DJP
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LBird wrote:The 'law of gravity' is a human construct.I thought you said you where a realist? In that case the concept that is "the law of gravity" also has to refer to something that is real in the universe. Therefore the "law of gravity" is not just a human construct but also something real in the world. I don't see how you can claim to be a realist and disagree with this statement. Unless I've misunderstood what is meant by "realism"…
LBird wrote:Would you like, finally, to describe your theory of cognition, or is 'common sense' profound enough for you?See post #117 for a position that I would broadly agree with.
LBird wrote:DJP wrote:You are stating a cognitive relativist position here. This is quite a popular position in the Bourgeois university and runs counter to Deitzgen, Marx and Pannekoek, if you read them carefully enough.How 'careful' is 'carefully enough'? I've just quoted Pannekoek.
Yes you have quoted him, but it seems to me you have misunderstood.He is not saying that truth is a social construct but that what is "true for" a certain group of people in a certain time is. But when we talk about "true for" we are not talking about truth but beliefs..In the quote you used I guess there could be some ambiguity as to if he is talking about theories or entities, but this can be settled by looking at the whole of his work…
LBird wrote:Would you care to explain how we have access to ‘real things’ with a neutral human activity? Just use ‘our senses’?I've never claimed such a thing. Again see post #117
LBird wrote:In a Communist society, the notion that theories would not be ‘truth evaluable’ would be nonsense, because ‘truth’ and ‘theories’ are human creations, and thus would be under the control of our society.Perhaps then we can meet on the top floor of a multi-storey car park and discuss the best way to test the 'truth' of the law of gravity.You are stating a cognitive relativist position here. This is quite a popular position in the Bourgeois university and runs counter to Deitzgen, Marx and Pannekoek, if you read them carefully enough.See the Deitzgen quote I posted earlier.
LBird wrote:‘Instrumentalism’ assumes a humanity that accepts ‘black boxes’, perhaps like ‘the market’. Communists wouldn’t accept such a concept; we assume humans can understand our society and its products. ‘Black boxes’ are for ruling classes, and their class-based purposes.I suspect that instrumentalism is a form of naïve realism, as far as I can tell.Instrumentalism is the exact opposite of realism. Realism takes the contents of theories as real things existing in the world, instrumentalism takes them as useful fictions for making predictions about the future.
An interesting twist to the original story. Apparently the font they used on the vans was used without permission and its designer isn't too happy…http://www.designweek.co.uk/news/home-office-accused-of-illegal-font-use-on-illegal-immigrants-campaign/3037179.article
Here’s a map showing countries by the year that they legalized homosexuality. With that I don’t think it can reasonably be argued that the development of capitalism is the development of sexual persecution. Click on the image to make it bigger.
Earlier on in the discussion an SPGB education bulletin on science was mentioned. It has now been transcribed and uploaded here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/study-guides/science-and-socialist
OK fine, but that still doesn't explain how the facts of astronomy are relative to one's position in class society.And was Pannekoek a bourgeois scientist or a proletarian one? I'm guessing he was employed by the Dutch state…Like it or not but it seems to me you are a cognitive relativist….I agree that the content of a theory (it's facts) does determine what is observed and what is disregarded, but the absolute truth of the matter lies not within the theory itself or within those professing but out there in the real world, in nature. Whether or not we can ever fully grasp this truth is another matter…
Albert Einstein wrote:Science without epistemology is – insofar as it is thinkable at all – primitive and muddled. However, no sooner has the epistemologist, who is seeking a clear system, fought his way through such a system, than he is inclined to interpret the thought-content of science in the sense of his system and to reject what does not fit into his system. The scientist, however, cannot afford to carry his striving for epistemological systematic that far…. He therefore must appear to the systematic epistemologist as an unscrupulous opportunist.Albert Einstein, Philosopher-Scientist, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp p.684Quoted in Beyond The Hoax, Alan SokalMaybe it's me being thick, or I've missed one of your posts but please then do explain how this fits into your model i.e. what your criteria for evaluating truth is.Apologies if you have to repeat yourself….Do you agree or disagree with anything I said in post #122?
twc wrote:Yes, by way of moving on, the object-oriented software cycle makes an excellent analog of Marx’s descent–ascent method. And it works in practice.???
LBird wrote:If don't accept that 'truth' is a 'product', we can discuss it. Of course, I'll ask you to explain your view of 'truth' within a theory of cognition.I think I'm with Dietzgen here.The "absolute truth" is nature, the world or the universe."Knowledge" is always a partial or relative "truth" since we do not observe the world directly but only through it's phenomena and through the classifications created by cognition.When we say "it was true for the aztecs that human sacrifice appeased the gods" we are not refering to [absolute] truth but to beliefs. Though these beliefs do form a real part of the world.You have yet to explain your criteria for judging truth. With the exception of a priori systems I would like to know how this could be done without refering to the material world, the object.
I've just been having a word with old Jo, this is something he said
Dietzgen wrote:The Universe is identical with Nature, with the world and the absolute truth. Natural science divides Nature into parts, domains, branches of study, but it knows and feels that all such divisions are formal only, that Nature or Universe is in spite of all divisions undivided, – in spite of all variety and manifold natures only one indivisible, general and universal Nature, World and Truth. There is only one Existence, and all forms are modi, varieties or relative truths of one general truth which is absolute, eternal and endless at all times, in all places. Human knowledge is, like anything else, a limited portion of the unlimited, a modus, a variety of Existence or General Truth.Since the nature of truth has hitherto been regarded as purely mental, and accordingly, truth was looked upon as a thing which is only to be found in knowledge, the inquiry into human knowledge comes within the province of our subject, of our search after the absolute and relative truth and their relation.The mental world of man, that is, all we know, believe and think, forms a portion of the universal world which only in its absolute inter-relation, in its complete whole possesses an unlimited, perfect, absolute existence, a true one in the highest sense of the word. At the same time it possesses through its component parts, modi, varieties, products or phenomena an infinite number of existences of which every particular one is also true, but is as against the whole a mere relative truth.Human knowledge, itself a relative truth, is the medium between us and the other phenomena or relativities of the absolute Existence. Still the faculty of cognition, the knowing subject, must be distinguished from the object, the distinction being, however, a limited and relative one, since both the subject and the object are not only distinct, but at the same time alike in that they are parts or phenomena of the same generality called the Universe. We distinguish between Nature and parts, departments or phenomena, though these are inseparably connected with the All-Existence, emerge from it and submerge in it. There is no Nature without phenomena, her manifestations, nor phenomena without Nature, as the Absolute. It is only our knowledge which provides the separation, the mental analysis in order to form an image of the phenomena. Knowledge, conscious of its doings dealings, must know that the mentally separated, differentiated objects are indivisibly bound up with the reality of Nature.What we learn to know are truths, relative truths or natural phenomena. Nature itself, the absolute truth, cannot be known, – not directly, but only through her manifestations, the phenomena.[edit: I've added a couple more paragraphs to the quote]http://www.marxists.org/archive/dietzgen/1887/epistemology.htm
LBird wrote:I've had a discussion over the weekend with my son, and we're now of the opinion that computer programming methods might make this easier to understand. Are you familiar with 'programming' in any way ajj? If not, I'll have to get my thinking cap on, again!In programming the symbols used refer to fixed things. In language the meaning of the symbols alters depending on the context. The dynamic nature of reality shows itself in language too.
