[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

[Steven A Smith]

We all have the propensity (at different times) to conflate our greatest
hopes and worse fears with "Truth".  

In the shadow of this we have various forms of ignorance:   Simple lack
of knowledge of some phenomena or observation, through the full spectrum
to the most willful ignorance (or ignorant willfulness).

Your president seems to display the entire spectrum regularly and quite
publicly, though the two extrema seem more common.  Perhaps that is just
perception because they are the more noticeable or memorable.  Or does
this represent my "worst fears, and greatest hopes"?

On one end of the spectrum, complete misappropriation of terms (rarely
as charming as those wielded by Yogi Berra) and sentences starting with
"A lot of people don't know this but... "  and on the other end, 
assertions of will that are framed as observed fact: "Good border
control like building the southern wall would have prevented the Corona
Virus from coming in to our great country".



On 3/4/20 8:30 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> Nick,
>
> We assert "knowledge" all the time.
>
> You "know" that is is Friday morning and you need to be on your way to St. John's.
> Person X "knows" that Trump is an A __h_le.
> Everyone "knows' that the sun is 93 million (approximately, depending on position in orbit) million miles away.
> I "know" the sky is blue today, for the first time in three weeks.
>
> The other person is not the only one who believes in auras. I have seen them (and not under the influence). I might have a very different explanation and even a different perception, but that does not mean we both "know" them to exist.
>
> The problem with working understandings is their tendency to become working definitions and simply exclude anything inconvenient from being "known."
>
> Can you think of a working understanding that would allow both of the following sentences to be discussed on equal footing?
>
> I know Nick.
>
> I know God.
>
> davew
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 3, 2020, at 5:28 PM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
>> Two things, Dave,
>>
>> Peirce had actually 4 ways of knowing.  Stubbornness, Authority, 
>> Reasonableness, Experience, which he tries to treat with equal respect, 
>> but his heart is obviously with the last.  (The Fixation of Belief).  
>> You make me wonder about the relation tween Peirce and that Vedic text. 
>>  
>>
>>
>> But this begs the most fundamental question raised by your post.  What 
>> is knowledge, other than belief, and what is belief other than that 
>> upon which we are prepared to act?  There is one member of our group 
>> who, very much in the spirit of William James's altered states, wants 
>> to work on aura's  He has a tentative belief in aura's.  When through 
>> experiment and analysis he renders that belief "firm", does he then 
>> have knowledge.  Already he believes in the possibility of aura's.  We 
>> know that this is the case because of the effort he is willing to 
>> expend in their demonstration.  Does he have knowledge of the existence 
>> of auras?  Does he already know that aura's exist?
>>
>> I think problems with the very idea of knowledge lie at the core of 
>> this discussion, and we need some sort of working understanding of what 
>> we mean by it, if we are to precede. 
>>
>> Nicholas Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
>> Clark University
>> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>>  
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
>> Sent: Tuesday, March 3, 2020 1:48 AM
>> To: friam at redfish.com
>> Subject: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation
>>
>> Epistemology, loosely speaking, is the “theory of knowing.” What can we 
>> know; how do we know we know it; the difference between knowing that, 
>> knowing how, and knowing about; and, issues of the “truth” of what we 
>> know and/or justifications for thinking we know anything?
>>
>> An associated issue concerns how we come to acquire knowledge. Two 
>> means of acquisition are commonly proposed: a priori (independent of 
>> experience) and a posteriori (by experience).
>>
>> A Vedic text, Tattirtiya Aranyaka (900-600 BCE), lists four sources of 
>> knowledge, roughly translated as: tradition/scripture, perception, 
>> authority, and reasoning/inference. Of these the fourth and second seem 
>> to map onto a priori and a posteriori.
>>
>> Scholasticism — exemplars include Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, and 
>> Thomas Aquinas — was concerned with integrating three of the Vedic 
>> sources of knowledge: tradition/scripture (Christian theology), 
>> authority (Aristotle and Plato), and reasoning/inference.
>>
>> Modern epistemology (and Peirce) seems to be concerned with two of the 
>> sources: tradition/scripture (peer reviewed science journals) and 
>> reasoning/inference.
>>
>> Claims to "know" something, in a naive sense of know, like "I know that 
>> I am," "I know that I am in love," "I had the most interesting 
>> experience at FriAM just now," mystical visions, kinesthetic “muscle 
>> memory,” chi imbalance, and, of course, hallucinogen induced altered 
>> states of consciousness.
>>
>> Is it possible to construct a theory of knowledge that could extend to, 
>> incorporate, a wider range of experience and especially mystical and 
>> psychedelic experience? If it was possible, would it be of value? If 
>> possible and of value, what parameters could be set to limn the 
>> resulting philosophy?
>>
>> davew
>>
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