It's a big thing to say, "Well, today I'm gonna write out all my philosophical commitments in metaphysics, next week I'll do epistemology, etc. etc."
So I'm not going to take up your challenge directly, D. But I will take it up. Just in my own way. Because I'm not sure what I think about everything. I just know that doing this will help me to get at least some of what I think straight.
None of this gives any justification. This is a mere description of what I think. I figure that parsing out what I mean and getting down to what background concepts I hold to can be done in the comments and in future posts (I anticipate several will be needed). In other words, it's kind of folky for a philosopher. It's what I think not strapped up to principles and concepts. But I think I need to know what I think as part of the equation in figuring out what I should think. So, without further ado:
Today's post mostly focuses on ontology, experience and objects.
I believe in a universe, and all that that entails. (Believe and think are not used interchangeably here.) This universe has a world, where humans live. I think there is no such thing as what-it-is to have the objective experience of any given object or event, except for that of personal experience, because there is necessarily just one person doing that. The objective experience implies mind-independence, and we are all mind-dependent. Now, follow me closely here. Does the mind-independent experience exist? No. Do mind-independent objects exist? Yes.
I suppose that means that I'm an error theorist about objectivity broadly construed, with the possible exception of first-person experience. However, even that threatens to slip away with the dangers of routine. I think that the personal experience of the self is created through thought and action. Thought may come in the following formats: the formation of reasoning, the formation of belief, and the formation of desire. Thought does not consist in the reiteration of previously formed reasoning, belief, or desire. Thinking requires a synthesis of ideas. But when we repeat ourselves, this is memory recovery or the miming of previous thought action. It is possible, through the lack of new thought and the comfort of routine, to lose the robust first-person experience for an amount of time. But I believe such an amount of time would be miniscule. Perhaps it is better for me to say that I think our first-person experience may be more or less robust, as on a spectrum. Sometimes I definitely feel more conscious than other times, and I don't see any other way to explain such an experience other than positing consciousness to be on a spectrum.
How to define these mind-independent objects? I don't agree with functionalist definitions of objects, because hooker boots are not slippers, and if slippers are to escape being defined by hooker boots, the resulting definition would be gerrymandered into oblivion. To explain a bit further, some of us were discussing how hooker books are slippers for hookers, because they wear them in the bedroom, often right before getting into bed. Plus, functionalist definitions make it impossible to integrate features like the phenomenal experience of color into definitions. Plus, functionalist definitions are anthropocentric. But then, without functionalism, I don't think a reasonable definition is possible -- if anything, we might be able to point to some marks of what-it-is to be a mind-independent object, but I don't think we can have knowledge about them.
Next time, knowledge, justification, and rationality.
Showing posts with label Michelle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michelle. Show all posts
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Welcome to THINK Forum: a Normal approach to philosophical dialogue!
So the title is kind of lame. Understandable. Normal, get it? Ha. Ha. So, if anyone has any brilliant creative strokes of genius, title-wise, let me know in the comments.
Anyway, the blog is meant to serve as a central database for the problems, dilemmas, and discourses we currently participate in, in many disparate forums of communication. Instead of having to explain the same problem or question to five different people in IM windows, you can write it here and direct people to the comments area for discussion/further exposition.
This is not meant to serve as a substitute for face-to-face communication -- rather, it's a supplement, especially for those I see already making lengthy posts on their own blogs, journals, and facebooks, and those I've talked with in AIM, etc. It's never clear that these posts will be read by those we want to read them -- namely, philosophy students who might actually be interested and motivated enough to read these posts and provide helpful feedback and discussion. Plus, once it's posted, it's there, so if someone is too busy to listen to you now, they can read your ideas later, instead of dropping the subject.
I'm sending out invites to become "authors" on the blog -- this gives you posting rights. Unfortunately, there's no way to enable anonymous posting, but signing up is a small hump, as you can create a blogger account through any Google account you have. So if you have Gmail, you're set already. If you want rights and I haven't sent you one, e-mail me at causallyirrelevant at gmail dot com (spelled out to avoid spam bots) and let me know who you are.
I'm not inviting any teachers, simply cause I think it'd be awkie (to borrow from Andrew). I think we should have the opportunity to develop and mature with other students, and not feel afraid to make mistakes -- a fear that often makes students tentative about expressing their opinions and ideas aloud during classes, etc. Then we can argue against them all better, heh.
As with any blogger blog, you can opt to subscribe by RSS to THINK, which gives you a feed (in firefox, you can use live bookmarks, which gives titles of all recent posts when you mouseover the site -- or there are numerous RSS readers out there). I recommend it as an easy way to see new posts. It's a good timesaver.
When you go to post, there's a title box, a body text area, and a box for "labels for this post". It's a tag box. I tagged this post "metablogging, philosophy, Michelle" (without quotes). Say you're doing a post on metaethics - specifically, the Open Question Argument. You could tag it "metaethics, Moore, nonnaturalism, OQA", etc. Whatever you think would be helpful in classifying the post. Then if you do a series of posts on the same topic, and tag them the same way, people can helpfully access them by clicking your tag. Or... well, there's a million uses for tags. If I tag my name to every post, then people can just check out my posts. And so on. Go wild.
Feel free to use the place as your philosophical soapbox, talk about methodology, whatever -- but let's not bring personal attacks on other students, faculty, departments, or universities here. Keep that to your personal pages and such.
Whew. I think maybe that's it. Here goes nothing. :)
Anyway, the blog is meant to serve as a central database for the problems, dilemmas, and discourses we currently participate in, in many disparate forums of communication. Instead of having to explain the same problem or question to five different people in IM windows, you can write it here and direct people to the comments area for discussion/further exposition.
This is not meant to serve as a substitute for face-to-face communication -- rather, it's a supplement, especially for those I see already making lengthy posts on their own blogs, journals, and facebooks, and those I've talked with in AIM, etc. It's never clear that these posts will be read by those we want to read them -- namely, philosophy students who might actually be interested and motivated enough to read these posts and provide helpful feedback and discussion. Plus, once it's posted, it's there, so if someone is too busy to listen to you now, they can read your ideas later, instead of dropping the subject.
I'm sending out invites to become "authors" on the blog -- this gives you posting rights. Unfortunately, there's no way to enable anonymous posting, but signing up is a small hump, as you can create a blogger account through any Google account you have. So if you have Gmail, you're set already. If you want rights and I haven't sent you one, e-mail me at causallyirrelevant at gmail dot com (spelled out to avoid spam bots) and let me know who you are.
I'm not inviting any teachers, simply cause I think it'd be awkie (to borrow from Andrew). I think we should have the opportunity to develop and mature with other students, and not feel afraid to make mistakes -- a fear that often makes students tentative about expressing their opinions and ideas aloud during classes, etc. Then we can argue against them all better, heh.
As with any blogger blog, you can opt to subscribe by RSS to THINK, which gives you a feed (in firefox, you can use live bookmarks, which gives titles of all recent posts when you mouseover the site -- or there are numerous RSS readers out there). I recommend it as an easy way to see new posts. It's a good timesaver.
When you go to post, there's a title box, a body text area, and a box for "labels for this post". It's a tag box. I tagged this post "metablogging, philosophy, Michelle" (without quotes). Say you're doing a post on metaethics - specifically, the Open Question Argument. You could tag it "metaethics, Moore, nonnaturalism, OQA", etc. Whatever you think would be helpful in classifying the post. Then if you do a series of posts on the same topic, and tag them the same way, people can helpfully access them by clicking your tag. Or... well, there's a million uses for tags. If I tag my name to every post, then people can just check out my posts. And so on. Go wild.
Feel free to use the place as your philosophical soapbox, talk about methodology, whatever -- but let's not bring personal attacks on other students, faculty, departments, or universities here. Keep that to your personal pages and such.
Whew. I think maybe that's it. Here goes nothing. :)
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