scourge,
first, thanks for two great posts. "Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder", according to Socrates
Your welcome. I enjoy a good philosophy discussion too.
yes, of course there is degree of certainty of knowledge. that degree degrades with distance, figurative and otherwise. you know, as you lie in the tub, that the sink is, in fact there and that if you were to twist the knob water would come out. No, of course, it is not 100% certain and we need not argue that that denys the certainty you do have.
You have a good certainty of what is going on out in the living room too, though it is outside your immediate experience because of your knowledge of the probability of change and your certainty of the state it was in the last time you were there. fine.
out in the street? two blocks away? in France? of course your degree of certainty in your knowledge of the state of any of those places lessens.
My degree of certainty in the exact structure and location of such things changes with
"distance" but this is limited to the known. E.G., though I haven't been to France in over 7 years I do not find it at all reasonable or likely that pigs are flying or green aliens are visiting there.
still that is not what started all this. What we have is someone telling us what our 'reality' consists ot... and more importantly, SHOULD ONLY be allowed to consist of. Their fundamental antisocial philosphy depends upon it. But they are wrong. It is not incumbent on me that I show that they are wrong, any more than I have to show religionists that they are wrong about the existence of god. Evidence of falsity is like evidence of nonexistence; the tree that does not exist casts no shadow.
I find many aspects of objectivism valid and coherent with what the evidence dictates. What I usually disagree with objectivists about is their conclusions on particular moral and ethical conclusion that they believe necessarily follow from their fundamental beliefs.
The premise is simple. 'Reality' comes to you through your senses and your reason, both of which are wholly internal to you. You cannot experience it through any other means. So, whether anything external to you exists at all is conjecture. That 'reality', any external world, is objectively unknowable is not a new idea. We can go back several thousand years and find folks discussing it.
You can start the criticism even earlier than that.
1) Flaws of logic
a) Logic can eliminate what is false but cannot in and of itself establish what must be true. Logic reduces to undeniability, not to necessity.
b) The jump from reason to the real is invalid.
c) There is no strictly rational way to establish reason.
2) Experience is not self interpreting.
put simply, the premise that an external world exists that can be quantified is mythology
I disagree. I may not be certain in reason, existance, experience, reality, memory,etc. But thus far they are hands-down the most coherent and justified world view to account for the above stated uncertainties. All others are dead-ends or fatally lacking in some manner.
Humans are rational creatures, yes. But humans are not only or even primarily rational creatures and we should not expect nor want them to be.
Perhaps some of us aren't rational as much as we or others would like. But I only speak for myself which is why I disagree.
It is rationalism that causes me to say that. nonrational intellect (as in, what the brain does) produces some of our finest expressions - love, play, art... all are primarily nonrational enterprises.
Why are they non-rational? Identifying and understanding the cause or result of something does NOT make it any less valuable or desirable.
No, i do not mean to encourage nonrational systems, such are religion, to govern our collective behavior. But i recognise that we cannot make that decision for others. At best, we can encourage the practice of circumscribing nonrationalism with rationalism, as an artist does
Religionists come in many flavors. Some would describe their beliefs as rational (and I would agree with some), others are irrational or perhaps meta-rational. I have found that all the religious beliefs I have encountered are inadequate, fatally flawed, or irrational conclusions based on reason, experience, and evidence. This includes both rational and irrational religionists.
I may not be able to lay claim to absolute truth but I do lay claim to a a world view more coherent, consistent, and compatible with objective evidence, objective reason, and my own personal experiences.
My point is that what we know is limited by our (shared) experience and our abilities to perceieve. BOTH increase over time as a matter of increased experience and of reason. It also increases as a result of nonrational intellectual processes as well. Mythologizing is and has always been a human practice not because we are demented twisted creatures but because it works.
I don't understand your term "mythologizing" within this context.
can we agree that belief is an acceptance of a premise
Yes.
and that knowledge depends on quantification, either as experience or as extrapolation of experience through reason?
sure...
if so, nothing can be said to be known outside of our knowledge. yes? or no?
yes, that would follow given the definition of "knowledge" above....
so... what has this go to do with Objectivism as a social philospohy?
the external world, exists independent of man's consciousness, independent of any observer's knowledge, beliefs, feelings, desires or fears.
perhaps. if so, however, the premise if fundamentally conjectural.
No it is not. Despite the inability for absolute certainty of the above mentioned shortcomings, it does not mean that the CONCLUSION that there is an objective world is mere conjecture. That is lazy hand-waving.
the properties of reality "independent of man's consciousness, independent of any observer's knowledge, " is unknowable
By your above definition of "knowledge" you are incorrect. Knowledge may not be absolutely affirmable but that does not make it unobtainable.
and stated as an epistomological absolute
Not it is not. Objectivists do not presume the objective world, it is a conclusion, along with many other world views. It is not
a priori.