A very thoughtful post that needs to be discussed. Thank you.

[Thats my opinion]

This was meant as a response to
silent3s good post and was not meant to be a new one.


Postmodernism takes a dim view of what is called “the meta-narrative.” (The Truth or process which stands beside every other truth as absolute.) That is, any system which claims exclusive finality. When religion in general or any single religion, for instance, claims to have all the truth and ignores all other ways of thinking or observing, it has a assumed a meta-narrative which is flawed. Postmodern thought has taken a particularly unhappy view of the claim that the Enlightenment, with its claim that scientism and rationality, is the only way of knowing, by assuming a totality of knowledge. Much of this comes by definition. If I define everything in life as A, then if I ask a question about anything in the universe, the automatic answer is: A. 1-“All knowledge is verifiable”—meaning scientifically verifiable. 2-Only those things verifiable constitute knowledge.” It is a perfect closed system. Define the conclusion in the premises and you have an airtight argument.

But there are other problems. What we know to be verifiable today may not be the final truth—or fact. Just pick up any science book from 20 years ago—or 500. Anyone want to defend the verifiable knowledge of Ptolemy? All scientific knowledge is in flux. That is a scientific axiom.

In the 4th century BCA, Aristotle in the fourth volume of his Nichomachean Ethics suggested that there ways of knowledge beyond the scientific.
1- experience
2- looking at what is produced
3- right living
4- sophia --the articulation of wisdom
5- intuition

All of them, he said, were partial, lest any one of them assumed they were the whole.

Others have suggested other lists.
Most ethicists and epistemologists suggest that self-evident truth is primary.
There is temporarily and proximate verifiable truth.
There is analytical or deductive truth—the truth of syllogisms—given you have truthful premises.
Empirical truth comes through the senses—by direct observation.
Intuitive truth or knowledge comes from the inner quality of the mind and spirit.
There is altruistic knowledge—and beyond that ethical knowledge concerning a utilitarian response. What is good for the whole—or for most.

Ayn Rand and her Objectivism, is built on the assumption that only what you call verifiable knowledge has validity. That leaves out all other ways of knowing.

You argue well. The problem comes when you make an absolute of the argument. “All’” is a very troubling word.

There are libraries written about the subject.

What we need to resist is any kind of flat world reduced to a one-dimensional scientism

[skepticscott]

1. Uh, no..

If you had meant this to be a reply to Silent3's post, you would have posted it as a reply to Silent3's post. You've been posting a long time and you know perfectly well how to do that. But you couldn't bear not to get the attention of your own OP, and clearly DID mean this to be a new post.

Could your self-promotion possibly be any more shameless?

[rrneck]

6. Don't ask him that. He might call your bluff. nt

[bananas]

8. Silent3's thread was a continuation of an existing thread anyway. nt

[laconicsax]

9. Then you should alert on it and it'll get locked. n/t

[bananas]

19. LOL, you must be new here!

Merry Christmas!
:rofl:

[laconicsax]

28. You're precious!

[rrneck]

10. This whole "other way of knowing" thing

has been a raging debate for a while. I don't mind if people start their own threads on the subject if for no other reason to keep them from becoming too long to manage. For my part, this whole place is just a big cocktail party anyway.

If someone wants to reopen the issue with their own OP using what they feel is a different approach, then more power to them. In this case, it wasn't necessary to specifically reply to an OP by starting another thread. It is certainly a callout, and Charles should know better. He just can't resist trying to control the conversation.

[JDPriestly]

2. I have not seen silent3s post, but I agree with what you are saying

in essence. There are many ways to "know" things -- for yourself. But we can only expect other people to accept our "knowledge" as truth if they have also experienced it or have some empirical proof of it.

So, if I call someone in France and tell them it is raining in my part of the US, they will probably believe me, but they certainly don't have to take my word for it.

[trotsky]

3. Science is not knowledge, it is a process to ascertain it.

Through observation, hypothesis, and testing, we refine our theories about how the world works. Science is self-correcting. What does religion offer as its self-correcting process? Or any other of these alleged "other ways of knowing?" How do they refine their proclamations? How do they adjust their assertions when they conflict with reality?

[LARED]

23. Why is it required that 'other ways of knowing' be self correcting to

be knowledge?

[trotsky]

26. How do you know if you're wrong? n/t

[Iggo]

4. You'll go blind.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

5. Here is the deal as I see it.

If you have any idea of the vastness of the univwerse, you have to accept that their are things going on out there that we simply do not understand. If you had told people a hundred yers ago that the telephone was an option. they would have told you that you were nuts. If you had told people fifty years ago that the i-pad was an option, they would have told you you were nuts.

Does this mean that there is a God? I don't think so. It just means thswt there are things we don't yet understand.. That does not make it Holy, it just means that we don't yet understand it ...yet.

[rrneck]

7. Then it should be in the threat to which it is addressed. nt

[rrneck]

11. Boy, what a Freudian slip! That should have been "thread". nt

[cleanhippie]

12. I'm still waiting on just one single example of knowledge gained through some "other way of knowing"

:shrug:

[MarkCharles]

13. That example must be backed up within the slow

Christmas mail delivery somewhere.

Either that or we atheists only have five senses and a brain with which to examine the example, and the believers are insisting that, in order to "feel" or "examine" any example, we should be more "open-minded", should have a sixth or seventh sense, and should enable our brains to suspend the rational part and should just employ the more imaginative, more emotional, more wishful thinking side.

Yup, the best way to "prove" there's other ways of knowing is to demean the person asking for the examples.

[LARED]

22. The problem may be related to

your expectation that someone provide an example that fits into your special definition of knowledge.

[skepticscott]

24. It's the definition of knowledge

that these claims were made to support that matters. The touting of "other ways of knowing" stems from attempts by the religionists here to argue that their objective claims (e.g. the actual existence of god) should be exempt from the usual strictures of evidence-based rational inquiry, because they have "other ways of knowing" that such things are objectively true.

[LARED]

25. Are you claiming

someone made objective claims regarding the actual existence of God? Kinda silly to do that if someone really did say that.

I thought the "other ways of knowing" question stemmed from the premise that "all knowing" came from "evidence based rational inquiry", which of course is a standard not identified in the usual definition of knowledge.

[Major Nikon]

14. Elevating Ayn Rand's nonsense to the level of sound philosophy is not all that thoughtful

So you lost me there.

[Thats my opinion]

15. Of course you are correct.

But in academic circles Any Rand's objectivism is taken seriously. This is also true with a number of conservative politicos and economists. I, like you, do not think it is sound or philosophic, but it does flow from the absolute reliance on what she calls rationality flowing from the Enlightenment

[Major Nikon]

16. You still lost me

Ayn Rand might be taken seriously in some academic circles, but she certainly isn't taken seriously within the academic circles of philosophy. So is there really a good reason to take her philosophy seriously at all? To elevate her works in thoughtful discussion simply because they may be popular isn't a good reason. Glenn Beck might be popular with some, but that doesn't mean his ideas belong in thoughtful discussion on the same shelf as truly insightful ones.

Let's say I wanted to engage in a thoughtful discussion on the subject of true genius and as examples of great thinking I cited the ideas of Newton, Beethoven, Jefferson, Napoleon, and Michelle Bachmann. Do you think that's a firm foundation for thoughtful discussion? I'm probably going to lose a lot of people right out of the gate, and that's why you lost me.

[Thats my opinion]

17. Uncle!

Oh, I guess you are right, and i stretched things to make a poor point..

[bananas]

20. In the thread the OP was meant to be a reply to it was stated that

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=319891&mesg_id=319891

Like many words, "knowledge" has a variety of meanings and usages. I think if you look at how this word is typically used, however, the core concept is possession of objective truth, possession of factual information. Experience, perception, deduction, intuition, and raw information do not become "knowledge" in any deep sense of that word until they are subjected to some form of objective verification.

So the OP of that thread acknowledged that there are many meanings of "knowledge" and then ignored almost all of them,
claiming that

do not become "knowledge" in any deep sense of that word until they are subjected to some form of objective verification.

which is exactly what Ayn Rand said, and therfore the comparison to Ayn Rand to wannabe pseude-scientifical neo-atheists is completely on target.

[Silent3]

18. I guess the first thing I'd have to say to...

Postmodernism takes a dim view...

...is that I take a dim view of postmodernism. :) Postmodernism is a lovely little playground for an elite circle of self-aggrandizing critics of literature and art. Postmodernism is wonderful way for everyone to be right and for no one to be wrong -- apart from the wrongness of saying someone else is wrong. The exception is, of course, those awful and oppressive dead white European males of the Enlightenment and their intellectual heirs. It's OK to say that they were wrong flat out. Everyone else, however, can belong to the happy postmodern "we're all right in our own special way" club.

A. 1-“All knowledge is verifiable”

My OP to which you were responding certainly doesn't say that. I first establish a hypothetical, not-directly-obtainable concept of knowledge as an awareness of facts, with facts being items of information which are definitely and universally true. The concept of verifiability comes second, as something I believe is revealed by looking carefully into the way the word "knowledge" is typically used, searching for the core concept with greatest integrity, clarity, and utility.

As for your enumerated list types of knowledge, I don't argue that others have indeed spoken about those things as types of knowledge, but I would argue that calling many of those things "types of knowledge" only adds confusion, and that viewing those things as (possible, hardly guaranteed!) approaches to obtaining knowledge adds clarity to the discussion of knowledge.

But there are other problems. What we know to be verifiable today may not be the final truth—or fact.

For that I have nothing to say other than a big "So what?". I've already stated that the difference between the idealized concept of knowledge that I've proposed and the practical approach is one of provisional acceptance of ideas at varying degrees of certainty.

The problem comes when you make an absolute of the argument.

Point out where I've done that.

That leaves out all other ways of knowing.

I have no problem with leaving something out that I think should be left out. I'm looking for clarity and consistency, not diplomatic harmony for it's own sake, no matter what half-backed fuzzy epistemology it takes to get there. Point out particular things you don't think I should leave out as types or sources of knowledge, and on a case by case basis I'll consider them.

[bananas]

21. Your post certainly stands on its own.

"There are libraries written about the subject."
Absolutely correct.
And many more libraries are being written as we speak.

[Jim__]

27. Here is a pretty good summary of the postmodernist view of meta-narratives and knowledge.

This is a short review of Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. The essay itself is only about 70 pages, written in 1979 it is prescient in its predictions for the growing importance of computer technology, the importance of stored information and the impacts of these factors on society. An excerpt from the review:

In The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, viewed by some as the "bible" of the postmodernism movement, Jean François Lyotard analyzes how the legitimation of knowledge has changed in the computerized societies of the twentieth century. The Report was commissioned by the Conseil des Universités of the Quebec government in order to frame the discussion of incorporating computers into higher education. The postmodern condition is the fundamentally different outlook on knowledge that has arisen after the Enlightenment, and particularly since World War II in Western post-industrial, information-based society. In the Report, Lyotard makes a variety of claims and recommendations about how knowledge, particularly computerized knowledge, in the postmodern condition must be legitimated and made accessible in a just society.

Lyotard believes that cybernetics (computers, telecommunication systems and the various associated disciplines of language and information processing) has come to dominate society and economics since World War II. He believes that the status of knowledge has changed profoundly in this period. The major question that interests him is how knowledge gets legitimated in cybernetic society, and the nature of the legitimation itself. Lyotard maintains that whatever principle society uses to legitimate knowledge must also be the principle that it uses to legitimate decision-making in society, and consequently government, laws, education, and many other basic elements of society. Legitimation in the Enlightment was tied to what Lyotard calls meta-narratives, or grand narratives. Meta-narratives are total philosophies of history, which make ethical and political prescriptions for society, and generally regulate decision-making and the adjudication of what is considered truth. Meta-narratives roughly equate to the everyday notion of what principles a society is founded on. They form the basis of the social boand. The meta-narratives of the Enlightenment were about grand quests. The progressive liberation of humanity through science is a meta-narrative. The quest for a universally valid philosophy for humanity is an example of a meta-narrative. The problem is that when meta-narratives are concretely formulated and implemented, they seem to go disastrously awry. Marxism is the classic case of a meta-narrative based on principles of emancipation and egalitarianism which, when implemented, becomes perverted to totalitarianism under Stalin in the Soviet Union.

Lyotard claims that we have now lost the ability to believe in meta-narratives, that the legitimating function that grand quests once played in society has lost all credibility. The question then becomes, what now forms the basis of legitimation in society if there is no overarching meta-narrative? For Lyotard, the answer lies in the philosophy of Wittgenstein, which analyzes the way sub-groups in society regulate their behavior through rules of linguistic conduct. If we have rejected grand narratives, then what we have fallen back on are little narratives. Little narratives are Wittgenstein's "language games", limited contexts in which there are clear, if not clearly defined, rules for understanding and behavior. We no longer give credence to total philosophical contexts like Marxism which ostensibly would prescribe behavior in all aspects of life, rather, we have lots of smaller contexts which we act within. We are employees, we are students. These roles legitimate knowledge and courses of action in their limited contexts. By fragmenting life into a thousand localized roles, each with their particular contexts for judging actions and knowledge, we avoid the need for meta-narratives. This is the nature of the modern social bond. Our effectiveness is judged in the context of how well we perform in each of these many limited roles. We may be a good employee but a poor driver, etc.

Therefore, what legitimates knowledge in the postmodern condition is how well it performs, or enables a person to perform, in particular roles. This criterion forms the basis of Lyotard's "performativity" legitimation of knowledge and action. In a cybernetic society, knowledge is legitimated by how performative it is, if it effective minimizes the various required inputs for the task and maximizes the desired outputs. This is an intuitively compelling notion of our current society. Knowledge and decision-making is for the most part no longer based on abstract principles, but on how effective it is at achieving desired outcomes.

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