[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Glen, 

I write and think about Peirce, for instance, because his work connects several disparate threads in my own work which seemed unrelated until I read him.  He unifies me.  Talking to you guys helps me digest all of that.  

Nick 

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 u?l? ?
Sent: Thursday, March 5, 2020 8:59 AM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

It's not pesky for me in the slightest. I'm *very* interested. I haven't contributed because it's not clear I have anything to contribute.

Maybe I can start with a criticism, though. It's unclear to me why you (or anyone) would delicately flip through crumbling pages of philosophy when there are fresh and juicy results from (interventionist) methods right in front of us? The oxytocin post really *was* inspired by this thread. But because you guys are talking about dead white men like Peirce and James, it's unclear how the science relates. 

My skepticism goes even deeper (beyond dead white men) to why one would think *anyone* (alive, dead, white or brown) might be able to *think* up an explanation for how knowledge grows. I would like to, but cannot, avoid the inference that this belief anyone (or any "school" of people) can think up explanations stems from a bias toward *individualism*. My snarky poke at "super intelligent god-people" in a post awhile back was (misguidedly) intended to express this same skepticism. I worry that poking around in old philosophy is simply an artifact of the mythology surrounding the "mind" and Great Men <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory>.

It seems to me like science works in *spite* of our biases to individualism. So, if I want to understand knowledge, I have to stop identifying ways of knowing through dead individuals and focus on the flowing *field* of the collective scientists.

Of course, that doesn't mean we ignore the writings of the dead people. But it means liberally slashing away anything that even smells obsolete.

Regardless of what you do post, don't interpret *my* lack of response as disinterest or irritation, because it's not.

On 3/5/20 6:14 AM, Prof David West wrote:
> And the key to my being a pest — is anyone else curious about these things?


--
☣ uǝlƃ

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