Objective Knowledge

fresco wrote:

Genetic epistemology involves dialectical as opposed to Aristotelian logic and resolves dualities at one level by reference to the next level. (Hegelian synthesis).

Does that answer my question?

fresco wrote:

I do not intend to elaborate further because your "sport" of sitting by the water hole of others like an eskimo with a harpoon doesn't interest me.

Elaborate further? I don't think you elaborated anything to begin with.

fresco wrote:

If on the other hand you wish to constructively read something about the subject you might start with say:

http://www.enolagaia.com/M88Reality.html

Thanks. I'll make that my bedtime reading for the next week.

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...or if you find that hard going try
http://www.oikos.org/vonobserv.htm

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fresco wrote:

...or if you find that hard going try
http://www.oikos.org/vonobserv.htm

Before investing some serious time in this project, I need to know if you actually agree with Maturana, or if you instead are offering his article for some other purpose. If you think he's correct, then I'll go ahead and read the article. If you don't, then you'll have to give me some reason why I should expend the effort.

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I think he's on the right track from an epistemological point of view. The second reference I have just cited (or indeed Capra's "Web of Life") might be more digestible. It is hard for me to judged how far you can get with this without a smattering of Piaget or Wittgenstein but you should still find the effort worthwhile.

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especially, Joe, if you want to learn something with as much passion as you want to compete.

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JLN,

There's a nice para in that Maturana reference that rings a few bells.

Quote:

Observer-observing

The observer and observing are operations in language that take place, respectively, as fourth and second-order recursive consensual co-ordinations of actions between organisms (homo sapiens in our case) in language. The observer and observing, therefore, arise in the flow of structural changes that takes place in the members of a community of observers as they co-ordinate their consensual actions through their recurrent structural interactions in the domain of operational coherences in which they realise their conjoined praxis of living. In other words, observer and observing constitutively take place through, and in the course of, the structural changes of the observers as these operate as a structure determined system conserving their structural correspondence with the medium in which they interact.

Page 58

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fresco wrote:

I think he's on the right track from an epistemological point of view. The second reference I have just cited (or indeed Capra's "Web of Life") might be more digestible. It is hard for me to judged how far you can get with this without a smattering of Piaget or Wittgenstein but you should still find the effort worthwhile.

Well, I'm not interested in expending my time on someone who is "on the right track," especially if he is on "the wrong track" with regard to the subject of this thread. To see if it's worth going down this particular track, therefore, let me ask you these questions:

(1) What is Maturana's position on the objectivity of facts?

(2) Do you think he's right?

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JLNobody wrote:

especially, Joe, if you want to learn something with as much passion as you want to compete.

Explain.

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1. Ontological "objectivity" is a myth. Consensual objectivity is a aspect of co-ordination and coherence of social structure.

2. I think this makes sense !

You really need to leave your traditional baggage at the door if you are to penetrate this stuff. Even the answer to whether "I agree" with Maturana would be analysed by him as an "emotional response". We are biological beings whose "rationality" is subservient to visceral and social co-ordination.

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fresco wrote:

1. Ontological "objectivity" is a myth. Consensual objectivity is a aspect of co-ordination and coherence of social structure.

Is that true for me too?

fresco wrote:

You really need to leave your traditional baggage at the door if you are to penetrate this stuff.

Yeah, we've gone over this before. You want everyone to believe first and be convinced later. But I'm not willing to accept your premises as a precondition for accepting your conclusions.

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Why take time to explain what is self-evident?

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Joe,

No. There is of course some aspect of "me" which would be pleased for you to discover something interesting in all this, but your reluctance to take the plunge is no surprise at all, however you care to rationalize it.

All I can say to you is that I started out with admiring the genius of Piaget over thirty years ago and independently came to similar conclusions as Maturana whom I discovered only recently. I cannot transfer my "Eureka" moments to you in my reading of him because you cannot share my formative academic training in psychology and philosophy. I cannot, for example give you a thumbnail sketch of how Piaget analysed the maturation of abstract logic in the child as a function of his biological motor neuron processes and how it feels to read that a similar position to my own on language as "action" is expounded by Maturana. As implied in the von Glaserfeld article, the paradigm has shifted over the last twenty or more years to analysis of the observer-observed interaction, probably as a result of the findings of quantum physics.

So by all means, stay with the reactionary traditionalists if you wish. The paradigmatic shift is there already and depends on neither of us.

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JLNobody wrote:

Why take time to explain what is self-evident?

Yeah, JLN, that's much easier than actually explaining what you mean. Run along now, I think I hear the ice cream truck coming.

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fresco wrote:

Joe,

No. There is of course some aspect of "me" which would be pleased for you to discover something interesting in all this, but your reluctance to take the plunge is no surprise at all, however you care to rationalize it.

And what's your rationalization for believing what you believe?

fresco wrote:

As implied in the von Glaserfeld article, the paradigm has shifted over the last twenty or more years to analysis of the observer-observed interaction, probably as a result of the findings of quantum physics.

Why should anyone be swayed by the findings of quantum physics?

fresco wrote:

So by all means, stay with the reactionary traditionalists if you wish. The paradigmatic shift is there already and depends on neither of us.

Is that a paradigm shift for me too, or just for you and others like you who believe that there has been a paradigm shift?

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Joe,

Do me a favour ....If I want to play the infinite regress game of consecutive "what and why" I normally do it with my four year old niece.

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fresco wrote:

Joe,

Do me a favour ....If I want to play the infinite regress game of consecutive "what and why" I normally do it with my four year old niece.

Wow, you must be a regular riot at parties.

I'm not asking an infinite regress of "what and why" questions. Instead, I find that I'm asking the same question over and over because I never get a straight answer from you. But allow me to explain the questions that I posed in my most recent post, so that you can understand that I'm not playing childish games here:

joefromchicago wrote:

And what's your rationalization for believing what you believe?

If you contend that my positions are just rationalizations for pre-held beliefs, then it's fair for me to ask you why your positions aren't rationalizations. On the other hand, if your positions are just as much rationalizations as are mine, then I'd like to find out what kind of rationalizations you're relying upon.

joefromchicago wrote:

Why should anyone be swayed by the findings of quantum physics?

Why indeed? There is nothing in your epistemology that convinces me that you place any faith in empirical findings or the scientific process. So why should you, or anyone else for that matter, be convinced by the findings of quantum physics?

joefromchicago wrote:

Is that a paradigm shift for me too, or just for you and others like you who believe that there has been a paradigm shift?

Likewise, I have never seen any evidence that supports the notion that your epistemology is anything but personal to you. In other words, what you believe or know or feel cannot, as far as I can tell, be verified or disproved by anyone else but you. So, for instance, if you say that you are made of glass, no one could correctly contradict you. But if that's the case, then a paradigm shift is just as personal to you as your innermost beliefs, and it would therefore not be applicable to me.

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joefromchicago wrote:

So, for instance, if you say that you are made of glass, no one could correctly contradict you.

Are you using this as a merited example or a logical extreme?

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Joe and Fresco, correct me if I'm wrong. I guess we are discussing two issues here. One is the ("epistemological") question of whether or not humans can examine the world "objectitvely", in a detached distinterested way, free of tacit and unexamined presuppositions. I believe THAT'S A MYTH, as I concluded, at least, from my examination of the behavior of social scientists.
The other is the ("ontological") issue of the existence of an objective reality independent of our experience. I cannot assert that a noumenal reality exists behind our phenomenal experience of "it" (cf. Kant). Indeed, I FEEL that Reality in the grand Hindu sense of a "Brahma" does exist, but this is not a philosophical proposition since it is not defensible intellectually or scientifically. Intellectually I am agnostic regarding Ultimate Reality (although that's not apparent from my posts), but intuitionally I'm (virtually) "certain" of its reality. I guess this is what "faith" is about; but there is no "belief" in such an intuition, since--to me--a belief is a weak or unsupported or unsupportable INTELLECTUAL proposition.
I guess I am making the epistemological claim that we cannot conceive Reality on its own terms; we can only grasp it in terms of our constructions (e.g., linguistic and mathematical formulae, theoretical models, cultural and scientific paradigms, etc.).
This latter is INTERSUBJECTIVE knowledge, neither objective nor subjective in the dualistic sense that either one or the other must be the case. They are both indispensible aspects of the case.

Joe, rather than joust with you, I'd rather just try to make my contributions (hoping to receive affirmation or helpful non-competitive corrections from you) and enjoy it if you'll do the same.

BTW, I do believe in the easter bunny but I'm too adult to chase after the ice cream vendor's truck.

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JLN,

You are correct from outside the strong form of a "biological languaging pardigm". From inside it words like "ontological" "reality" etc are merely nodes within communicative action, or aspects of social coupling. That is why a third party like Wittgenstein comes in useful as a
rest station or referee.

Joe,

Answers to all your questions are contained within the references which you seem incapable of reading, Here endeth the lesson.

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Goodnight all. Smile

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