Everything starts with sensory perception. But in order for their to be sensory perception, there also needs to be 'narcissistic self-interest'.
Out of the myriad of stimuli that bombard our senses each and every day, each and every moment, which one or ones are we going to pay attention to? Which sensory stimuli are we going to focus in on? Which sensory stimuli are we going to follow up on? The answer to all of these questions is supplied by the three words already mentioned above: narcissistic self-interest.
What we are talking about here, is basically the beginning of the 'problem-solving process'. And if there are two or more 'competing sensory stimuli' -- stimuli competing for our attention, then we are also talking about the beginning of the 'conflict-resolving process'.
It is rare that any two competing stimuli can exactly capture our equal attention at the same time -- if something close to this happens, then we have a situation that the Gestaltists label as a 'split gestalt' -- two stimuli capturing at least a part of our attention at the same time like the dangerous new 'driving phenomenon' of trying to drive and text message at the same time.
Obviously, driving requires our full vision and attention on the road even when we think that everything is safe and we can take our eyes off the road, a dangerous habit indeed, that can result in car crashes, train crashes, dead drivers, dead passengers, all because too much of a person's attention is aimed in an unsafe direction, like text messaging, loading a CD player, changing a radio station, looking at a computer, and/or trying to 'drive a car with your knees and your head down to your Blackberry'. Not all new technology comes with a dire warning sign: DON'T DRIVE AND TEXT AT THE SAME TIME -- YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS WANT YOU HOME ALIVE, NOT DEAD!
Gathering and collecting and recording sensory stimuli is usually the beginning stage of what we call both 'knowledge' and 'epistemology' (the study of knowledge).
There is a 'metaphysical assumption' here which brings us in touch with the dreaded 'Kantian Subjective-Objective, Epistemology-Reality Split' -- a metaphysical and epistemological problem that has plagued man since he started to worry about this matter. Awareness of the subjective-objective split problem goes back at least as far as Plato, indeed, even a little further back to Parmenides who (badly) influenced Plato on this matter to the point where, a few years back, I wrote an essay called: 'Parmenides' Poison: The Philosophical Undermining of Rational-Empiricism'.
Unfortunately, Plato bought into what Parmenides was 'selling' -- to the huge detriment and undermining of the brand new field of epistemology.
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Parmenides of Elea (Greek: Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης, early 5th century BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. Parmenides was also a priest of Apollo and iatromantis. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem which has survived only in fragmentary form. In this poem, Parmenides describes two views of reality. In The Way of Truth (a part of the poem), he explains how reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, and unchanging. In The Way of Opinion, he explains the world of appearances, which is false and deceitful. These thoughts strongly influenced Plato, and through him, the whole of western philosophy.
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Parmenides was born around the same time as Heraclitus (535 BC to 475 BC) and it would make sense to believe that the two actually were familiar with each other's philosophical work -- indeed, were philosophical rivals presenting the first 'thesis' and 'anti-thesis' of epistemology -- because their respective philosophical -- and more specifically, epistemological -- works were about as different as night and day, as different as the respective works of Plato and Aristotle, as different as the respective works of Hegel and Schopenhauer.
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Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ancient Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος — Hērákleitos ho Ephésios; c. 535–c. 475 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the riddling nature of his philosophy and his contempt for humankind in general, he was called the "The Obscure," and the "Weeping Philosopher."
Heraclitus is famous for his doctrine of change being central to the universe, summarized in his famous quote, "You can not step twice into the same river." He believed in the unity of opposites, stating that "the path up and down is one and the same," existing things being characterized by pairs of contrary properties. His cryptic utterance that "all things come to be in accordance with this Logos," (literally, "word," "reason," or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations.
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Heraclitus lay a solid foundational grounding for the beginning of 'rational-empiricism': he looked, he saw, he described. Heraclitus saw that life all around him moved -- and changed. Heraclitus -- in addition to being the first Greek and Western 'dialectical unity philosopher' (Lao tse was arguably the first Chinese and Eastern dialectic unity philosopher) -- was also arguably the first Greek and Western 'process philosopher' -- meaning the idea that life is an action always in process, always moving, always changing, always evolving...
In contrast, Parmenides threw out the concept of 'empiricism' in 'rational-empiricism' and tried to go the philosophical route of straight 'rationalist' or 'rational idealist'. Unfortunately, Plato followed right behind him in undermining the 'empirical and sensory-perceptual foundational base' of rational-empiricism -- and epistemology. Plato's ideas might have been great for the birth of Western religion and spirituality but they were a terrible setback for the Western beginnings of science and evolution. It took Aristotle to re-establish the study of science, evolution, and epistemology back in the right direction -- with a sound rational-empirical and sensory-perceptual base.
Unfortunately, many philosophers after Plato and Aristotle turned more towards Plato's epistemological ideas of 'reality' rather than Aristotle -- philosophers like Descartes and Spinoza (both 'rationalists' without the 'sensory-perceptual empiricism' to back up and give grounded support to their particular brands of rationalism which both focused more on mathematical and geometrical formulas rather than 'common sense observation'. I love elements of Spinoza's thinking but more his 'romantic-wholistic-pantheism' rather than his 'strict brand of rationalism'.
The German Idealists -- Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel -- were also partly mesmerized by Plato's rational idealism. The only one that wasn't was the 'dialectical materialist', Karl Marx, whose cold-hearted but very 'narcissistic-reality-based' economic theory was about as similar to the philosophical work of Plato, Spinoza, Kant, and Schelling as the city of New York and the financial institutions of Wall Street have with the forests of Alaska and the mountains of the Swiss Alps.
Schelling provides a fascinating 'romantic' integration of Spinoza, Rousseau, Fichte, and Hegel (some of his ideas actually pre-dating Hegel's) but that is food for another essay. Back to epistemology.
Even Hegel was partly mesmerized by Plato's 'rational idealistic' epistemological influence -- to the detriment of Hegel's own 'dialectic epistemology' and his concept of 'The Absolute'.
I can tell you one thing. We can study epistemology -- even dialectically study epistemology in Hegel's paradigm of 'dialectic logic' -- for a million more years and still not come close to Hegel's idea of 'The Absolute'. As in 'Perfect Epistemology'. Being in touch with 'God's Truth and Creative Essence'.
Fat chance! That is about as realistically probable as ever getting to 'Perfectly Ethical Capitalism'. Or 'Perfectly Ethical Socialism' for that matter. 'Like the sound of one hand clappin', it just ain't going to happen.' (Bob Dylan). But we can keep trying. Idealism -- on any front -- stops when we stop trying.
Back to the Kantian Subjective-Objective, Epistemology-Reality Split.
Kant said that we can never 'know' our 'noumenal' (objective-outside-the-senses-reality'). And philosophers and academics started to metaphorically 'jump out of tall buildings'. Philosophically and epistemologically speaking, this was about as bad, coming out of his mouth, as The Lehman Brothers going bankrupt, AIG going bankrupt, and Wall Street collapsing. Nobody knew what to do or what to say. What the heck was the purpose of science if not to collect and provide people with an 'objective body of truthful knowledge'.
But if Kant didn't do enough to undermine 'Science as The Idol of All Idols', well then, years later, Nietzsche would.
For one thing, personal and/or group narcissism can destroy science just as fast as it can destroy each and every other element of human society and culture. As Marx and Nietzsche both knew only too well: Money, greed, and personal/group narcissistic bias destroys ethics.
Science -- like statistics -- can be 'engineered', 'manipulated', 'interpreted', and 'evaluated' to say anything narcissistically biased persons and/or groups of people want it to say. Where there is a 'narcissistic will' -- there is a 'way'.
So much for 'scientific optimism and idealism'. Science -- like any and every other institution of society and culture, if it is 'corporately connected' and/or 'connected to human narcissistic greed and manipulation' -- is just going to tell us what someone with 'special interests' is going to want us to hear.
'Truth' starts with attitude -- either we want it or we don't. Most people pay homage and 'lip service' to truth but when it comes right down to it -- especially in 'narcissistically and righteously tight, stressful situations -- can we deliver the goods? Both to ourselves and to those around us.
How many of us -- when it comes right down to the nitty, gritty of what is either extremely pleasurable and/or extremely painful -- have the intestinal fortitude to either deliver the truth, or accept it.
As I have alluded to with dialectical concepts such as 'The Essence' and 'The Wall', all of us at different times will block out, mask, disguise, distort, abstract, mystify, generalize, falsify that which we don't want others to know about us.
And similarly, all of us at different times have trouble accepting things that we don't want to hear, 'painful objective realities' and the like.
Probably all of us at different times spend just as much time and energy 'hiding ourselves' as we do 'revealing ourselves'.
This is includes all of our most narcissistic and/or righteous traumacies, fantasies, pleasures, secrets...That is why we have 'courts of law', 'journalists', 'reporters', and 'philosophers' to chase down 'epistemological and behavioral truth' where private and public political, corporate, and/or individual transgressions and scandals may lie -- in the weeds waiting for someone to bring in a 'weed wacker'.
To shine light on The Shadows of Darkness -- and unbridled, unrepenting, human narcissism.
Am I starting to sound like a preacher yet?
Into this context, we bring the study of 'epistemology'. That can be like bringing the 'Truth Police' into a 'Show on Magic'.
And even our 'subjective perception of truth' can be wrong.
Even the best intended people can become confused, uncertain, mystified, mesmerized, mistaken, righteously wrong, betrayed by what they falsely believe is the truth -- and wind up in 'Epistemological Never, Never Land'.
Where did they go wrong? Where did we go wrong?
As much as some of us might want to think so, The Truth doesn't come to us from God on a Golden Platter with our name on it.
We have to find The Truth -- or at least 'The Baby Truths' -- through our own rational-empirical, sensory-perceptual, perceptual-interpretive, causal-interpretive, abstracting, generalizing, distinguishing, epistemological evaluation process.
This can be hard work. No definitive answers to the individual and/or general problem of 'Truth' will ever be entirely foolproof and beyond philosophical critique and speculation. The scary and insecure philosophical words of 'assumption', 'theory', 'metaphysics,', 'skepticism' and 'epistemological uncertainty' lie beneath all our more 'righteously arrogant' ideas of 'truth' and 'fact', 'right' and 'wrong'.
Oftentimes, 'right' and 'wrong' apply more aptly to 'mathematics' and 'spelling' than they do to matters of human epistemology, ethics, and behavior. This is not to say that we all need to succumb -- like many philosophers and academics have -- to the tempting philosophical doctrine of 'epistemological and/or ethical subjective relativism'.
No, there is still an important need in epistemology for such words as 'objectivity', 'truth', and 'fact'. It is just that sometimes, oftentimes, 'objectivity', 'the truth', and 'facts' are not quite as clear-cut and totally reliable as we may think they are -- and/or want to think that they are.
If I sit here, and say, 'There is a bottle of vitamins sitting in front of me on my desk', and I have someone (who is not 'narcissistically colluding' with me) to come over and verify, that, 'yes indeed, there is a bottle of vitamin's on David's computer desk, sitting almost in front of his face' -- then we can probably collectively feel justified and secure in our knowledge that this statement, this report, observationally verified by two different (non-colluding) people can indeed be viewed as 'the truth' and/or as an 'observational fact'.
However, if I sit here and say that 'I am talking to God -- or Apollo -- or Dionysus' -- then all of you probably have reason to have grave doubts about 'the truth-value of this statement' and more so, about the credibility and reliability of the person -- me -- who is making this statement, this assertion, this report.
Why? Because there is no 'sensory observation' involved in this report unless I try to tell you that 'God or Apollo or Dionysus is visible to my eyes' in which case this opens up a brand new epistemological can of worms.
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Group Topdog: 'David, if one or more of us comes into your room there, will we be able to see God or Apollo or Dionysus -- or whoever you say you are seeing -- there too? Or will your 'vision' be gone by the time we get to your room? Will everybody who comes to your room get to 'see God' -- or is it just your 'special status with God' that allows you to see Him, where we can't?
Personal Underdog: 'Well, um, I think it is my special status with God. I don't think you will be able to see Him. Or hear Him. But i will tell you what He says.
Group Topdog: Are you sure it is a 'Him'? What does He look like? What is He saying to you? Are you sure this is not your own 'projective process' at work in your own mind and you are not aware of it? All of us here are extremely doubtful that you are indeed epistemologically and existentially 'seeing and talking to God'.
Personal Underdog: Yeah, I am. I know it.
Group Topdog: Well, with all due respect, Dave, you may know it, but we don't know it, and more than this, we don't even trust that you 'rightly know' what you 'think you rightly know'. We think that your epistemological abilities and faculties are failing you. What's more, we feel scared and worried for you. We think you should see a psychiatrist and talk to him or her about your belief that you have been seeing and talking to God.
Personal Underdog: God just told me that I don't need to see a psychiatrist. He told me to trust Him and only Him. He says my 'epistemology' is just fine.
Group Topdog: We seem to be coming to an 'epistmelogical impasse' here. We are worried about you but we will leave things for now...
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My favorite epistemologists go back to Heraclitus, Aristotle, Ohkam ('Okham's Razor': All else being equal, simpler reasons and explanations are better than more complicated, convoluted ones...', Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, The Enlightenment Philosophers: Diderot, Voltaire, Paine..., and onwards through the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century: Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, Hayakawa, Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Foucualt, Derrida, Perls...
The next batch of epistemological essays that I write -- and/or some ones that I have already written -- will bring you more in touch with the different and similar ideas of most of these epistemologists and some of the lessons that I have learned from them.
The study of epistemology -- meaning the study of what we hope to be 'truthful knowledge' is not an easy, straight-forward subject matter. It has many different twists and turns, particularly in the areas of 'underlying metaphysical assumptions' and 'narcissistic, subjective bias'.
We will tackle these issues and more as I lay out the 'territory' of 'DGBN Dialectical, Rational-Empirical, Subjective-Objective, Observational-Interpretive Epistemology'.
There will be no pretense of 'Absolute Knowledge' here.
Just hopeful, optimistic, skeptical, idealistic-realistic, rational-empirical, observational-interpretive, pragmatically assumptive, historically based work in this direction.
If that does not smack entirely of 'confident and/or arrogant self-certainty', well, I suggest that that is not always, or even often, the goal of either epistemology or philosophy in general.
Epistemology's and philosophy's goal is oftentimes to unearth the uncertainties that are masked and hidden by the careless and/or unethical use of language, persuasion, assumptions, 'supposedly common sense', 'scientific facts', and/or righteous-narcissistic bias.
Again, the pursuit of truth starts with attitude, and some degree of skeptical uncertainty that works its way through both 'natural and human epistemological clutter, mud, chaos', works towards firmer ground, and then aims to build upwards and/or inwards taking to wherever we plan to go.
This to me is what 'dialectical-rational-empirical epistemology is all about -- a dialectic, homeostatic balance between 'skeptical doubt' and 'confidently grounded, rational-empirical self-conviction'. Too much of either one can cause epistemological problems before we even get started.
Other than that, the sky is the limit, maybe even outer space. (Just don't get lost up there!).
-- dgb, Sept. 14th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
