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Vik

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    Vik got a reaction from dream_weaver in the psycho-epistemological function of propositions   
    Louie, I'm thinking about the interaction between the conscious mind and the automatic functions of the subconscious.  I'm thinking about the subconscious as an integrating mechanism.  I was specifically thinking of how propositions help maintain focus and attention, but I didn't want responses to be restricted to only that.
    Psychology matters to the extent that they are using epistemologically proper methods.  Cognitive psychology has a bit to say about "concept learning", i.e. gaining the knowledge of how to apply a particular concept correctly, e.g. knowing what it is to be a triangle to correctly determine whether a particular thing has a qualifying aspect.
    But I haven't found anything in cognitive psychology on what propositions do for problem-solving, working-memory, and so on.  I've only found stuff on "personal epistemology".
    I didn't bother with linguistics because the cognitive role of grammar is already evident to me.  (BTW I recommend Leonard Peikoff's lectures on grammar and an old book entitled Writing and Thinking by Foerster and Steadman)
    I'm glad about how much Objectivist writings cover.  Ayn Rand remarks that a concept can be said to stand for a number of propositions. And she knows that a proposition applies a concept to something particular in a "determinate" way.  Harry Binswanger devotes a chapter of How We Know to the nature of propositions.
     
     
     
  2. Like
    Vik got a reaction from AlexL in quantitative "threshold"   
    Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology 2nd edition pg. 264:
    Rand is absolutely right to ground concepts of entities in what is perceptible within the context in which this quote appears.  All other concepts are traceable to concepts of perceptible entities so she MUST advocate this definition here.
    Historically, many false scientific theories have resulted from people trying to treat imperceptible constituents of matter as if they had the same properties as perceptible entities.  I have no desire for anyone to repeat such a blunder.
    Furthermore, we know of things that are too different from perceptible entities for us to dare use the concept.  If you try to fire electrons one after another at a double slit, you get a wavelike pattern of arrival sites on the screen behind the double-slit.  If you shine a light on whatever has just passed through the slits, you get two dense rectangles of arrival sites on the screen. If you feel really perverse, you can condense valence electrons into a certain state by means of a magnetic field at low temperatures.  Then you have to say that you did NOT find whole-number charged things but instead found things with fractional electron charges.
    The concept of electron is an abstraction from abstractions.  We have no right to act as if electrons are like the separable parts of a table.
    As for scholarship:
    If you think Rand advocated using "entity" to mean ANY "primary" physical existent, perceptible or not, you will need to show me the exact context in which you think she used the term that way, you will need to convince me that your interpretation is right, and you will need to convince me that it is more appropriate for philosophy of science than what she stated above.
  3. Like
    Vik got a reaction from William O in The Role of Concepts in Scientific Investigation   
    Here are some things I've noticed.  Where applicable, I have mentioned relevant philosophical works in the Objectivist literature. Can you think of something else that concepts do for scientists?
     
    Investigation of a universal to be explained depends on a concept of that universal. Consider "heat". Without a concept of heat, it would not have been possible to investigate its referents. One cannot investigate without first mentally isolating something that can be investigated. One cannot hope to explain something without first mentally isolating what is to be explained.

    What exists is classified as a particular instance of a universal on the basis of conceptual identification. For example, when one classifies something as "hot", the mind subsumes an aspect of a perceptual concrete under the concept of heat. In order to explain heat as an effect, scientists had to discover what it is to be heat. Since the concept of heat is an abstraction from abstractions, it was necessary to examine instances of heat.  The process of conceptual identification is clarified by Harry Binswanger in Epistemology on an Objectivist Foundation.

    The process of discovery is guided by other concepts besides the concept of the universal investigated. Scientists had to apply numerous concepts to factual data about the instances of heat: the concept of concentration, the concept of confining and enclosing, the concept of friction, the concept of chemical reaction, the methodological concept of comparative measurement, the concept of rarity of gas, the concept of motion, the concept of tendency, the concept of surface, the concept of particle, etc. 

    The validity of an investigation depends in part on the validity of the concepts used throughout the process. Every concept applied during the course of a scientific investigation must be a valid concept. And every identification depends on correctly isolating a characteristic of the subject from all the other characteristics of that subject. A study of the history of the investigation of heat will reveal how an invalid concept can interfere with causal understanding and produce erroneous theories (e.g. phlogiston, which David Harriman mentions in Logical Leap).

    Valid concepts enable the application of antecedent knowledge.
    The concept of friction can be hierarchically reduced to earlier knowledge of motion and surface impediments to motion. The concept of motion, the concept of surface, and the concept of impediment were abstracted from entities. Thus it is perfectly valid to pursue the discovery of constituents and their interactions.  The concept of chemical reaction can be hierarchically reduced to the knowledge of combinations of pure substances and the concept of change. Concepts of substances were formed by distinguishing entities according to constituents. Thus it is perfectly valid to pursue the discovery of the constituents of chemical substances. The methodological concept of experimental confinement can be traced back to the knowledge that man is not omniscient and to the concept of causality. This methodological concept can be activated to carefully exclude irrelevant, interfering factors. Leonard Peikoff and Harry Binswanger have tips on performing hierarchical reduction scattered throughout their lectures and books.

    Some instances of a universal can be used to demonstrate propositions applicable to more than one instance. Consider the expansion of liquid mercury and liquid alcohol when heated by fire. This demonstrates that the expansion of liquids quantifies the net effect of the behaviour of their constituents. Consider the fact that metal heated by the fire can produce the same amount of expansion. Consider the fact that a metal bar can be expanded by fire. Consider the fact that a metal bar is shorter in the coldest part of winter than in the hottest part of summer. Therefore we make measurements in reference to the net effect of the behaviour of the constituents.

    Concepts of characteristics provide a context for identifying the fundamental characteristic. After you have identified a number of characteristics distinguishing the universal of inductive interest, you can determine which characteristic of the concept's units is the characteristic that causes or explains the most others known. The designation of the fundamental can be altered with the growth of human knowledge. It took centuries of discovery to proceed from the aspect of motion of particles to the more fundamental aspect known as the energy of the particles. Ayn Rand discusses the contextual nature of definitions in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, chapter 5. Definitions, pg. 43-45 of the English 2nd edition
  4. Like
    Vik got a reaction from mdegges in Eternal entities   
    Indeed.  A material *is* its chemical arrangements.  A triangle *is* a closed geometric figure with three angles.   A thing is its properties.
     
    Existence *is* identity.  A thing does not "cause" its identity.
  5. Like
    Vik reacted to Grames in a table of language, "mental existents", and mental processes   
    I am in possession of a 19 page paper entitled "CONCEPTS AND PROPOSITIONS" by Dr. David Kelley that goes over this exact subject area.  Here is a representative excerpt from the paper:
     
     
    Here is the file
     
    Concepts_and_Propositions_dkelleyAS2001.pdf
  6. Like
    Vik got a reaction from JASKN in A fair warning and four questions   
    I once had a classmate who didn't want to read a textbook for lack of time.
     
    He also didn't want anyone to give him the fundamental principles because he had no context for understanding them.
     
    Yet he expected that asking questions and working through examples would be enough.
     
    He didn't do very well in the class.
  7. Like
    Vik got a reaction from dream_weaver in Created logic   
    If a person doesn't apply the laws of logic to a subject, it is not possible to have a discussion with them about it.

    The purpose of discussion is to learn, to reach objective knowledge.

    At a minimum, you seek to understand the other's position. After all it is not possible to debate anything without that understanding.


    But how can they understand you without employing logic?

    Therefore no discussion is possible.

    What should be done with such a person?

    Sure, you could try to explain to them that they *need* logic. But they would have to choose to employ logic to understand you.

    Is it enough to say you disagree and leave it at that?
  8. Like
    Vik reacted to Grames in Some Basic Questions   
    All three questions are different aspects of the question "what is the foundation of knowledge?" You are correct in being suspicious about using logic to prove logic. In fact, it is simply the fallacy of circular reasoning to even attempt to do so.

    Ayn Rand used the word axiomatic to refer to that which is "... a primary fact of reality, which cannot be analyzed, i.e., reduced to other facts or broken into component parts. It is implicit in all facts and in all knowledge. It is the fundamentally given and directly perceived or experienced, which requires no proof or explanation, but on which all proofs and explanations rest." This is not at all parallel to axioms in geometry where the givens can be selected somewhat arbitrarily just to see what can be deduced from them. The axiomatic concepts of Objectivism are existence, identity and consciousness and they are each known by perception and experience and can not be inferred by deduction. (Inferred from what?)

    Objectivism affirms your power to perceive and know the world, and that all knowledge however abstract must be justified by its eventual tie to reality. There are abstractions which are not directly perceivable, but there will always be some logically prior component of a valid abstraction which is perceivable.

    It is not the case that all knowledge is faith-based. Perception is a causal, natural this-worldly source of knowledge. Faith is an assertion of acausal, supernatural, other-worldly source of knowledge. Perception and faith are quite opposite as foundations of knowledge.

    1) The rational basis for free will (volition hereafter) is your own experience in directing yourself through your day. You do not have control over everything that happens to you, but that is not necessary to experience volition which is first and primarily the mental phenomenon of you attention and conceptual faculty and later control of your behavior. Objectivism does not claim that emotions are under the direct control of your willpower.

    2) Logic is good if you want to live and live well. If life is not your top priority then logic is not so important, but the practical consequences of attempting to live a contradiction can not be avoided. Because there are people who do not wish to live, and knowing is the means to living, it is not true that "all men desire to know" as Aristotle asserted.

    3) It is not the case that knowledge must be faith based, as explained above.

    The case for the reliability of the evidence of the senses is given in an academically rigorous form in David Kelley's book The Evidence of the Senses. Ayn Rand's theory of concept formation and of the hierarchical structure of knowledge based on the senses is given in her technical work Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 2nd ed.
  9. Like
    Vik got a reaction from dream_weaver in Existence . . . Exists?   
    Or Heraclitus.

    But whether one ingests "Dike eris" or "Aufhebung", expect paralysis.
  10. Like
    Vik got a reaction from ctrl y in Focus   
    I think this needs to be clarified.

    You aren't saying that lack of evidence for determinism *proves* that we aren't determined.

    You're just saying that we have *no objective basis* for believing in determinism due to the way we experience consciousness.
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