Posted on 11/04/2002 7:52:21 AM PST by thinktwice
Descartes was a geometrician. He found only in mathematics and geometry the certainty that he required. Therefore, he used the methods of geometry to think about the world. Now, in geometry, one begins with a search for axioms, simple undeniable truths – for example, the axiom that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. On the foundations of such “self-evident” propositions, whole geometrical systems can be built.
Following his geometrical model, Descartes proceeds to doubt everything – de onmibus dubitandum. He will suspend belief in the knowledge he learned from childhood, all those things “which I allowed myself in youth to be persuaded without having inquired into their truth.” Doubt will be his method, a deliberate strategy for proceeding toward certainty. (Descartes is a doubter not by nature, but by necessity. What he really wants is secure understanding so he can stop doubting.)
Descartes finds that he has no trouble doubting the existence of real objects/events – our senses too easily deceive us. And we can doubt the existence of a supernatural realm of reality – figments and fantasies are too often conjured by our native imaginations. But now his geometrical model pays off: in trying to doubt everything, he discovers something that he can’t doubt. What he can’t doubt is that he is doubting. Obviously, I exist if I doubt that I exist. My doubt that I exist proves that I exist, for I have to exist to be able to doubt. Therefore I can’t doubt that I exist. Hence, there is at least one fact in the universe that is beyond doubt. “I am, I exist is necessarily true each time that I pronounce it, or that I mentally conceive it.
Descartes thus becomes the author of the most famous phrase in Western philosophy: Cognito ergo sum, or, in his original French, Je pense, donc je suis. – I think, therefore I exist. With roots in St. Augustine, this is certainly one of the catchiest ideas yet created by the human mind.
In actuality, humans using reason are discovering, revising or disproving truths every day; that includes truths that didn't exist yesterday, and revision or negation of some truths that did exist yesterday ("The earth is the center of the universe," for instance).
Ayn Rand simply states that truth is the recognition of reality, that man's standard for knowing reality is reason, that reality is that which exists, and that which exists is concrete.
Truth, as such, is an abstraction; and you are reifying truth when treating it as a material concrete.
reify ... to treat (an abstraction) as substantially existing, or as a concrete material object -- reification: n
Believing and knowing are two different things; beliefs are metaphysically based in mysticism and the term "mystical truth" is an oxymoron -- look up truth and oxymoron to see for yourself -- whereas actually knowing something has a metaphysical basis in reality and the term "universal truth" does apply, until proven otherwise.
That makes me wonder how much was added to the Bible and New Testament during those many dark-age days preceding Guttenberg's printing press, when Catholic monks were accumulating contents for, translating and hand-writing what finally made it into modern Bibles.
The fact that the Devil and a Heaven distinct from Hades were not in Homer's Odyssey leads me to think that those theological touchs were added by monks.
Galileo and Copernicus had major problems with religious courts in their days; and the inquisition made life tough for many more like them -- people that were questioning "universal truths" promulgated by religious types.
Same things going on today in the Islamic world, and it's my hope that this century does not return the human race to anything resembling those "good old days."
Know what? Those religious types were wrong about the solar system. This clearly demonstrates that a truth does not bend to what man says, in order to maintain otherwise.
"Truth" that is metaphysically based in mysticism -- where concepts are not integrated using reason -- seldom passes the test of time; and when such "truth" fails the test of reason, it generally does bend to what man says ...
But "truth" metaphysically based in reality, being epistemologically based in reason, seldom fails over time -- with new such truths often making it into textbooks and advancing humanity further beyond those conditions associated with the dark ages.
Why do you say this? If she was anything, she was a materialist.
This begins with nonsense, "There is, then, the obvious problem of knowing that our impressions are true representations of reality...." What is meant be reality? If reality is something other than what we are conscious of, how did the writer learn about it? He couldn't have. There is no gap.
There is a logical problem. How can I know in principle, at this moment, with absolute certainty that what I am experiencing is not a mirage? In a strictly materialist worldview, at any given moment, all memory and experience must logically be viewed with skepticism, so there is not even that to fall back on. There simply is no logical reason why I should trust my senses.
This stands in contrast with the Aristotelian/Thomist position that sensation is ultimately an immanent activity and in the act of understanding, the form of the thing known becomes one with the mind of the knower. Therefore, logically, there is no gap between the knower and thing known.
There isn't? But your sentence assumes that I understand what you mean by the word, "cat," a term which refers in essence to "a small carnivorous mammal (Felis catus or F. domesticus) domesticated since early times as a catcher of rats and mice and as a pet and existing in several distinctive breeds and varieties." Definition implies logical species or nature or essence.
There is no "split" except at death. The soul is the act of the body.
From this quote it doesn't appear that Rand understood Aristotle's conception of act and potency.
Last time for everybody. Rand (and all materialists) have no logical, coherent, non-contradictory explanation for the trustworthiness of our senses.
Then you said: There isn't? But your sentence assumes that I understand what you mean by the word, "cat," a term which refers in essence to "a small carnivorous mammal (Felis catus or F. domesticus) domesticated since early times as a catcher of rats and mice and as a pet and existing in several distinctive breeds and varieties." Definition implies logical species or nature or essence.
If you meant by "essence" nothing more than, "those characteristics that differentiate a cat from other animals," the word essence would be fine. You and Aristotle and Aquinas all regard "essence" as more than an abstract concept. You regard essence as some kind of metaphysical reality. Essence has meaning only epistemologically. To make it more than that is exactly what LogicWings meant, it is reification.
Hank
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.