High School Heroes

Aiden,

If coberst were not posting the same pedantic material on multple forums with similar responses to my own you would have "a case". Many of coberst's threads are ignored, but when he stumbles on issues which could be of interest to some of us, his failure to respond at an appropriate level is both disappointing and discourteous. As it is, he seems to fall into that small group of "compulsive posters" who are more interested in seeing their stuff in print than in "communication". In psychospeak its like the attention seeking child to whom any sort of attention, positive or negative, is welcome. This is why I consider your exchanges with him to be attempts at "social therapy".

As for coberst's aspirations to "disinterested knowledge" (possibly an oxymoron!)...this is merely one form reactionary mode beloved of "home educators". It ignores any epistemological analysis of "knowledge" which might include elements of "social skills" or "zeitgeisst". Such a mode may certainly favour the "gifted child" who needs space to initially develop ideosyncratic paradigms but ultimately even these individuals need to communicate with the mainstream or be shunned as "mental cases". Unfortunately, the less gifted adult "dabbler" tends not benefit from such developmental modes. There are other reactionary modes linvolving "self analysis" which seem to be much more fruitful but coberst does not seem to recognize this. Instead he has wandered randomly through some of the self analytic material without understanding its implications.

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What most people recognize as debate, and the give and take of rhetorical exchange, Coberst calls "mud wrestling." He has been invited to discuss meanings of his terms by innocent posters who have no history of making personal attacks, and he has responded by saying he does not want to engage in what he calls "mud wrestling."

I have pointed out that his elaborate and fanciful historical justifications for his loony, shallow and ill-conceived philosophies are not historically founded, and in the beginning just said, "No it's not, you're wrong." Coberst interprets that as a personal attack. You can say what he wrote is nonsense, and he calls that personal attack, although you characterized what he wrote, and not him personally.

I don't know him personally, and for all i know, if you could manage to avoid his "philosophical" maundering, he might be good company. But it is impossible to debate anything with him in such a forum, because he describes discussion as mud wrestling, and disagreement as a personal attack.

As i put it earlier, Coberst invites you to agree with him or be damned.

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Setanta,

You raise an interesting point about "self -perception" which I have mentioned on religion threads. People do not have beliefs . They are their beliefs in the sense that "selves" are social constructs. Coberst has categorized himself as "a critical thinker" which means he invested heavily in the juxtaposition himself against "the majority of non-critical thinkers". When it is pointed out that either the dichotomy is a myth, or he has actually placed himself on the wrong side if the divide his self-defense mechanism cries "personal attack". Such a reaction is little different to a believer feeling personally threatened by atheistic arguments.

Even if there are objections to my thesis about "self as a social construct", we have alternative clues to coberst's self perception. In his published biographical details he talks of his rejection of the religious "word", yet he does not see the irony of his ad hoc acceptance of particular examples of the secular "word" (especially when suductively packaged under the presumptive term "cognitive science"). Instead he sets himself up as a secular missionary....the wishful editor of a "Readers Digest Book of Philosophy" with its celebrated section "it pays to increase your word power". He launches this "biblical publication" on multiple internet forums and we can imagine him handling the challenges of deeper thinkers with the secular equivalent of "forgive them O Lord for they know not what they do". In this way he maintains his "self integrity".

coberst wrote this recently on one of his forums:

Quote:

I have been posting on Internet forums for three years and my experience leads me to conclude that I may now better understand what happened to Socrates.

...Oh the joys of the messianic complex !

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...and an hour ago we even got "epiphany" !

Quote:

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I always assumed that psychology was a subset of philosophy and an attempt to break away from ideas that cannot be measured.

fresco, are you not a behaviorist? As to cognitive insight, I seem to fit into that category, or perhaps I make myself fit into that slot.

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I wonder if Coberst's allegation of empathy with Socrates extends to feeling that he stands accused of corrupting youth? For that, he would have to be alleged to have surrounded himself with a circle of youth who sit a his feet to obtain the Coberst "received wisdom." I have yet to see any evidence that any members of the fora he haunts react to him in that manner. Rather the opposite, it seems.

Philosophically speaking, Coberst is suffering from delusions of adequacy.

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Hi Letty,

I'm not a behaviorist although I see the importance of behaviorism as a concept for the cognitivists to kick against. Two of these, Piaget and Chomsky came up with significant observational paradigms even though their impetus and their legacies were philosophical rather than psychological. Following Piagets viewsI think we all construct "insights" in order to assimilate new material.

Setanta,

I concur with your last sentence.

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Letty wrote:

I always assumed that psychology was a subset of philosophy and an attempt to break away from ideas that cannot be measured.

fresco, are you not a behaviorist? As to cognitive insight, I seem to fit into that category, or perhaps I make myself fit into that slot.

Philosophy and psychology are completely different domains of knowledge. Psychology is an empirical science whereas philosophy is, I think, not considered to be a science for various reasons. Philosophy focus upon trying to answer questions of a very fundamental kind that do not yield to empirical studies.

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Speaking as a former psychology lecturer with publications in the psychology of perception I am afraid I'm going to pull rank on you coberst. The truth is that pychology aspires to be "scientific" in as much that it mimics the methods of the hard sciences, but because of interference between the process of observation and the observed we have an exacerbation of that aspect of "science" embodied in the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle" such that information from any "experiment" is arbitrarily selected.

Or in the much stronger words of a recent essayist (Paul Lutus).

Quote:

The argument for "different domain to philosophy" cannot be based on the claim for empiricism.

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fresco wrote:

Speaking as a former psychology lecturer with publications in the psychology of perception I am afraid I'm going to pull rank on you coberst. The truth is that pychology aspires to be "scientific" in as much that it mimics the methods of the hard sciences, but because of interference between the process of observation and the observed we have an exacerbation of that aspect of "science" embodied in the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle" such that information from any "experiment" is arbitrarily selected.

Or in the much stronger words of a recent essayist (Paul Lutus).

Quote:

The argument for "different domain to philosophy" cannot be based on the claim for empiricism.

I think you make the same mistake most people make. The philosophy of science has standards for what qualifies as being a science. A science is a domain of knowledge that meets certain standards regarding assumptions, methods, and principles. Our society has led us into thinking that the natural sciences, i.e. "the hard sciences", are the only sciences but such is not the case.

I have copied a wiki quickie

Philosophy of science studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, including the formal sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences. In this respect, the philosophy of science is closely related to epistemology and metaphysics. Note that issues of scientific ethics are not usually considered to be part of the philosophy of science; they are studied in such fields as bioethics and science studies.
In particular, the philosophy of science considers the following topics: the character and the development of concepts and terms, propositions and hypotheses, arguments and conclusions, as they function in science; the manner in which science explains natural phenomena and predicts natural occurrences; the types of reasoning that are used to arrive at scientific conclusions; the formulation, scope, and limits of scientific method; the means that should be used for determining when scientific information has adequate objective support; and the implications of scientific methods and models, along with the technology that arises from scientific knowledge for the larger society.

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coberst,

Thankyou for cutting and pasting that "quicky". No doubt some of my less able students might have thought that quite useful as a substitute for the required critical analysis by specific example, but of course they would have flunked.

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coberst,

How about if I tell you how to attempt an acceptable refutation of my position ? (I couldn't be fairer than that could I ?)

1. You need to start with Popper's "falsification principle" and show how its meaning was tied in with his rejection of psychoanalyis (and Marxism) as "science".

2. You then need to examine shifts in Popper's position (following Heisenberg) caused by the rise of probability theory in the hard sciences mirrored by statistical analysis in the "social sciences".

3. You need to examine the functionalism of "science" as a process aimed at "prediction and control" rather than its epistemological status as "explaining facts". Here you could for example discuss the commercial needs for "personality testing" in terms of confidence levels for allocating of funding, despite the fact that such confidence levels are based merely on statistical correlations as opposed to theoretical constructs.

4. Finally you might take a Kuhnian stance on "paradigms" and claim that "hard science" differs from "social science" merely on the strength of paradigmatic consensus.

Such an essay, with a few specific examples would be an acceptable attempt "at refutation", but as your assessor I would be looking for clear evidence that a learning experience had taken place in terms of a qualitative shift in your thinking about "empiricism," rather than a regurgitation of source material.

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fresco

I do believe that is the best post I have ever seen from you. You speak rationally and with clear control of the subject matter. Not one ad hominem (I cannot believe it). You also helped me learn something beyond your personal dislike of the way I post. Bravo!

I shall start paying more attention to your posts because I think that you might not be responding merely to be negative or to be insulting. You can post something positive after all.

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coberst.

What I would hope you learn from this is the nature of a typical structure for presentation of a philosophical case on any formal academic course. The "qualitative shift" in this case therefore concerns your own attitude to "informal" study.

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fresco wrote:

People do not have beliefs . They are their beliefs in the sense that "selves" are social constructs. Coberst has categorized himself as "a critical thinker" which means he invested heavily in the juxtaposition himself against "the majority of non-critical thinkers". When it is pointed out that either the dichotomy is a myth, or he has actually placed himself on the wrong side if the divide his self-defense mechanism cries "personal attack". Such a reaction is little different to a believer feeling personally threatened by atheistic arguments.

Very perceptive comment.

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Joe,

Believe it or not that is one aspect of "non-dualism"....the inseparability of "thinker" and "thought".

Your comment is appreciated ! Smile

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In Sanskrit Shoora, or for Latin Zorro or an anglicized Hero could they be different accents of "The Glorified One"? Either way, they conjure up totally different images and ideals for different societies. Perhaps the language and its slant to an extent define one's hero. For some heroes speak in diminishing tones followed by more insults and killings, while for some they speak with respect and equanimity.

Coberst, I think your question is an important one.

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blueSky wrote:

In Sanskrit Shoora, or for Latin Zorro or an anglicized Hero could they be different accents of "The Glorified One"? Either way, they conjure up totally different images and ideals for different societies. Perhaps the language and its slant to an extent define one's hero. For some heroes speak in diminishing tones followed by more insults and killings, while for some they speak with respect and equanimity.

Coberst, I think your question is an important one.

And I think your point is an important one bluesky.

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