This is an Assumption

Yeah, we do incorporate assumptions into almost every aspect of decision making. If it's truth you're after, you've got to live with those assumptions and the possibility of being wrong...because if you were to discard anything based on assumption, you just wouldn't know anything at all!

That a straight line is the shortest distance between two points is not an assumption.

Both the line and the points are clearly defined by us, and made by us. There is no line and no points apart from those we've created.

Also, we know that the sum of all the angles of a triangle is always 180 degrees. That is not an assumption either. It is a statement derived from a specific geometry in which the rules dictate that this will always be so.

In the same manner, if I were to say that "god is a term that means everything that exists thought of as one singularity" and proceeded to say that god exists, that would not be an assumption. Merely a statement derived from a definition. By this definition, if I exist, then god exists. The statement that I exist might still be an assumption though...


(And suddenly I felt the ground moving beneath my feet... :wink: )

Coberst,

Your title is a sham !

You keep coming up with these terms like "cognitive science" and "theory of the conceptual metaphor" as though they were something new or profound. Piaget's developmental psychology of the 50's onwards clearly describes the process of "dealing with the world" in terms of "schemata" or internal structures which correspond to "metaphor". At the later stages of "maturation" come the schemata of "logical operations" in which binary logic is applied to "the world". Thus "logic" itself is a form of metaphor...NOT merely the assumptions or axioms to which it is applied. This raises the core epistemological issue of the meanings of both "knowing" and "science" and should give you pause for thought before running up the flag of "cognitive science" and expecting us to salute it.

I am aware I have referred you to Piaget before, but you seem unwilling to debate the point. Instead you pedantically wrote:



"Physician" heal thyself !

fresco

When written history began five thousand years ago humans had already developed a great deal of knowledge. Much of that knowledge was of a very practical nature such as how to use animal skins for clothing, how to weave wool, how to hunt and fish etc. A large part of human knowledge was directed toward how to kill and torture fellow humans. I guess things never really change all that much.

In several parts of the world civilizations developed wherein people learned to create laws and to rule vast numbers of people. Some measure of peace and stability developed but there was yet no means for securing the people from their rulers. I guess things never really change all that much

Almost everywhere priests joined rulers in attempts to control the population. Despite these continual wars both of external and internal nature the human population managed to flourish. Egypt was probably one of the first long lasting and stable civilizations to grow up along the large rivers. Egypt survived almost unchanged for three thousand years. This success is attributed to its geographical location that gave it freedom from competition and fertile lands that were constantly replenished by the river overflowing its banks and thus depositing new fertile soil for farming.

Western philosophy emerged in the sixth century BC along the Ionian coast. A small group of scientist-philosophers began writing about their attempts to develop "rational" accounts regarding human experience. These early Pre-Socratic thinkers thought that they were dealing with fundamental elements of nature.

It is natural for humans to seek knowledge. In the "Metaphysics" Aristotle wrote "All men by nature desire to know".

The attempt to seek knowledge presupposes that the world unfolds in a systematic pattern and that we can gain knowledge of that unfolding. Cognitive science identifies several ideas that seem to come naturally to us and labels such ideas as "Folk Theories".

The Folk Theory of the Intelligibility of the World
The world makes systematic sense, and we can gain knowledge of it.

The Folk Theory of General Kinds
Every particular thing is a kind of thing.

The Folk Theory of Essences
Every entity has an "essence" or "nature," that is, a collection of properties that makes it the kind of thing it is and that is the causal source of its natural behavior.

The consequences of the two theories of kinds and essences is:

The Foundational Assumption of Metaphysics
Kinds exist and are defined by essences.

We may not want our friends to know this fact but we are all metaphysicians. We, in fact, assume that things have a nature thereby we are led by the metaphysical impulse to seek knowledge at various levels of reality.

Cognitive science has uncovered these ideas they have labeled as Folk Theories. Such theories when compared to sophisticated philosophical theories are like comparing mountain music with classical music. Such theories seem to come naturally to human consciousness.

The information comes primarily from "Philosophy in the Flesh" and http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/302/folkmeta.htm

Coberst,

Once again. you are not answering the epistemological point. You use the word "knowledge" as if it were axiomatic. Can you not see that "knowledge about knowledge" presents severe regress problems which cannot be tackled by simply marrying the word "cognitive" with "science"?

Haven't you figured it out yet? Coberst isn't interested in debating your points, s/he is only interested in debating his/her own points.

joefromchicago

You are almost correct. Coberst isn't interested in debating !(period).
....and such is the view of most of the respondents on the dozen or so forums on which his questions are published.

No I do not understand what you said. It seems that everthing I do not understand is very difficult and everything I do understand seems very simple. Maybe I only understand simple things.

Isn't the purpose of an OP to define the topic?

Okay....this is not simple stuff.

If you want to make progress towards a vantage point there are some seminal works worth knowing about e.g. Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason, Flavell's "The Developmental Psychology of Piaget", and perhaps some commentaries on Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations". (In the case of the latter you might start by listening to this http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20031204.shtmlpress the listen again button)

Be advised that many some these ideas are iconoclastic withe respect to much of the "psuedo-science" inovolved with "cognition". It may be that
many of the texts you are fond of quoting fall victim to such iconoclasm.

Sure, the original post defines the topic, but you have proven, on this forum and (as fresco has pointed out) on many other forums, that you have no interest in participating in the kind of discussion that such forums are designed to foster. Rather than posting something as an impetus to discussion, you post it as an invitation for agreement. Furthermore, by your almost complete lack of participation in anyone else's threads, you have demonstrated that you have no interest whatsoever in anything that anyone else has to say. You post the exact same thing in multiple forums for the same reason that someone passes out pamphlets on a street corner; you do it solely as a means of broadcasting a message to as wide an audience as possible, without any intention of engaging in a substantive discussion.

Your claims that you are trying to broaden your education are belied by the narrowness of your focus and your unwillingness to engage in any kind of meaningful dialogue, either within the limits of your own interests or in anything that goes beyond those limits. Such intellectual arrogance might be excused if you were a particularly insightful or provocative thinker, but you aren't. The fact is that your posts are almost uniformly banal and insipid, your thoughts are almost always childishly simplistic. That some people here and elsewhere regard you as a deep thinker is more a reflection on them than it is on you.

In short, you are the very opposite of the kind of person that you say you are, and are certainly the antithesis of the spirit of broad, honest inquiry that this forum attempts to represent.

I'm with joe on this. I've said it before too. Spamming is the closest description of cob's activity on the various forums.

joe says--"The fact is that your posts are almost uniformly banal and insipid, your thoughts are almost always childishly simplistic."

That really hurts. Take it back!!

this thread has entered . . .

From what I've observed thus far, it seems to me that Coberst has a problem with starting from an erroneous assumption. We have many like him on a2k.

Ooohh.. Then I'll need my blanket to hide under during the scary parts..

Coberst,

Here's your chance to move onwards and upwards from the "bunker" from which you distribute your bulletins to the troops. The "self that got hurt" can be shed with impunity. The real "critical thinker" is out here on the field of battle, not occupying a cosy desk at HQ.

I am not here to defend anyone. I am curious. Is it really possible to have an "agenda" concerning metaphysics or epistemology?

No..he's still breathing.....another bulletin was issued 10 minutes ago !