of course in continuing the research for the fundamental particle.

the whole of present day scientific thinking is orientated in that direction, and hence so is the money and the prestige.

but a fair enough question for any such scientist to ask is, what do I do if I abandon the search for foundations?

one general thing I think that can be said is that if there are no foundations to physical reality which to most scientists is reality, then how do we characterize reality - in this case physical comes into question, as does any final characterization

now if this is so and it is, then it is clear that it is not necessary for scientists, in fact it is clearly unwise for them to operate with just 'physical' possibility

what I am a getting at is that the adoption of my view would lead to an opening up of the scientific mentality - it would in fact become the philosophical mentality.

27/7/83

Wittgenstein Investigations. 11. 204.

'The best description I can give of what was shown me for a moment is this.......

The impression was that of a rearing animal So a perfectly definite description came out - was it seeing, or was it a thought?

Do not try to analyze your own inner experience.

Of course I might also have seen the picture first as something different, and then have said to myself , "Oh its two hexagons'. So the aspect would have altered. And does this prove that I in fact saw it as something definite?

"Is it a genuine visual experience? "The question is; in what sense is it one?

Here it is difficult to see what is at issue is the fixing of concepts. A concept forces itself on one (This is what you must not forget)

For when should I call it a mere case of knowing, not seeing perhaps when someone treats the picture as a working drawing, reads it like a blueprint.'

2/8/83

Commentary.

Was it seeing or was it a thought? What sort, of distinction is Wittgenstein trying to draw here?

Clearly its not a private /public one - as both seeing and thinking are private

To be plain it seems to me that, odd as this may seem Wittgenstein doesn't know what he's about here. It is a case of Wittgenstein using sleight of mind

one point. The experience seems to transcend any part of the process. (however one chooses to describe that process. i.e. from a rationalist /empiricist point of view)

this gets back to what I think may well have been the first or one of the first points I made when I began philosophizing in these journals and it is simply that we cannot explain experience

it is that no explanation will ever cover the experience being explained.

when I first made this point I took the view that an explanation could never be satisfactory, because of the ontological difference between explanation and experience

putting it another way, how could an explanation do justice to an experience?

this raises some interesting questions about the nature of an explanation

is it a theoretical reconstruction of experience?

is it more/different from this?

that is, is it not, a reconstruction of the experience but an underpinning of it?

Wittgenstein thought it was a picture at least

what I am trying to get at and I'm not at all sure of the point

at the very least I know it is not a view that has, to my knowledge been stated anywhere else

the sense of it is this

as an explanation (a theoretical underpinning of experience - or whatever else one argues it to be) is clearly ontologically different from that which is to be explained (however one wants to characterize this, i.e., experience, reality the mind the

world, whatever) now because of this ontological separateness - and this is the serious point - because of this ontological difference - an explanation can never explain the experience to be explained

and overall I have doubt about the general point

but it is one that I keep coming back to because it does seem to me that all our explanations never really succeed

that is I think there is an unbridgeable gap between experience as a such - and our attempts to explain to know it

but the really fascinating question is, would a complete and final explanation of reality look like?

the short answer is, it would look like reality, it would be reality - it would be like this

reality is its own explanation

2/8/06

a note on realism

now realism, naive realism is hard to argue against, its hard to budge, because it is what we immediately perceive

but it is not necessarily the most adequate view of the world for all purposes

and  science post Cartesian science has clearly shown this, though it is not just in science that we find the need to doubt naive realism and conceive the world in other terms

and what I have in mind here of course is some kind of instrumentalism

now it is interesting that Rationalists (i.e. Descartes) saw their arguments as dealing fatal blows to instrumenatalism.

and historically this is quite understandable, simply because the instrumentalist view was an outcome of phenomenalism - radical empiricism

but as I have previously argued when assessing Berkeley, though his  theories of  knowledge gave rise to instrumentalism - instrumentalism can be formulated in a non-empiricist context

that is it can be formulated as a theory about knowledge about knowing the world without being tied to an empiricist epistemology

now the way to do this was cleared with the advent of pragmatism

but again pragmatism had its roots in empiricism historically a speaking

and I do not know of any philosopher who has advanced an empiricistneutral theory of pragmatism as a general theory

but it can easily be done, and strangely enough the rationalists have inadvertently helped out here

initial theories of rationalism focused on the idea of innate ideas - a perspective which put ideas as epistemologically basic and for all intents and purposes underived (putting aside of course theological excesses)

from innate ideas we go to categorical imperatives - and in this move there wasn't much left of ideas - but still the emphasis was there.

In recent times, in modern philosophy of science, the step has been made to theories. (this step was made possible through the development of philosophy of science as a separate. discipline - and is the greatest achievement that resulted from the move of philosophy, of science from epistemology)

'theories', or hypotheses since Popper have been seen to be epistemologically significant - this is a modern development and to appreciate this we need only to appreciate Newton's motto against hypotheses.

the notion of the theory has been made epistemologically familiar through modern science, with such developments as quantum theory -and through such scientific developments we can begin to appreciate that we can look at the world in a whole number of different ways we can that is adopt different views - different world views -

different hypotheses inorder to deal with this naive reality, which it turns out is not naive at all, and is only real in so far as

we give it reality

5/8/83

Descartes

(Copleston. V.4.139)

'For any particle of matter must be extended and if it is extended it is in principle divisible, even though we have no means of dividing it physically. There can be atoms only in a relative sense, relative that is to our power to divide. Secondly the world is indefinitely extended in the sense that it cannot have definable limits. For if we conceive limits, we conceive space beyond the limits; but empty space is not

conceivable. Thirdly the heavens and the earth must be formed of the same matter if corporal substance and extension are fundamentally the same thing. The old theory that the heavenly bodies are composed of a different kind of matter is excluded.

Finally there cannot be a plurality of worlds. On the one hand the matter whose nature is extended substance fills all possible space while on the other hand we cannot conceive of any other kind of matter'.

5/8/83

Substance - a sceptical attack

Descartes' argument hinges on the view that all things that are material have some one characteristic in common - it is this characteristic which defines them as material and for Descartes it is extension - all material things are extended things - that is they have length width etc. Matter is extension.

now modern science would offer an interpretation of what the extension means - that is it would fill it in. It would say that extension means i.e. atomic structure. Now how

do we interpret this?

clearly it is not as simple as Descartes might think, and I don't mean scientifically, I mean epistemologically

the status of the atomic model is a matter of issue. Are we to take a realist, phenomenalist, materialist view etc.

now I make this point to show that what at first seems straightforward, clear cut and distinct even, is in fact problematical

we can define material things as extended and at first this seems clear enough - but on close inspection it is not. The term extension functions as an open concept - and an

undefined defining characteristic

so on epistemological grounds we can see that what extension (matter) is, is, in fact an unknown

the term functions like this - its a marker and an indicator of the skeptical problem in a specific context, in relation that is to a specific philosophical question - in this case,

what is matter?

17/8/83

If it is extended it is in principle divisible.

now my view since considering this ides is that such a premise entails the conclusion, therefore it is infinite - but I would qualify this by saying that the infinity is enclosed

so what is being suggested is that if X is extended (it is material) it is divisible, and indefinitely so. i.e. that which is divided is itself divisible ad infinitum, in principle.

Hence it is clear that 'extension' is what is necessary to substance, and that given this infinity, and an enclosed kind of infinity is implied

so what I am suggesting here is that infinity is the defining characteristic of extension.

it all suggests that for the concept of infinity to have any meaning at all, it must be a substance that is infinite

i.e. it doesn't make any sense to talk of infinity as such - infinity in itself - this is to say that infinity is a property of substance - not a substance itself

it seen therefore, that for infinity to exist substance must exist first but then substance on my definition of it - i.e. substance extension - infinity - could not be said to exist prior to infinity - as infinity is its defining characteristic

the point then becomes that we cannot make sense of substance without infinity, and that we cannot make sense of infinity without substance

what we then is enclosed infinity as substance - is substance

but we cannot I think make sense of enclosed infinity withoutintroducing substance

there can be atoms only in a relative sense relative that is to our power to divide.

no argument here

quite simply this is the reason for the search, the empiricist search for the ultimate constituents, is a search without end, and is in a rationalist sense quite pointless.

this point could well form the basis of an interesting philosophical argument against nuclear physics and its products -but moreto the point its ideology    

the world is indefinitely extended in the sense that it cannot have definable limits, for if we conceive limits, we conceive space beyond those limits

what Descartes has in mind here is that, by the world we mean everything(including space) can everything have a limit?

well if it did what would be on the other side of that limit?

obviously it can't be something (for something is a part of everything)

or nothing? it all depends of coarse on what one views nothing as?

if one views it as 'no space', do we have a solution?

if there is such a thing as 'no space' - then we must be able to distinguish space from no space

Descartes' view is that if we do this, we conceive limits to space and if we conceive limits to space we must conceive space beyond these limits

its space and no space

does the concept of no space make any sense?

we end up with the view that space and matter are one in the same. This is convenient from one point of view - but it creates problems - it means in effect that the two concepts space and matter cannot be used explicate each other. It also obviously means that the common view that matter exists in space cannot make sense.

space on this view is conceptually necessary - that is we cannot think of matter without the idea of space - but I agree with Descartes that the idea of 'empty space' makes no sense - I can't see that this is a necessary idea

it seems though that Descartes wants to view space in a non-ideal way and this I don't think works.

26/8/83

Feyerabend - Science in a free society

think that Feyerabend's distinction between observer and participant views of realities is quite significant. Have not come across it before but believe that it solves one form of, one kind of the problem of objectivity

I think it is an important detail which fits easily into my own outlook

however Feyerabend wants to use it as a solution to the problems of objectivity and rationality

he wants to say that we can do away with the problem of rationality - of objectivity. He thinks that through this distinction we can avoid the problem, the question - what is the real world, or what exists independently of the observer-participant conceptions - or what is it that the observer / participant views are of

I don't believe Feyerabend has an answer

now my view is that what Feyerabend says is OK up to that point

I think it can be shown that the objective reality is the unknown

that the unknown has an objective reality

this is radical

it was established a long time ago that there is a subjective ignorance. But it was not thought that the objective world is in itself unknown - and that this is the source of objective ignorance

Kant's arguments on this question were good but confused - and in any case he was not really an objective skeptic

3/9/83

Feyerabend's argument that we can only interpret knowledge and its institutional forms, and for that matter I suppose all life forms, in terms of the interaction of reason and practice, is really no different from the Popperian argument - his three world view and his interactionism, and is quite frankly just a little tired - it is useful, and more so than some other attempts to account for life and knowledge - but finally very staid

for me the central concept - the key to the understanding of knowledge and its forms is ignorance

and this I believe is a powerful concept when understood

it is a complex matter but we can start by saying that all knowledge - is a response to 'objective ignorance' - (I think this term is preferable to the 'unknown' and 'unknowable')

we can then say that the responses, any response to the objective world can be shown to be, objectively baseless - that is even our best and most intelligent attempts to make something of the unknown

so the question becomes how do we judge between competing accounts of the world

well the view I have put forward for a long time is a pragmatic one

that which enables us to deal more effectively with the unknown is to be preferred

and know this is decided is a relativist / subjectivist issue - or it is this way I think that the relativists and the subjectivist accounts best account for what happens - finally of course this view is itself subjectivist

really the only objective, criterion is the unknown - and the unknown is silent

30/9/83

Epistemology

Epistemology is the 'science' of knowledge, The study of knowledge (knowing and the knower, as such). It posses the question what is knowledge i.e., how do we distinguish between knowledge, opinion, belief etc., and in fact is knowledge as such possible? If not then why, how has the illusion emerged. Is it necessary?

31/10/83

the Cogito

Descartes' cogito was not primarily an existential premise.

That is Descartes was not essentially concerned with proving existence

His primary interest was epistemological. That is he wanted to show that we could know and this for Descartes meant knowing with certainty

what he did was use the existential proposition as proof of the epistemological

or what he did was assume that this could be done, and that one could ground epistemology in ontology

Satre with his existence precedes essence, can be seen as a development of this central point

and there is much sense in this view (in point of fact I am in full agreement with this point of view - in my day to day life - my practical life that is). And the reason is that

- I think Descartes saw this clearer than anyone - unless knowledge is grounded in existence and not some appearance or idea of it - but existence itself) then knowledge has so base - is ground-less - and I believe that Descartes like most people saw this as beingquite ridiculous - what is the point of knowledge if it has no foundations - that is if it is not finally based on something?

that is I think Descartes took existence as given, and then tried to show that we establish the fact of epistemological certainty given this fact

a lot hinges on the logical status of the concept of certainty

now taking a tack from Descartes it is clear that he saw it as an epistemological concept i.e., certain knowledge .

and he thought further that - and this is the crucial issue what is the relationship between epistemological certainty and existence?

it seems to me that Descartes saw both concepts - not as analytically interchangeable - but as compatible

that the 'given-ness' of existence - was the ontological primitive - that the certainty of knowledge the epistemologicalprimitive

both concepts were in this sense philosophically compatible equivalent

put together that is they give us a complete picture - the two pieces of the same jig saw

what I am getting at is that strictly speaking we cannot be certain of existence - certainty is a category of epistemology

of course we can be certain of an idea of say existence - but this is different.

(I am presuming the epistemological coherence of the idea of certainty, just for the argument)

this raises the question, what is certainty? What is it that we are or can be certain of?

if we take the view that certainty is just an epistemological concept - that it therefore cannot be explicated in terms of ontology - the question is, how do we explicate it?

the problem is the problem 'of '. Common sense and common usage suggest naturally that we are certain, if we are certain of anything - that we are certain of something - some 'thing', that is

Descartes can therefore be seen as being quite consistent and appealing to common sense, in so far as he suggests that epistemology is grounded in ontology

he would that is not accept my view that the two concepts are mutually exclusive - that one cannot be reduced to the other or that one cannot be made to depend on the other - logically if not practically speaking.

the fact that Descartes really does as I have suggested oscillate between two views - the reduction view - and the independence view (i.e., he saw certainty as epistemological - at least initially but made the jump to the second view in the final analysis - he was overall confused on this issue)

given this, what are we certain of?

Descartes' confusion becomes clear when it is realized that his model of certainty is mathematical

we can circumvent a full discussion of certainty by focusing on Descartes mathematical definition of certainty and asking certain questions about it in the context of the cogito.

the obvious thing to say is that Descartes has hoisted his analytic certainty into the existential context - and that is the problem

let's look at theological structure of the cogito

I think therefore I am

is this an analytic statement?

that is can the 'I think' replace the 'I am' and visa versa

if it can then it is clearly analytic and hence of no existential consequence, and for that matter of only trivial epistemologicalimport

the first thing to note is that the substitution cannot take place

Descartes might be right in his view that the 'I am' is presupposed by the 'I think' - but this does not qualify it for analyticity.

the fact is the two are not equivalent in meaning

the statement is therefore not analytic

I think an argument could be waged to the effect that Descartes did in fact hope that certainty could be transferred to a non-mathematical context

further the cogito is clearly not synthetic -

does it have a synthetic import?

what Descartes is arguing is that there is not just a contingent relationship between thinking and existing but that the relationship is necessary

i.e., it is necessary that a thinking thing exists

overall I think we have to say that if Descartes was arguing for certainty - the certainty he finds if he finds any certainty is not analytic

I don't know if it can be a priori either - I don't see how we can think of thought and existence independent of our experience

so how do we know (with or without certainty) the cogito?

it seems to me that from a logical point of view - the cogito is strictly speaking unanalyzable? - or senseless - or just a statement which is of the kind that is perhaps special - in that it makes sense but cannot be categorized logically - logicians would of

course reject this possibility - but that's not a problem

and it seems to me that Descartes may have looked at it this way. He gives no logical analysis of the cogito - his argument is that its truth rests in its clarity and distinctness

it is the ultimate clear and distinct idea

and it is this which gives the cogito certainty

we can ask what this clarity and distinctness consists in?

the obvious approach is logical - analyze clarity and distinctness logically

but as was shown above this doesn't throw up anything useful

what are we left with?

I think we are left with psychology and psychologism.

the cogito that is, is psychologically satisfying

and even if we grant that this cannot be achieved without words their structure, in short their logic -

we need not if we take this view be too concerned about the logical confusions contained in the cogito

so long as they have the desired psychological effect - there is no problem

there is a sense in which the problem of the cogito is a problem of the history of philosophy.

Descartes is a watershed. He is between the mystic/platonist/ intuitionists of the past, and the analytic logicians of the future

what I mean is this: the basis epistemological basis of the cogito is intuition - it is the blinding light of intuition which revealed to Descartes I think therefore I an

but he expresses this intuition in a logical way - in a form which has some of the marks of deductive logic - and this confuses makes it more difficult to see that what we are primarily dealing with is insight - not logic

also just the literary economy of the cogito - its slikness - its 'aphorism-ness' makes it appear that it is a proposition that should be analyzed

Finally with regard to the problem of epistemology and ontology, the fact is that with Descartes we have no real resolution. What we have is a statement, or more correctly the formulation of the problem

what exists is what is known

it seems to me that ontology is really just the conferring of objectivity on our subjectivity (knowledge)

our subjectivity operates this way

and in this sense existence is 'given'

but philosophical analysis redefines this 'given'

we necessarily think we have knowledge of something

and fourth that what exists can be known

this is the framework within which the issues of epistemology and ontology emerge

it is in this sense - the given domain within which we must work, at least initially, inorder to understand reality

but it is strictly speaking no more than a framework

a primary one yes - ultimately just a framework - finally on thesame footing as those which emerge to replace it

It is as William James has said, 'actualities seem to float in a wider sea of possibility from which they were chosen -

so it is with a framework that gives us a relationship between existence and knowledge

such a reality - such a picture is just a possibility and one which has stabilized, has become fixed

why of course is a matter of conjecture

possible explanations of the possible - the stable possible

what is clear is that we can always think beyond the actual and in so doing there is no necessity in it - and no reason no sufficient reason - only 'modal' reason

this is metaphysics

10/10/83

Wittgenstein / the positivists / 'facts'

Facts are all that exist

Wittgenstein and the positivists saw this fact clearly

where they screwed up was explaining how we know facts

that we do know is not the issue

what this knowing comes down to is the issue the problem

but explaining the fact of knowing is just the same problem as explaining any other facts

so what is a fact?

the short answer is I think that we cannot say - definitively

and this is of course is what Wittgenstein came to understand in his second period

what he decided is that we can only describe facts, and that all we have to work with analytically is our descriptions, our language games

I accept Wittgenstein's point but I don't see the necessity to confining it to language games and language use - to language

this would be OK if in fact language was adequate to the task  - was a philosophically uncontraversial phenomenon, was in fact foundational

but the truth is that language is like any other fact both philosophical and phenomenal

there is a double aspect theory of  facts - and reality

this means that a fact is known, but what knowledge of this is cannot  be known - is indeterminate

hence we have a paradox - facts are both determinate and indeterminate, at one and the same time

the indeterminacy is philosophical (epistemological) the determinacy is phenomenal

in plain terms what this means is that we know, but when we reflect on this knowledge we don't know

the history of philosophy has reflected this dualism -

but it has presented it as competing accounts of the nature of facts/ reality i.e., that we know X, as against the view that we don't know X

what I am suggesting is that the two perspectives are not incompatible, but rather that they are the two aspects of the one reality - that we cannot adequately account for any fact without taking  into account its determinate and determinate aspects

the indeterminate aspect means that we can know what the determinate aspect that we can know that -

to use a mediaeval distinction

another way of putting it, a less metaphysical way, is to say that the determinacy cannot be explicated - in a determinate sense - as for instance the positivists hoped and believed.

we can of course use any one of the possible theories that have been advanced to explain what it is that we know - but this is all

what we know in any final sense is the unknown and of course the unknown is indeterminate

my own view my selection from possibles is what I an interested in coming to terms with

and at present I hold a normative theory, an intuitionist view - that is I believe we intuit facts

beyond this at the moment I don't have a lot to say

                                           .

I suppose it really doesn't matter how we know - the fact is that we do -

knowledge of anything is from an epistemological point of view empty

we know, but we really don't know what knowledge itself is

and this doesn't matter such at all

facts, are (as the Latin word suggests ) made

so too our theories about facts - our epistemologies

17/10/83

some thoughts on facts

the existence of a 'fact' is tied to perception

this is not a phenomenalist or Idealist theory

facts are brought into existence by the knower

a fact is a possible which has emerged from possibles - through the act of knowing

a fact then is an actual

but it will not do to only analyze facts from just an epistemological point of view

facts come into, emerge into existence for a particular perceiver

they are - in the emergence from the modal into the actual - objective (if only for me)

I don t really know how this emergence takes place, this change from modal to actual, from a possible to an existent

this is the riddle of the universe the mystery of life

18/10/83

Soul

Poetically I have always had a strong image of the human soul - 'surreal', transparent, grey, malleable, substanceless.

I see the soul as non-physical in the material sense. And I am not an interactionist. A more accurate description would be a parrallelist

do not really go for epi-phenomenalism

but do not hold with the immortality of the soul

I see it as passive

it is not the life principle nor is it life itself

it is a part of the life whole - it is life space

but more than this it is the form of physicality

3/11/83

Epistemology is theory of knowledge , it is not knowledge itself

such a view I think is the only way I think we can make sense of the skeptics claim to

'know' that there is no knowledge

such a statement is an assertion about knowledge. It is not a claim to knowledge, or a claim of knowledge

so the question is 'if the radical skeptics view is not a claim of knowledge, a knowledge claim what is it, how do we describe it, what is the status of such a claim?

                                                           .

Naive skepticism is the doctrine that the term knowledge is meaningless. That is that it makes no sense to talk of knowledge at all

it is negative skepticism par excellence

the problem with this view is that it makes no sense of man, the world, or man's relation to it

that is it is not explanatory. It is therefore self-defeating

the point is that any philosophical theory is an attempt to explain reality

it is one thing to claim that theory X or Y is not a satisfactory theory but it makes no sense at all to argue that there is no point to explanation

this is what is implied by naive skepticism

and such an implication, and in fact presumption prejudices the discussion

but I don't think that it can be said that the naive skeptic's argument is a concealed explanation, and therefore subject to its own criticism

in fact if this were so I think naive skepticism would in fact look a lot better even if it could it then be claimed that it was self contradictory. At least in such a case it would still be in the game

I think that the naive skeptic really is negative - really does want to argue that the argument that no knowledge exists is real

what do we make of such a claim, whether it is made by the naive skeptic or by a more sophisticated skeptic?

what that is do we make of any claim about the nature of knowledge?

                                                        .

but the problem is that 'knowledge' as we usually use the term can be, is used, as a subject of itself

i.e., we know what we know, we know that we know

what is clear from these expressions is that we need to distinguish between knowing and knowledge

how does this help?

the question is, is the 'knowing about knowledge', the 'knowing knowledge' 'knowledge' itself?

can we call what we know about knowledge - knowledge

why not?

I don't think that the knowing / knowledge distinction has much force here

                                                        .

what it really comes down to, is what is it that we know? And does knowledge fall into this definition?

so what has to established is a formal definition of knowledge - a neutral definition - one which does not presuppose any of the epistemological issues at issue.

so such a definition is not a content definition - it is in the true sense a formal definition - a definition of the form of knowledge

but this is a difficult task

the history of epistemology has been the history of content theories (i.e. the content of knowledge is sense impressions, ideas etc.)

well what does any theory of knowledge, irrespective of its view of content tell us about the nature of knowledge

what is it to know?

one response to this question is to say that any answer must be analytical - for it to be synthetic - we would have to start

start talking ontologically that is talking about content

even common definitions such as knowledge is justified true belief are incurably epistemologically loaded

now this situation is just what the skeptic is on about - the sophisticated as distinct from the naive skeptic

I believe that this argument: that a definition of knowledge which is free of presuppositions is impossible - is correct

and the conclusion of this argument: that we cannot establish a definition of knowledge is correct

                                                              .                                    

so when the skeptic says to the believer: "we don't know what knowledge is', or some such statement - he is right

now what about the believer's reply - well at least yen know that much

the skeptic cannot make any sense of that claim

he can reply well what do you mean - and so on

the skeptic cannot of course claim to know that knowledge is illusion

I guess the skeptic must self destruct his own claim : he must take the view that his claim to know is in the same boat as any other

                                                                 .

the above is the typical skeptics response to the problem of skepticism

in itself it is rather vacuous

and the whole point of my own positive skepticism is that skepticism need not be uninformative

that is that a skeptic does have a great deal to offer us in our attempt to understand the world

this can happen if it is realized that once we accept the skeptics argument, we can if we still have any interest in the problem of reality - and we must so long as we exist - by necessity - take the deep breath of freedom - realize that all our schemes, theories and knowledge - are - all of them perfect candidates for making the unknown intelligible. We must then learn epistemological flexibility, rather than is often claimed epistemological relativism -

while at the same time - at all times be confronted with the face of the unknown, in-any glance at reality

this is all fine I have elaborated it in detail elsewhere I want now to return to the problem of skepticism

                                                                .

the problem of skepticism we saw above can be dealt with

however I'm not happy with the standard response or not entirely happy

I would like to think, I suspect there is another more interesting solution to the problem, which can preserve the integrity of skepticism, and show more clearly its potency

And in this connection I want to investigate the suggestion I began this discussion with : that knowledge must be distinguished from epistemology

in much the same way as we distinguish between fact and theory

if such a distinction can be made the way is obvioussly clear for a straightforward solution to the problem of skepticism

if any theory of knowledge is not itself knowledge, then it cannot be subject to any criticism of knowledge

                                                               .

it needs to be pointed out before we go any further, that some times the skeptics claim is made as an existential / ontological claim: that knowledge does not exist

now I think there are big problems with this view and it is just another instance of the perennial problem I have not found a satisfactory solution to: the problem of knowledge and existence

so far I have not been able to make much sense of talking about ontology- as a separate discipline

the ontological commitment of a statement, seems to me to be no more than what it is we are said to know - our way of expressing knowledge -

but I have never been entirely happy with this

to digress for a moment, the idea that, when we know, what we know is what exists  (that is independently of our knowing it), is the common sense view - but we can't establish ontology on this basis - because it presupposes too much epistemology - can 'only exist' given the truth of a correspondence theory of truth - and all that implies

If ontology is to make any sense - and I have a deep feeling that it should, then it must have an 'existence' independent of the problem of knowledge

but I cant for the life of me see how this can be - though again I am not convinced of this

                                                             .

the dispute can I think be short circuited. I think we can say, well whatever exists - whatever this means - can for the argument's sake be distinguished from the problem of knowledge - how can we know - whatever it is that exists?

                                                                .

Wittgenstein in his Tractatus says facts are all that exist

the point for me is that knowledge, or whatever is claimed to be knowledge does exist, if not in an epistemological sense certainly in a social sense

Facts are all that exist

we know - our knowledge is these facts

but what this knowledge is, is the question

does it have any foundation, can it be justified, is it baseless, these are questions for your epistemologist

now there is a sense in which one's answer to these questions, becomes a part of one's knowledge

this is how I have seen the matter anyway

what I am interested in is looking at the matter differently

that is not seeing epistemology as knowledge

but as theory of knowledge

and this of course suggests basically a positivist view of know ledge

but perhaps even more radical than that

it is a radical phenomenalist view - though I wouldn't describe it that way

on this view theory is not knowledge

and theory of knowledge - epistemology is not either

now to me this is quite an amazing line of thought to be investigating

and the fact is that it really appeals to me

and I will show that it is not contra my modalist outlook - nor for that matter is it rightly construed as an argument against skepticism

                                                             .

what I think is that we do 'know' facts - perceive facts - but that we cannot determine these facts

or to put it another way, we cannot describe these facts

of course we do attempt to - and this is the reflective process

and further we believe that when we see a red object for example, we are seeing, knowing something that can be described, i.e. an object, which has the property of 'redness'

but what does such a claim amount to?

how do we explain this notion, perception of an object, i.e., how do we describe what an object is? how do we describe 'redness'?

with regard to the object we may use an ostensive definition. 'this is an object'. or we may use a verbal definition. i.e. an object is a thing, and further we may attempt one of many theoretical, i.e. scientific, metaphysical definitions. Any such definition will be reductive - it will be an attempt to try and define 'object' in terms of a more fundamental concept - all of which may be useful, but it doesn't address the problem of the status of immediate knowledge .

I guess what I am really coming down to is that there is no such thing as immediate knowledge

what we immediately perceive is not actually known

it is only reflection and there are various levels of this, (there is I think immediate 'given' reflection, but this is not given to us by reality, as distinct from the perceiver - a necessary dististinction I think - it is given by us to reality - and though it is an immediate given - and not reflective in the usual sense of reflective - it is reflective in that it is given by us which gives us what is termed knowledge

from one point of view this is not so radical it is just to say that knowledge is not reality - it is imposed on reality

but in so far as reality is unknowing all that we can say about it is what we know

on the face of it then, this conclusion would seem to be contradicted by my statement about facts. But it is not so. Facts do exist. But they are given to reality - but in the sense of immediately given

Perception of a red thing is a fact but it is not immediately known in the empiricist sense - it is not 'reflectively' known and therefore on my view , not known

I think it will be necessary to drop the idea of immediate reflective knowledge i.e. the red object

and just say that such perception is empty epistemologically speaking

that we can only say anything about it reflectively

and hence that the use OK language is always reflective

another way of putting it is to say that we can't say anything objective about the perception of facts - except that such perception is empty - contentless - objectively speaking

so our most basic perception is unknown

but for practical purposes this means nothing

still the idea of facts is one I want to hang onto but I don't think we can say anything about them

so why keep the concept?

my thought is that it is a valid one

if nothing else it cannot be disputed that we do perceive

and the question is asked what do we perceive?

we could just say 'reality' but this is too general

(I think my overall epistemological outlook is sympathetic to 'facts' as an answer)

and the notion of facts easily apprehended in universal and particular contexts - this makes it very useful

it also has an edge which makes it appropriate for particular contexts

a really comprehensive analysis of this notion would require a thorough investigation of the problem of ontology

                                                                  .

                                                         .

on my view where the positivists and Wittgenstein went wrong was not in their identification of 'facts' as the primary meta. category - but rather in their view of the content of fact and the method , the correct method off knowing and evaluating facts

this is not meant as a harsh criticism of Wittgenstein or the positivists - they would probably find my view to be quite empty - and probably of not much value

but my whole epistemological outlook is against any specification of meta. content (ontology) or any specification of the process of knowing (epistemology).

these things cannot be stated and if they are only in a subjectivist context, and even then only in a pragmatic way

'facts' for me is a useful way of describing the world - to this extent it is purely a verbal preference

facts are unknown, how we know facts is unknown, what we do with them is where epistemology and ontology come in

we have at our disposal a whole range of epistemologies and ontologies, and the possibility of creating more

how we use them, and more correctly why, is itself an epistemological question - one for which there cannot be a final answer

                                                                .

'What you say  is right. Fluencia (flowing) is the right way. What stops fluencia is the wrong kind of ignorance and the wrong kind of ignorance is the conviction that we can know exactly what is going on. Those who have too many programs and answers are absolutely blind and their ignorance leads them to destruction. Those who know what they do not know, are able at least to see something of what is in front of their nose. They can see a shadow of it anyway. And they can move with the light and the

shadow and keep from getting immediate sunstroke. So we must all move even with the motionless movement, even if we do see clearly a few little flames yes. You can't grasp them but anyway look at them obliquely. To look too directly at anything is to see some thing else because we foresee it to submit to the impertinence of our preconceptions. After a while though everything will speak to us if we let it and do not demand that it say what we dictate.

Total corruption. Everything is corrupt and corruption spreads from one structure to another, although they all have more than enough. The only incorrupt things are silence, not knowing, not going, not waiting etc. mostly not saying. You are right

that as soon as one has finished saying something it is no longer true. Heracletos. Love is alright as long as statements are not made and as long as it does not itself becme a program, because then it is another tyranny ........

The monk is bird who flies very fast without knowing where he is going. And always arrives when he went, in peace, without knowing where he comes from'

Merton

(Furlong 266)

                                                  .

'Secondly, mathematical propositions are but one instance of truths of reason; and we can say that all truths of reason are concerned with the sphere of possibility. Thirdly to say that truths of reason are concerned with the sphere of possibility is to say that they are not existential statements. Truths of reason state what would be true in any case, whereas existential statements depend on God's choice of one particular world. The

exception to the rule that truths of reason are not existential statements is the proposition that God is a possible being. For to state that God is possible is to state that God exists. Apart from this exception no truths of reason affirm existence

of any subject. A truth of reason may hold good in regard to existent reality: we use mathematics in astronomy for example. But it is not mathematics which tells -as that the stars exist.'

- Leibnitz

(Cop. 282-3)

'But what is life but uncertainties and a few plausible possibilities .....'

-Merton

(Furlong. 248)

(c) greg t. charlton. 2019.

(c) greg t. charlton. 2019.