Ok, what I'm about to do may turn out to be a very poor decision but at this point I don't have much to lose. Here's the situation. I have one term paper left and for some reason I just cannot make any progress. I'm so confused by now that I can't tell if the problem is that I don't understand the content of if I can't synthesize the information or if I need more information, or if I have too much and it's just disorganized. I don't know. I'm embarrassed to admit how much time I have devoted to this stinkin' paper and I have nothing but a few pages of unfinished thoughts that lead nowhere. So, here's my plan. I'm going to summarized the issues here in my blog. I feel like I'm talking to friends, you're not going to grade me, and my writing seems to flow better when it's "for fun". The risk is that nothing may come of this and I will have wasted more valuable time that maybe should have been spent doing more research or rereading material. Anyway, speaking of wasting time, enough with the preamble:
So my paper is about a philosopher named Quine and the problem of knowing whether we can justify our system of scientific knowledge. I know what your thinking...um, just put on lab coat, and run some experiments and if the evidence confirms a theory, then ta-da! it works. Why do philosophers need to make everything so complicated? In a sense this response is correct, and it is in some ways related to what Quine says.
The general topic that we are investigating is "how we know what we know". This area of philosophy is called epistemology. Traditional epistemology saw one of its primary roles as trying to find a rational justification for our knowledge of the world. This type of reasoning must be distinguished from experiential reasoning, or as philosophers call is "synthetic" or "a posteriori"(after the fact). The problem can be framed like this "how do we know what we know?" Answer: "we learn through experience" Question: "how do you know that experience gives you a reliable picture of the world?" Typical answer, "because further experiences confirm that my beliefs are true". Did you catch the problem? If you didn't, here it is. This is an instance of circular reasoning. You are setting out to prove the reliability of beliefs derived from experience by appealing to experience. It's not a good argument if you support what you are trying to prove with the thing you are trying to prove.
So what does Quine say about all this? He says, all this talk of trying to prove science (experiential knowledge) from something other than experience is just crazy talk. We haven't made any progress since Descartes, who formulated the problem in its modern form, and Hume, who pointed out even more problems. Lets just stop all this madness and allow for a certain amount of circularity. Why? because unless you want to postulate divine revelation, clairvoyance and other untenable ways of knowing, all we have is appeal to experience. So, instead of continuing on this fools errand of trying come up with a logical proof for how it is that science (seems) to work, lets look at how it actually does work. In other words, instead of looking at how we ought to derive beliefs, lets look at how we actually do derive our beliefs (in science). How do we do this? We appeal to empirical psychology.
Empirical psychology is the study of how we go from sensory stimulation to some sort of behavioural (maybe assertions) output indicating belief. Now I know what some of you are thinking: Whoa! Nelly! Stop right there. That sounds like behaviourism and I remember hearing that behaviourism is the devil! Lets make a distinction here between philosophical behaviourism and methodological behaviourism. The former, which is probably the one that most people object to, is the position that all there is is behaviour. There are not mental states, emotions, etc....we are basically all just machines. Well, you'd be right to object, and in academia that view died a long time ago. Quine is proposing methodological behaviourism. This is the idea that, while people may have mental states, emotions, and sensations, the only thing that we can observe as outsiders is behaviour. Behaviour here should be construed in a broad sense: from the macro scale all the way down neural and sensory receptor stimulations, firing of synapses and so on. There is no way to observe what someone's feeling of feels like but we can observe their behavioural responses. That's all this means.
Moving on. So, suppose we accept this model and ignore, for the time being accusations of circularity. Are there any important questions that this new paradigm will not be able to answer? A common argument against this model is that it provides no guidance in areas of norms. Let me explain: Norms are standards by which we measure success. Norms are the basic level of competence required for an operation to be considered successful. For example, the academic norms for grade 3 are that you are able to read and write at a given level and maybe know all your multiplication tables. If you are below the norms, you cannot successfully carry out these tasks.
So, what's an example of a case where we need to know something about epistemic (to do with knowledge) norms? Lets say 2 people are having an argument about the results of a science experiment. The experiment was, in a beaker (I have to say that word any chance I get!) they pour 1 cup of sugar into one cup of water: the result is that the beaker now shows the meniscus to be a 1 1/4 cups. Scientist 1 (I'll call her Mary) says this proves that 1+1=1 1/4. Scientist 2 (Bob) says, no: this does not disprove the laws of arithmetic.
So what does this all have to do with using psychology to solve epistemic problems? Here it is: psychology can give us an account of how the light reflecting off the beaker and solution stimulated the visual system and, after a long causal chain, produced a behaviour in the scientists that indicated they perceive the meniscus to have risen to indicate 1 1/4 cups. If we appealed to neuro-psychology we could learn the neuro-pathways that were stimulated when Mary and Bob came to their respective conclusions. To summarize, the scientific method could tell us how the reasoning occurred but it cannot tell us which method of reasoning is preferable. This is because science is descriptive, not prescriptive or normative.
So, does it end here? Case closed? I think there's more to the story. I think there are ways that science can tell us which ways of reasoning are preferable. Let me elaborate: We know that depending what type of problem we are asked to solve and how we frame a problem it will influence how we solve the problem. For instance, sometimes people voice opinions/beliefs based on emotions, other times they use logic. Depending on what type of "reasoning" process they are using, neuro-psychology tells us that different parts of the brain are engaged. It is safe to assume that for most problems, resolution is preferably achieved through using the rational, rather than emotional part of the brain. So, since we know which part of the brain is preferable and the conditions which bias toward our engaging it, we can set up conditions for us to yield "true" beliefs.
Lets take a step back so we can go into more detail. When I said that I assumed that for most problems it is preferable to engage the rational part of our brain, in a sense I was expressing a norm. Strictly speaking science cannot say "this method is better because it produces true beliefs". This presupposes a norm or value, that of producing true belief. So, there are 2 issues here, that of expressing preference for an outcome and the notion of truth.
Scientific theories cannot tell us what is true. They can only tell us that to which experience, thus far, has conformed. Science history is littered with examples of theories that where at one point as sure as, well...lets just say they were held as true. Sometimes there are competing theories to explain the same phenomena. The point is the the notion of truth in science, as in most places, is not "true come what may". Again, science simply gives us a best account of the evidence at hand.
So, how can science distinguish between thought patterns for justification? The same way that it adopts any theory. Setting up circumstances that biasing our thinking in ways that use the rational part of our brain will lead to beliefs that will conform better with experience and help us to better navigate our world than if we had chosen a cognitive process that would bias toward other beliefs.
Anyway, those are two of the central themes. There's a lot more but I'm struggling with it. If you made it to the bottom I thank you for taking the time to read this crap. I'm so screwed. I have no idea what I'm going to write....
By the way, if there are any philosophers out there reading this, any helpful suggestions will be graciously accepted....
Showing posts with label Carnap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carnap. Show all posts
Friday, December 3, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Carnap Part 3 and My Blog's Identity Crisis
Hello Friends,
Today I'm going to wrap up the overview of Carnap, and in future posts I will go into more detail. On Tuesday I have to give a presentation on his paper "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology" and I'll be using you guys as a practice audience. I know! You can hardly wait!
Before I begin, as usual, I have to go off on a tangent. After tracking the stats of my blog it became apparent to me that many of you don't read the philosophy entries (gasp!) but luuuvs you some anecdotal stories about my life. So, I'm going to do my best to accommodate both groups of readers (yes, there are some that read the philosophy content). The problem is that I realized that I can use the philosophy content aspect of my blog to strengthen my application package when I go through the next round of grad school applications in January. But, then again, if an applications panel actually decides to read my blog they might find some things that could moderately move their decision in the wrong direction. Hmmm, anyway, I guess I'll come to that bridge when I cross it...In the meantime, here's a quick status update on my life:
I finally feel like I've settled into a sustainable routine. Studying every day from the moment I stubbled out of bed until my eyes could read no more was not effective. After some trial and error I have, for the time being, found a precarious balance between studying, class, gym, and free time. Of course I haven't had to write any major term papers yet so we'll see how long this balance lasts! Nevertheless, after overcoming the initial shock of using my brain academically for the first time in longer than I care to admit, I'm getting some confidence back and feeling that this is indeed some thing I can do, not just want to do.
Carnap Overview Part 3
In a nutshell Carnap said this: The entities that we choose to embrace in our beliefs, be they abstract or physical, are reflections of the linguistic framework we have implicitly or explicitly chosen to adopt. In other words, our beliefs about our experiences can be traced back to linguistic structures we have adopted. The important implications of this idea are as follows: a) all knowledge systems are legitimate, but some are preferable to others on the basis of pragmatics, fruitfulness, and simplicity b) the linguistic frameworks we choose to describe our experiences and beliefs are (should be) selected on the basis of pragmatics, fruitfulness, and simplicity c) we cannot know the absolute reality of physical or abstract entities. These 3 issues are intertwined, however, I'll do my best to focus on each one in turn.
Quick defining of terms: by language I don't necessarily mean natural languages, but linguistic frameworks to describing our experiences.
Lets examine the first implication, that all knowledge systems are legitimate. Before I begin I want to clarify the vague notion of "knowledge system". What I really mean is the collection of beliefs, both experientially and logically derived, that can be traced back to the fundamental tenets (or axioms) of your knowledge system. At the ground floor our knowledge system is comprised of linguistic frameworks. Lets step away from these extremely abstract notions for a second and use an example to illustrate what I'm talking about.
For a moment lets imagine we have a very very primitive language and we don't yet have a concept for physical things. We experience "objects" but we have no language to describe the experience. One smart guy in our group decides that these experiences we have of objects in space-time we will call "physical things/objects". Then he goes on to list the qualities a physical thing must have to be a physical thing; namely it has a temporal and physical location and physical extension. Now we have a linguistic framework for physical things, and we can verify if an experience is of a physical thing by empirically determining if it conforms to our framework. The language framework is legitimate because there are clear axioms (rules) for determining what constitutes "physical thing".
Well, almost. There's one more thing we need, it's called the rules of inference. We need a clear set of rules to show how the rules interact with each other and empirical data. There are deductive rules and inductive rules, but this goes beyond the scope of this discussion. An example of a rule of inference is the transitive rule--if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. So, any language is considered legitimate if it's basic axioms and rules of inference are spelled out. Languages are equally legitimate to the degree that the axioms and rules of inference are clear.
Nevertheless, different languages can lead to different systems of belief for several reasons: The basic axioms could be different or the rules of inference could be different, or both. An (over-simplified) example where the axioms are different would be if in another language, Language 2, instead of a physical thing linguistic framework, they adopt an idealist framework. That is to say, instead of saying the objects of perception exist independently of our minds as physical objects, things are actually just mental phenomena--they exist only in our mind. Before you go calling this view crazy, there have been many prominent philosophers who held similar views, you may have heard of Berkeley and (arguably) Plato.
We can say that both the linguistic structures account for our experiences. So long as language 2 states that all sensory experience (touch, taste, smell, vision, sound) exists only in the mind then indeed this is a legitimate account of experience. There is no way of knowing if one Language is true and the other is false because the net result is the same and there is not objective test we could ever do to provide evidence.
Despite this problem, we can make a decision based on pragmatics, fruitfulness, and simplicity to choose which language framework to adopt. With Language 2 and its idealist account, things start to get complicated if we want to tender the reasonable hypothesis that things continue to exist even when we are not directly perceiving them. Idealism in it's simplest form implies that if I look away from an object, it ceases to exist (because things only exist in my mind when I perceive them directly). The framework starts to look complicated if we want to adequately account for this phenomena. It will require adding more axioms to our framework. So, in this quick and dirty example we can make the pragmatic decision to adopt the language framework of physical things, because it is simpler. It is very important to note that we can never say of any competing language structures that one is true and one is false, so long as they both account for the phenomena we seek to explain. Simplicity is not a measure of truth.
One final note which I will revisit in a future post is the idea that we cannot know the absolute reality of physical and abstract entities. For any given entity there will be a variety of different linguistic (mathematical in the case of theoretical physics and science) structures to account for the phenomena. In the case of electrons, we cannot ask if electrons have metaphysical reality, but we can say, provided we antecedently adopt the physical things linguistic structure, that we can answer this question through empirical and deductive means. Notice, how we answer the question depends on previously adopted linguistic frameworks. If we ask, do numbers exist? There is no metaphysical answer, but given the usefulness of numbers in explaining and predicting experience we can say it is useful and fruitful to adopt a framework that encompasses numbers. But do numbers really exist? We can't know, we can only say it's a useful framework to adopt.
Today I'm going to wrap up the overview of Carnap, and in future posts I will go into more detail. On Tuesday I have to give a presentation on his paper "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology" and I'll be using you guys as a practice audience. I know! You can hardly wait!
Before I begin, as usual, I have to go off on a tangent. After tracking the stats of my blog it became apparent to me that many of you don't read the philosophy entries (gasp!) but luuuvs you some anecdotal stories about my life. So, I'm going to do my best to accommodate both groups of readers (yes, there are some that read the philosophy content). The problem is that I realized that I can use the philosophy content aspect of my blog to strengthen my application package when I go through the next round of grad school applications in January. But, then again, if an applications panel actually decides to read my blog they might find some things that could moderately move their decision in the wrong direction. Hmmm, anyway, I guess I'll come to that bridge when I cross it...In the meantime, here's a quick status update on my life:
I finally feel like I've settled into a sustainable routine. Studying every day from the moment I stubbled out of bed until my eyes could read no more was not effective. After some trial and error I have, for the time being, found a precarious balance between studying, class, gym, and free time. Of course I haven't had to write any major term papers yet so we'll see how long this balance lasts! Nevertheless, after overcoming the initial shock of using my brain academically for the first time in longer than I care to admit, I'm getting some confidence back and feeling that this is indeed some thing I can do, not just want to do.
Carnap Overview Part 3
In a nutshell Carnap said this: The entities that we choose to embrace in our beliefs, be they abstract or physical, are reflections of the linguistic framework we have implicitly or explicitly chosen to adopt. In other words, our beliefs about our experiences can be traced back to linguistic structures we have adopted. The important implications of this idea are as follows: a) all knowledge systems are legitimate, but some are preferable to others on the basis of pragmatics, fruitfulness, and simplicity b) the linguistic frameworks we choose to describe our experiences and beliefs are (should be) selected on the basis of pragmatics, fruitfulness, and simplicity c) we cannot know the absolute reality of physical or abstract entities. These 3 issues are intertwined, however, I'll do my best to focus on each one in turn.
Quick defining of terms: by language I don't necessarily mean natural languages, but linguistic frameworks to describing our experiences.
Lets examine the first implication, that all knowledge systems are legitimate. Before I begin I want to clarify the vague notion of "knowledge system". What I really mean is the collection of beliefs, both experientially and logically derived, that can be traced back to the fundamental tenets (or axioms) of your knowledge system. At the ground floor our knowledge system is comprised of linguistic frameworks. Lets step away from these extremely abstract notions for a second and use an example to illustrate what I'm talking about.
For a moment lets imagine we have a very very primitive language and we don't yet have a concept for physical things. We experience "objects" but we have no language to describe the experience. One smart guy in our group decides that these experiences we have of objects in space-time we will call "physical things/objects". Then he goes on to list the qualities a physical thing must have to be a physical thing; namely it has a temporal and physical location and physical extension. Now we have a linguistic framework for physical things, and we can verify if an experience is of a physical thing by empirically determining if it conforms to our framework. The language framework is legitimate because there are clear axioms (rules) for determining what constitutes "physical thing".
Well, almost. There's one more thing we need, it's called the rules of inference. We need a clear set of rules to show how the rules interact with each other and empirical data. There are deductive rules and inductive rules, but this goes beyond the scope of this discussion. An example of a rule of inference is the transitive rule--if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C. So, any language is considered legitimate if it's basic axioms and rules of inference are spelled out. Languages are equally legitimate to the degree that the axioms and rules of inference are clear.
Nevertheless, different languages can lead to different systems of belief for several reasons: The basic axioms could be different or the rules of inference could be different, or both. An (over-simplified) example where the axioms are different would be if in another language, Language 2, instead of a physical thing linguistic framework, they adopt an idealist framework. That is to say, instead of saying the objects of perception exist independently of our minds as physical objects, things are actually just mental phenomena--they exist only in our mind. Before you go calling this view crazy, there have been many prominent philosophers who held similar views, you may have heard of Berkeley and (arguably) Plato.
We can say that both the linguistic structures account for our experiences. So long as language 2 states that all sensory experience (touch, taste, smell, vision, sound) exists only in the mind then indeed this is a legitimate account of experience. There is no way of knowing if one Language is true and the other is false because the net result is the same and there is not objective test we could ever do to provide evidence.
Despite this problem, we can make a decision based on pragmatics, fruitfulness, and simplicity to choose which language framework to adopt. With Language 2 and its idealist account, things start to get complicated if we want to tender the reasonable hypothesis that things continue to exist even when we are not directly perceiving them. Idealism in it's simplest form implies that if I look away from an object, it ceases to exist (because things only exist in my mind when I perceive them directly). The framework starts to look complicated if we want to adequately account for this phenomena. It will require adding more axioms to our framework. So, in this quick and dirty example we can make the pragmatic decision to adopt the language framework of physical things, because it is simpler. It is very important to note that we can never say of any competing language structures that one is true and one is false, so long as they both account for the phenomena we seek to explain. Simplicity is not a measure of truth.
One final note which I will revisit in a future post is the idea that we cannot know the absolute reality of physical and abstract entities. For any given entity there will be a variety of different linguistic (mathematical in the case of theoretical physics and science) structures to account for the phenomena. In the case of electrons, we cannot ask if electrons have metaphysical reality, but we can say, provided we antecedently adopt the physical things linguistic structure, that we can answer this question through empirical and deductive means. Notice, how we answer the question depends on previously adopted linguistic frameworks. If we ask, do numbers exist? There is no metaphysical answer, but given the usefulness of numbers in explaining and predicting experience we can say it is useful and fruitful to adopt a framework that encompasses numbers. But do numbers really exist? We can't know, we can only say it's a useful framework to adopt.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Meet My New Friend R. Carnap: Part 1 of 3
I've been holding off on discussing R. Carnap for a while partly because it's tough to know where to start and even more difficult is where to end. This guy was amazing. A giant in 20th Century philosophy.
I studied him a bit in undergrad in my epistemology course. At ASU I'm taking a full course on him. It was one of those situations where you need to take a class, only one fits your schedule so you take it hoping for the best. I couldn't be happier. The professor is a Carnap scholar, is very passionate about Carnap's work and the content of the course is inspiring.
Carnap's overarching goal was, in some sense, to continue the traditions of the Enlightenment. Enlightenment thinking is characterized by the notion that through human reason we can gain insight and knowledge about the natural world (ourselves included). That knowledge in turn can be used to reshape all aspects of human life (social, political, economic, etc...) improve the human condition.
The Enlightenment view through out history, and even now in the mainstream, has always had strong adversaries. A general term for the countervailing world-view would be Romanticism. It the rejection of the idea that through reason and technical knowledge alone can we describe and form our lives. Romanticists hold that the cold world of logic and science ignore the intuitive awareness humans posses as another way of "knowing" our world. They argue that our values and culture are a special kind of knowledge of which science has no part. For example, science can't tell us what good art is; science can't tell us how to resolve ethical debates; it can't tell me what the best flavour of ice cream is! This debate still goes on today between everyday people, not just philosophers. For a good account of the issues displayed in literary format I highly recommend "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Prisig. (I don't necessarily condone his point of view but he expresses the points of view of both sides quite well.)
At any rate, one way to frame the whole debate is as a confrontation between two systems of knowledge and language. One the one side you have the systems passed down from our ancestors, our intuitively derived folk concepts, common sense and ideas couched in everyday language. On the other hand there are the theories, laws, derived from reason and the scientific method, all couched in a new scientific language.
One of Carnap's great goals was to try to reconcile this apparent intractable conflict. Through out my little fireside chat about Carnap it is important to keep in mind his over arching reason for ever undertaking this impossible task. I will repeat it here because it is so important and is the reason why I have fallen in love with his philosophy: His whole goal was to find a method of improving the way we construct and live our lives. He felt that the sciences, having shown more positive progress than any other human endeavour offered the best method. The problem was how do we quantify knowledge in the humanities and everyday life so it can becomes useful to this purpose. When it comes to the social sciences language and concepts are notoriously fuzzy. Enter his first attempt.
Radical Reconstruction
His first attempt was characterized by an effort to piece by piece replace fuzzy imprecise terms of every day language and replace them with exact quantitative and logical terms. These terms would then be used in an artificial language to which the rules of logic could be applied. Any terms that were irreconcilably vague were rejected from the new language, because they did not convey useful information.
For example, the terms "hot" and "cold": They convey information but not very much. We can add more information and say "colder" or "hotter" or "hottest". The problem is that the information is still vague and subjective. If we can objectify the information, then we can make rational logical decisions with it. Enter the scientific concept/language of science....temperature! 35o Celcius! Now, the information is objective. Once the language has been objectified it becomes useful and trustworthy for making decisions. Also, now that it is quantified, we can apply the force of mathematics and reason to it and deduce other information and gain new knowledge.
Carnap's first attempt had many opponents, including many of his peers. Not only was it impractical to go through an entire natural language and word by word, concept by concept; but it ignored out of hand the practical and important role of everyday language. Everyday language may be imprecise but it can serve as a useful tool for expressing human concerns, emotions, and for going about the practical business of one's day. It wasn't long before Carnap himself dropped his idea of radical reconstruction.
Well, as usual, I've gotten carried away and what I thought would be 30 min of writing turned into over an hour. It's 4am....time for bed. Stay tuned for Carnap's next idea "The Principle of Tolerance".
And as always, I eagerly accept any questions about this post or previous posts!
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