Physical Events, Physics and Metaphysics

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by jeeprs

The initial passage from Ortega was a defence of the importance of the metaphysical and also a recognition of the metaphysical in the construction of knowledge.

I agree that analysis is an important part of philosophy, but it is only part of the tradition. Analysis can be forensic analysis or objective analysis or some other kind of analysis. Analytical philosphers of the Anglo-US schools tend to regard all philosophy as the analysis of propositions. Socrates was analytical but his significance in the tradition is more than his ability to analyse propositions. He is mainly remembered for being able to prompt his interrogators to ask deep questions about their own attitudes and beliefs. It is true that he did not advance a systematic metaphysic but nevertheless his dialogs were suggestive of many metaphysical concerns.

I believe that by the rejection of the metaphysical, which the analytical tradition has explicity done (see the quote above from Bertrand Russell), that Western philosophy has indeed 'abandoned its mission' which is to require the asking of very deep questions about one's own identity, the nature of knowledge, and these sorts of questions, which are necessarily first-person, rather than 'objective'.

I don't know that the Russell of over 50 years ago can be considered an authority on recent philosophy, but, at any rate, he does not say that contemporary philosophers have rejected the Western tradition, but that they have rejected intuition as a way of knowing the answer to the "higher questions". I think Russell would have agreed that before we try to answer questions, we try to discover what those questions mean, if anything at all. Questioning the questions themselves is an important part of the work of analytic philosophy, partly because by doing so, it may turn out that the questions themselves either vanish, or turn out to be too vague to answer sensibly. Philosophy has become more self-conscious since the advent of Logical Positivism, and Wittgenstein. The old and traditional philosophical questions are no longer taken at face value. Nor should they be.

[jeeprs]

I agree with that, but there is also a definite change of stance which marks the advent of secularism and its rejection of metaphysical, spiritual or religious values. I mean the background of all early modern philosophy was at the end of the day religious and in important ways if you remove that religious background, what remains may no longer be completely intelligible. The choices we have left seem to be either some kind of commitment to objectivism, which nearly always entails an appeal to scientific truth, or to relativism. So even if the old and traditional questions cannot be taken at face value, and I agree they cannot, they may benefit from being re-intepreted, and from what I am seeing so far of Ortega, this is very much what he is attempting to do. (I have actually acquired one of the texts mentioned now.)

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by jeeprs

I agree with that, but there is also a definite change of stance which marks the advent of secularism and its rejection of metaphysical, spiritual or religious values. I mean the background of all early modern philosophy was at the end of the day religious and in important ways if you remove that religious background, what remains may no longer be completely intelligible. The choices we have left seem to be either some kind of commitment to objectivism, which nearly always entails an appeal to scientific truth, or to relativism. So even if the old and traditional questions cannot be taken at face value, and I agree they cannot, they may benefit from being re-intepreted, and from what I am seeing so far of Ortega, this is very much what he is attempting to do. (I have actually acquired one of the texts mentioned now.)

You wrote:

that Western philosophy has indeed 'abandoned its mission' which is to require the asking of very deep questions about one's own identity, the nature of knowledge, and these sorts of questions, which are necessarily
that Western philosophy has indeed 'abandoned its mission' which is to require the asking of very deep questions about one's own identity, the nature of knowledge, and these sorts of questions, which are are necessarily first-person, rather than 'objective'.

But analytic philosophy has not stopped asking what is the nature of knowledge. Epistemology is a thriving part of analytic philosophy, and, indeed, many analytic philosophers accept Plato's analysis of knowledge which he advances in the Theatetus (and elsewhere) that knowledge is true, belief with logos, which is understood as justification, so that knowledge is true, justified, belief. How much more traditional and metaphysical can you get than Plato? Now this analysis of knowledge (or analysis of "knowledge") does not seem to be to be "first person" and since you contrast that with objective, I suppose you mean, "subjective". But why should an analysis of knowledge be subjective? After all it is true about others that they know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador just as I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador. What is subjective (or first person) about knowledge? Plato's analysis is certainly not first person. According to him, to say of someone else,A, that A knows that p (some proposition) is true, is to say that: p is true, that A believes that p is true, and that A's belief that p is true, is justified. And the very same is the case when A=I. Why would the analysis of what it means for me to know be any different from what it means for you to know?

[jeeprs]

Very good question indeed. I will need to take some time to respond to that. Although, briefly, the knowledge that the Philosopher may attain due to his ability to perceive the Form of the Good may be of a different nature to the knowledge of mundane facts such as the capital of Ecuador. If there is indeed any kind of transcendent sphere or realm of knowledge which is not available to the wordly intellect then he may fail in the attempt to disclose that knowledge to a person who has not arrived at a similar plane. (However I will need some time to find a reference for that.)

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by jeeprs

Very good question indeed. I will need to take some time to respond to that. Although, briefly, the knowledge that the Philosopher may attain due to his ability to perceive the Form of the Good may be of a different nature to the knowledge of mundane facts such as the capital of Ecuador. If there is indeed any kind of transcendent sphere or realm of knowledge which is not available to the wordly intellect then he may fail in the attempt to disclose that knowledge to a person who has not arrived at a similar plane. (However I will need some time to find a reference for that.)

I cannot follow you. But isn't it clear that both you and I know the very same thing; that Quito is the capital of Ecuador? So, what is the difference between first and second or third person knowledge. Are you saying that in the case of "mundane facts" there is no difference? What kind of knowledge is not about "mundane facts"? What about very unmundane knowledge like the velocity of light?

If you are maintaining that there is a kind of knowledge accessible to some, but not to others, I am afraid that is something you will have to support with evidence, unless you expect me just to take your word for it. I am, of course, confined to "mundane knowledge".

[jeeprs]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

If you are maintaining that there is a kind of knowledge accessible to some, but not to others, I am afraid that is something you will have to support with evidence, unless you expect me just to take your word for it.

But this is very much the issue in all of this discussion. The idea of 'higher knowledge' was essential to Platonism, viz-a-viz, the allegory of the cave, and in other places in his writing, and indeed to virtually all the schools of traditional philosophy.

Some quotes from Plato:

Knowledge differs from knowledge - one having reagrd to the things that come into being and perish, the other to those that do not come into being and perish, but are always unchanged and unaltered. Reviewing them on the score of truth, we concluded that the latter was truer than the former. Philebus (6rd-e) quoted in The Shape of Ancient Thought, Thomas McEvilley, p187

(Diotima describing an ecstactic vision to Socates) "Whoever has been initiated so far in the mysteries of Love and has viewed all these aspects of the beautiful in due succession is at last drawing near the final revelation. And now, Socrates, there bursts upon him that wondrous vision which is the very soul of the beauty he has toiled so long for. It is an everlasting loveliness which never comes now goes, which neither flowers nor fades, for such beauty is the same on every hand, the same then as now, here as there, this way as that way, the same to every worshipper as it is to every other." (From The Symposium; quoted in McEvilley, ibid, p 188

This text, The Shape of Ancient Thought, shows that there are many parallels between such passages in Plato and similar ideas in the Upanisads (i.e. the esoteric scriptures of Hinduism). There is a similar distinction made between 'two levels of truth' samvriti (conventional) and paramartha (ultimate) in Mahayana Buddhism (see T.R.V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism.) In all of these teachings, East and West, the apprehension of the higher truths requires initiation, apprenticeship, discipline, mediation and study, culminatiing in realisation and liberation. (This is admittedly quite anomalous to the outlook of democratic liberalism.)

But it is all rejected by secular modernism - the very idea of higher truths, spiritual realisations, other planes of being, and the rest. We are all consigned to the flatland of 'whatever can be known, can be known by means of science'. However, fortunately, one of the great benefits of modern society is that information on these traditions is freely available, and one is able to study them. So in that respect I am not critical of the secular state at all.

As for evidence, what would evidence consist of? If there are higher truths, how would evidence be found? What samples could be brought back?

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by jeeprs

But this is very much the issue in all of this discussion. The idea of 'higher knowledge' was essential to Platonism, viz-a-viz, the allegory of the cave, and in other places in his writing, and indeed to virtually all the schools of traditional philosophy.

Some quotes from Plato:





This text, The Shape of Ancient Thought, shows that there are many parallels between such passages in Plato and similar ideas in the Upanisads (i.e. the esoteric scriptures of Hinduism). There is a similar distinction made between 'two levels of truth' samvriti (conventional) and paramartha (ultimate) in Mahayana Buddhism (see T.R.V. Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism.) In all of these teachings, East and West, the apprehension of the higher truths requires initiation, apprenticeship, discipline, mediation and study, culminatiing in realisation and liberation. (This is admittedly quite anomalous to the outlook of democratic liberalism.)

But it is all rejected by secular modernism - the very idea of higher truths, spiritual realisations, other planes of being, and the rest. We are all consigned to the flatland of 'whatever can be known, can be known by means of science'. However, fortunately, one of the great benefits of modern society is that information on these traditions is freely available, and one is able to study them. So in that respect I am not critical of the secular state at all.

As for evidence, what would evidence consist of? If there are higher truths, how would evidence be found? What samples could be brought back?

I know that Plato claimed that there was knowledge of the Forms that only philosophers could achieved because only they had the Nous (or Intuition).But there is no reason to believe that is true. Or that there is such a thing. Karl Popper, in his great two volume work, "The Open Society and its Enemies" discussed Plato and his influence in this matter quite thoroughly. Why would anyone believe there were higher truths, or knowledge of them, if there is no reason to believe it?

[jeeprs]

Well I believe it is true. And it is a very different truth claim to religious truth claims, because it is, at least in principle, experientially verifiable. The idea of 'nous' is also present in very many traditional philosophies; it is not unique to Platonism. And I, for one, won't accept that they were all having themselves on.

Popper had good reason to oppose Plato. He realises that there is a very real tension between the Platonic outlook and the secular liberalism in which science is the only arbiter of truth. You can't bring Plato's type of understanding down to the man in the street. The man in the street has to get his walking boots on and prepare for an arduous ascent. (Although in most cases he will just look at you and say 'ascend what?')

But as I have said before, I am not out to convert anyone. I think at least we have become clear about our points of divergence, and for that I am grateful.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by jeeprs

Well I believe it is true. And it is a very different truth claim to religious truth claims, because it is, at least in principle, experientially verifiable. The idea of 'nous' is also present in very many traditional philosophies; it is not unique to Platonism. And I, for one, won't accept that they were all having themselves on.

Popper had good reason to oppose Plato. He realises that there is a very real tension between the Platonic outlook and the secular liberalism in which science is the only arbiter of truth. You can't bring Plato's type of understanding down to the man in the street. The man in the street has to get his walking boots on and prepare for an arduous ascent. (Although in most cases he will just look at you and say 'ascend what?')

But as I have said before, I am not out to convert anyone. I think at least we have become clear about our points of divergence, and for that I am grateful.

I know you believe it is true. I suppose you would not have posted it unless you did. But the question is whether you ought to believe it is true. And that depends on whether your belief that it is true is justified. After all, we all believe that our beliefs are true, otherwise we would not believe them in the first place. However, if we have any humility, we also should believe that some of our beliefs are false. Only, of course, we don't know which ones, since if we did, we would not believe them. So, all we can do is search for reasons or evidence for the beliefs we have, and try to winnow out the false ones. We ought to be wary of our beliefs, unless we want to deceive ourselves. And, I suppose we all do to some extent or other. But that does not excuse us from taking a tough look at them. Unless we don't mind being gullible. And I mind that very much.

[jeeprs]

I don't think that believing that there is a higher, philosophical knowledge is a sign of gullibility. It is a hard thing to fathom, a hard thing to follow, and a hard thing to understand. It is not pop philosophy or a cult religion. So I think you are actually being rather condescending. But maybe this is just your way of defending your sense of normality.