This essay was originally writtten on October 18th, 2010....small modifications and updates March 24, 2013.)
Kant's epistemology was important but too perfectionistic to be practically applicable. This is where Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, and Alfred Korzybski all needed to step in to save epistemology from a Kantian death.
You see, Kant was both right and wrong at the same time. He drew our attention to the 'subjective-objective -- or Kantian -- split'. He correctly ascertained that none of us could get outside of our own minds, bodies, and senses in order to 'fully know' the 'complete objectivity' of the 'real object' in 'the real world'.
In other words, there will always be human error involved in the sensory and interpretive perception (or perceptual interpretation) and evaluation of any 'external or internal object' (two terms that are central to the study of 'Object Relations' which is a sub-school of psychoanalysis).
This is a given. And speaking as a person whose eyesight is definitely not the same now as it was when I was 20 years old when my vision was '20-20', and could hit an eighty plus mile an hour fastball...the importance of our senses is likely to become more and more appreciated as they begin to lose their accuracy and functionality over time as we age, and recognize all too well that our senses are not functioning nearly as well as the way they used to. Consequently, for example, the reading glasses on my face for 'compensatory functional purposes'...so I can read what I would not otherwise be able to read....
So what Kant was missing here, given the perfectionist that he was, was the idea of 'perceptual and conceptual representation' being important -- indeed, essential -- to our survival, even if it was imperfect.
In Kantian epistemology, there is essentially no distinction between 'physics' and 'metaphysics' because even physics becomes 'metaphysical' because no one can step outside of themselves -- and outside of their own senses and perceptual-conceptual-evaluation system -- to get a 'perfect representation of any physical object'.
In this regard, technically speaking, all physics becomes metaphysics because, paraphrasing Kant, no one can 'perfectly know' the 'real, objective ('noumenal' was the technical term Kant used back then) object/world'.
Technically, that may be true but we do not need 'perfect knowledge' in order to survive, and indeed, will never achieve 'perfect knowledge' unless we are talking about a math question like 2 plus 2 equals 4. Here -- and only here -- can we achieve 'perfect knowledge'.
All other knowledge, we can view as 'imperfect' and 'subject to change' based on 'new incoming information' which may -- on the basis of new and/or different observation, preferrably from more than one source, logical, interpretive deduction, common sense, and so on -- effectively 'over-rule, other past, outdated forms of information and/or purported knowledge'. This is happening all the time as yesterday's 'truths and facts and knowledge' becomes today's 'mythology'.
Such was the case, for example, with 'the world becoming conceptually round' as opposed to 'conceptually flat', and 'the Earth becoming conceputalized as revolving around the Sun' as opposed to 'conceptualized as the Sun revolving around the Earth' (i.e., 'The Copernican Revolution'). The 'objective world' did not change in either of these cases of 'revolutionized conceptuology and epistemology' -- it was just man's generalized 'view' or 'perspective' of the 'objective or real-noumenal world' that changed.
So, whereas Kant said that we 'Kant Know' our 'real, objective, noumenal world' because of the inherent subjectivity of our Sensory-Perceptual-Interpretive-Evaluative' ('SPIE') System, each of Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzybski would say that we 'Can Know' our 'real, objective, noumenal world' -- it is just that this knowledge is always going to be imperfect, never perfect -- again, because of the inherent subjectivity tied up to our SPIE System. But our knowledge can still be 'good enough' to function properly, particularly if we learn a set of 'good general rules' relative to using our mind for purposes of 'good epistemological (SPIE) functioning'.
This DGB concept of 'Good Enough Epistemology' can be compared to Donald Winnicott's Object Relations concept of 'Good Enough Mothering'.
As long as we can see the car coming as we cross the street, our 'internal epistemology' can be considered 'good enough epistemology' even if we cannot see 'every little scratch or dent' on the car coming our way.
Alternatively, if we 'don't see the car coming', then our 'internal epistemology can be considered not good enough for purposes of functional survival'.
Whereas Kant basically told us that we cannot use a 'representative model' of the 'external, real, objective, (noumenal) world', because we have no way of 'knowing' whether the 'representative model' is right or not, on the other hand, Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzysbki, all agreed to disagree with Kant, not choosing to be quite so 'anally retentive and technically perfectionistic', and argued instead in favor of a 'probability of accuracy' of a 'representation model' as long as certain 'epistemological rules' were adhered to.
Korzybski went the furthest of the three (Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzybski) in this regard, laying down a set of 'epistemological rules' that he turned into a school of language, meaning, and thinking (epistemology) philosophy called 'General Semantics'.
What Russell, Wittgenstein, and Korzybski did that was different than what Kant would not do is, they provided a 'range and a degree of probability of 'truth value of particular assumed or proclaimed truth assertions/ statements'.
This is essentially the same pragmatic-logical-rational-empirical way of 'establishing truth' as what our courts of law do when they say that 'the man has or hasn't been proven guilty beyond a reasonable shadow of a doubt'. (That is not to say that innocent men and women can't still be convicted guilty on the basis of 'conceptualized false truths' -- with Kant rolling over in his grave and saying, 'I told you so'...there are no 'certain truths'...)
But we all have to function on the basis of what we think or believe are 'truths' -- even if they aren't. In this regard, a distinction can be made between 'probable or even greatly probable truths' vs. 'evolving, possible truths'.
'Truths' change in their degree of probability over time because both the world inside and outside of us is always changing -- and some of our 'conceptual representation skills and results' improve over time because of advances in technology such as the microscope, the telescope, the hearing aid, the MRI, the CT Scan, the Ultra Sound Machine, the Xray Machine...and so on...
Other than that, the only 'perfect truths' that remain indisputable over time are mathematical truths such as: 2 plus 2 equals 4.
Unfortunately, man cannot live only on the basis of 'mathematical truths' -- which means that we still need to find some facsimile of 'epistemological truth' in the works of the likes of Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, David Hume, Kant, Hegel, Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, and Ayn Rand...
This is what The Hegel-Freud Hotel is still evolving to do in the form of GAP-DGB Philosophy-Psychology and Neo-Psychoanalysis. A particular section will be devoted to 'Central Ego Functioning' and its relationship to language, meaning, thinking, epistemology, narcissistic bias, ethics, and so on...
The results of this work on The Central Ego will then be integrated with the rest of GAP-DGB Philosophy-Psychology as we moving along.
Enough for today...The world is calling me...
-- dgb, Oct. 18th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain...
