There would seem to be no substantive or empirical argument against the proposition that knowledge comes to us through reflective thinking as well as practical experience. There is a vital need for substantive reason (that which exists in and of itself, in which attributes, properties and qualities reside) and empirical data (knowledge from experience or through the senses). But nothing to suggest one exists without the other. We can use deduction from principles to particulars or induction from particulars to principles. Our method might be pragmatic where we innovate what, ‘to do’, (Webster’s, 1979), based on outcome or consequences. Or a praxis where we decide, ‘to do’, (Webster’s, 1979), something using a time tested or traditional system. Still we have to decide both why we are doing something and how it can be done.

Duality of ideas and experience, mind, and body, subject and object (ad infinitum) tends to favor one part over the other. The analogy of man as a machine has led some to conclude that our existence is a purely mechanical one. At the other extreme some would have us transcend our physical frame were we exist as pure spirit. The truth is that our essential nature is both. It always has been and it always will be. I intend to demonstrate how those who deny this are flatly contradicted by their own reasoning.

The praxis of western thought can be traced back to Aristotle. In Aristotle’s logic our thinking must be theoretical as well as practical in order to ‘know’ anything with certainty. R.W Ross describes this parody and progression “From what sort of proposition he should demand proof (singular) and what sort of proofs should be demanded” (plural). Aristotle says in Nicomachean Ethics “Every art and every inquiry similarly every action or pursuit has been thought to aim at some good…but a certain difference is found in the ends.” How do we balance this parody? We have to be mindful of the extremes and maintain a deliberate balance. “…Not everyone can find the center of a circle but only a man who has proper knowledge…the first concern of a man who aims at a median (balance, center, focal point, hub) should be to avoid the extreme which is opposed to it.”(Luper, Brown, 1992). Aristotle is describing “structure common to all reasoning without regard to its subject matter” (W. Ross, 1959). Good shipbuilding produces a ship, good military strategy produces victory, and good economics produces wealth. The substance (ship, victory, profit) required a logical, empirical progression whether a product, goal, or profit. Reason required an objective that began, as an idea was a reaction to empirical sense data. The process is circular, like a gear the ratio of the outer teeth meshes the external world of sense and is connected by the spokes of conscious interaction with the hub of human cognition, the ego.

The question of where all substantive reason is derived presents a backup problem in philosophy; Thomas Aquinas resolves this using deduction. He starts with the need for things caused (plural) to have a primary first cause (singular). Then he describes how all reasoning must have commonality “natural things (plural) are directed to their end (singular). This he said is understood to be God. More about this later.

Immanuel Kant in his ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ says that knowledge comes to us through experience but that experience alone is not enough, “General truths…must be independent of experience, -clear and certain by themselves.” Here he is telling us that the main problem of metaphysics is parody. For reason to transcend the particulars there is a need for singularity. Socrates in his discussion with Meno deals with this, “Meno; I should answer that bees do not differ from one another as bees. Socrates; and if I went on to say Meno; tell me what is the quality in which they do not differ but are alike.” (Titus, Smith, Noland, 1972). This is a search for the transcendent principle of commonality. The substantive element in reality. This singularity is what Kant called apriori; a thing in and of itself, apprehended by us as an idea. Examples he gave were God, freedom and immortality.

Lebniz describes how we form ideas from our sense. We become aware of a discrepancy between the idea and what actually exists “Thus the idea of things which exists is exclusively due to the fact that God, the author of both things and the mind has endowed our mind with this power to infer from it’s own internal operations the truths that correspond perfectly (singular) with that of external things (plural). Whence although the idea of a circle, is not exactly like a circle, we may infer from the idea truths which experience would undoubtedly confirm concerning the true circle.

Question for debate:

How do you balance subjective and objective duality, where is the Aristoltian mean?

Well, my knowledge of philosophy is minimal (and obviously yours is profound) so let me just throw in my two cents. I start with one basic axiom. There is an objective universe. If we dismiss this, then there is no point in discussing anything at all.

Based on this, I next come to this conclusion. We derive understanding of the objective universe through our senses and extensions of our senses. By this I mean that pure reason is of minimal use in understanding the objective universe. Pure reason may be able to establish such facts as "A thing is equal to itself," but these aren't very useful beyond a certain point.

Reason is the servant of empiric information. It is a vital servant, to be sure, but it can never be the master. The process of understanding the objective universe is always observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and revision of the hypothesis. In other words, science.

Once we leave the realm of the objective universe -- when we discuss ethics or esthetics, for example -- things become more complex. It's not easy to apply the scientific method to determine if an action is moral or immoral, or if a work of art is good or bad. However, even these kinds of judgements must be based on some kind of experience. One simply cannot say that "such-and-such an act is evil" or "such-and-such a work is great art" without having some experience, in the real world, of such acts and such works. Even a seemingly abstract principle such as "causing needless harm is wrong" is meaningless without real experience of what "harm" is.

Just as "mind" is just a description of one of the functions of the body (via the brain), so is "reason" just a description of the ways in which empirical information is properly handled. This is certainly not to deny the vast importance of mind and reason.

How do you balance subjective and objective duality, where is the Aristoltian mean?

Yep, assuming an objective reality, it's somewhere between our senses and that reality. Shut off our senses and we know nothing of that reality.

Or do we? It'd be hard to ask, wouldn't it. It would be as hard to communicate. What happens, where are we, when we dream? When we don't dream? We can assume that we are still in our bodies, as nothing contradicts this idea. That is, we wake up inside our bodies. Or we don't wake up, and that's the end of game.

Or is it? Hard to ask and communicate again. Speculation abounds, but speculation isn't objective. Or gnostics might state such and so is the objective, but I don't know that. So, as with everyone, I have to stick a stake in the ground and say something to the effect that, alright, I know this much.

Right now I'm pretty certain that I'm awake and arguing epistemology, it's the early morning here, early evening elsewhere, the date is the 14th of November, and a slew of other tidbits that come together to make existence. I'm also fairly certain that I'm not a part of the Matrix, that events will happen throughout the day that are pretty much predictable, and there are chances that the unpredictable, or rather, the un-ordinary can happen. The un-ordinary is predictable, as in crap can happen. Or really good stuff.

Here's where the nearly pure subjective part comes in. For example, a highly paid gig could come through. I know this can happen because it happened before. If I just go by the thread of recent events, then things look pretty bleak. But, and here's the subjective choice, I simply have faith that good paying gigs will still come along, and so my nose stays open for them.

Going along this line, an initial subjective choice had to have been made to find the first good-paying gig. Did the gig exist apriori to making the choice?

Hah, good question. It might have if someone else was doing the gig and for whatever reason, I then moved into the slot. That's fairly easy to see for most jobs. But what about a freelance gig? Could be, or maybe not.

Here's a good example that I've been reading about lately: Google. Does anyone remember Google before 1998? No? That's because it did not exist. Now it does, and it's worth billions of dollars. To google something has become part of our vernacular. Google has the attention of Bill Gates, and perhaps painfully so.

So. Did the ideas that made Google happen exist apriori in the Universe, ideas just floating around waiting for someone to snatch them? Or were these ideas synthesized from the ether, and if so, are all ideas like that?

Here's a pretty good stake in the ground: Who gives a rat's whoop if you're a millionaire, billionaire, or whatever size pile of dough we're talking about.

And brought down to the usual and mundane, who gives a rat's whoop if pain is an illusion when something hurts like the devil? Oh, great, it's just an illusion. So give me drugs, dad gammit! Oh, those just create further illusions? Gee, okay, so gimme gimme gimme.

The point then becomes whether or not it is important to know where illusion ends and objective reality begins. In most cases, it doesn't matter. For others, it is an all-important realization. Thinking mental illness here.

Okay, hearing voices telling you to go out and kill a bunch of people is likely a dangerous illusion. But what if those voices come from political advisers? Whoo boy, now that gets sticky. Can seemingly sane people embrace illusions and end up doing really bad things?

Um, history is rife with examples. At least if one takes the propaganda as the only motivating factor, but we also know that greed had a lot to do with these examples. So can we conclude that propaganda = illusion and greed = objective reality?

Yep, that's pretty reasonable to me. Now, where was that stake in the ground?

I don't like to do expositive posts on here unless the post is highly detailed and its unavoidable. I felt obligated to respond to the however:



What knowledge I gained of philosophy was from an Intro to Philosophy class I took and that is from the paper I wrote. If you notice in my signiture there is a quote from a book by Robert Pirsig. In it he is struggling with what he calls the ghost of rationality, his search takes him all the way back to ancient Greece. The way they balanced this subjective/objective dualtiy was a simple concept, quality. The Greeks believed in something the called excellence (arete) which was their fulcrum. In your minds eye you percieve the universe, if you put too much emphasis on you own thoughts there is a danger of becomeing idiotic (idios litereally means self). If on the other hand you make insights that no one else can that can be developed into comprehensive systems you are considered a genious.

In eastern philosophies the emphasis is on the subjective and often they think will tell you that what you perceive is just an illusion. I like Aristotle's approach to this because he emphasised a balance. For him every mean (center, balance, hub) had two extremes the way courage has an extreme of cowardice and another which was recklessness. I wonder sometimes with all the specialization we have these days if the danger is to emphasis the theoretical over practical applications or vise versa. There are discrepancies in our perception of objective reality which have to be accounted for.

These discrepancies have to be addressed using inductive reasoning. Obstacles appear in the sources of knowledge. Francis Bacon makes a distinction between the various idols (representations) of cognition. “For it is a false assertion that the sense of man is the measure of things…because the individual man…refracts and discolors the light of nature”. We also have outside influences. “By the intercourse and association…in commerce…because…ill and unchoice words obstructs the understanding” Finally we have to critically discern systems of thought “dogmas of philosophy and wrong laws of demonstration, not only entire systems but many principles of science”. This is how you work from particulars to principles in empirical science.

This leads to the modern view. William James describes it this way; “ that possibilities may exceed actualities. That is to say that the universe is not one unbending fact…but there is a certain ultimate plurality in it” What are lost here are primary or substantive first principles. “A criticism of current philosophizing from the standpoint of the traditional quality of its problems must begin somewhere, and the choice of a beginning is arbitrary. “ (Titus, 1995). The beginning has never been arbitrary it has just lost it’s substance.

I think in Western thinking has experiences an information overload. Generating facts and details happens naturally but sorting through all of the data was are exposed to is becoming increasingly difficult. The balance is so difficult that finding it is almost rare, what is required is a balanced view, often refered to as the golden mean.