/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19607559]

Any books that disprove the idea that science is the only way of knowing?

Non-fiction only please i.e. no religious fantasy :)

[Anonymous No.19607568]

>>19607559
>Non-fiction only please i.e. no religious fantasy :)
I can understand the desire to have a rational explanation but this is just rude and presumptuous. How do you know some medieval Theologian hasn't disproved it?

[Anonymous No.19607570]

Look into the "Gettier problem" for an autistic approach (failure to even define "knowledge").

[Anonymous No.19607581]

>>19607570

Semantics is the last refuge of the retarded.

[Anonymous No.19607583]

>>19607570
It doesn't look like you've even read the paper. Gettier is arguing against Plato's "justified true belief" definition, which went unquestioned for 2000 years, not against knowledge itself. Also definition problems are academic problems. Most epistemologists have moved on from trying to define knowledge. I'm in philosophy grad school by the way, before you recommend any more 101 texts.

[Anonymous No.19607587]

Imagine dogmatically believing all knowledge comes from empirical science - then imagine being op and needing /lit/'s help to challenge this belief.

[Anonymous No.19607593]

>>19607581
This and nicely put. Although I'm tempted to change it to "the first and last refuge."

[Anonymous No.19607596]

>>19607587
You can't possibly be this slow... But tell me then, where does knowledge come from?

[Anonymous No.19607604]

>>19607583
>which went unquestioned for 2000 years
I'm having a really hard time believing you're in grad school.

[Anonymous No.19607609]

>>19607559
You can't know anything via the scientific method because any conclusion it allows you to reach will be provisional.

[Anonymous No.19607616]

>>19607604
I'm having a really hard time believing you've read more than a Wikipedia page on this topic sweaty :)

>>19607609
Are you going to answer the actual question or are you also illiterate?

[Anonymous No.19607618]

>>19607596
The forms of course

[Anonymous No.19607627]

>>19607616
>I'm having a really hard time believing you've read more than a Wikipedia page on this topic sweaty :)
Are you seriously implying Plato's epistemological views were never challenged until the last few hundred years? Or is this the point where you start desperately trying to backpaddle to save anonymous face?

[Anonymous No.19607633]

>>19607627
Ask me how I know you haven't read the paper.
Or take the L, and just tell me what other ways of knowing there are. Stay on topic.

[Anonymous No.19607636]

>>19607559
To determine if an apple is red, does Dawkins pull out a spectrometer?

[Anonymous No.19607641]

>>19607616
>Are you going to answer the actual question
No

[Anonymous No.19607642]

>>19607636
should he be reading the bible to figure it out?

[Anonymous No.19607644]

>>19607559
Ethics by Spinoza

[Anonymous No.19607654]

>>19607641
Come on I'm dying to know. Please!

[Anonymous No.19607656]

>>19607633
Answer my question and I'll answer yours.

[Anonymous No.19607662]

>>19607656
You realise the paper is literally 2 pages long? Go and read it buddy. If you've ever studied epistemology it's usually the first text you come into contact with.

[Anonymous No.19607665]

>Most epistemologists have moved on from trying to define knowledge.
Yea, so, if you cannot define knowledge (let alone "science" I suppose), then how will you even be able to prove or interpret Dawkin’s claim here?

[Anonymous No.19607671]

>>19607642
If the Bible discusses that specific apple, then yes. If (as is exceedingly probable) it does not, then no. My point was that perception is always prior to reason.

[Anonymous No.19607673]

Basic epistemology and philosophy of science should help on their own. What is this thing called science by Chalmer is a good starting point.

[Anonymous No.19607683]

>>19607665
>>19607671
>>19607673
Thanks for your input. Please share your opinions on the following. Is it possible to separate the empiricism-rationalism question, from the question of science vs 'other ways of knowing'? For example, could you be, philosophically, a rationalist and be in any kind of contradiction if you were to proclaim that science was the only way of knowing? Similarly, could an empiricist hold the opposing view without contradiction?

[Anonymous No.19607697]

>>19607662
Man is either the measure of all things or he is not. If he is not, then there is both man and measure separated, which implies a mediating principle. This mediating principle is metaphysics and epistemology proper. It also must be co-existent in reality and mind, meaning a phenomenological and transcendental investigation is as crucial as that of the fundamental principles of the outer world. It is knowledge proper as it allows of (and gives rise to) the logical principle of identity, and thus all less primary knowledge derived therefrom is more secure than that which is not (empirical knowledge, which arises from non-identity and thus the "principle" of the non-rational or indefinite dyad). Empirical knowledge is knowledge of that which, strictly speaking, does not exist, and therefore knowledge of that which is not; knowledge of nothing.

[Anonymous No.19607699]

>>19607683
What's the point of calling yourself a rationalist or not. You can wing it and just say there's other ways of conducting reason, other ways of doing science or that science is not absolute

[Anonymous No.19607711]

>>19607559
is this retard thinking that when beavers moves wood they are making "scei-nce"?

[Anonymous No.19607714]

>>19607559
It's a tautology. He is basically saying that any way you can get knowledge counts as science, therefore only through science can you get knowledge.

[Anonymous No.19607716]

>>19607699
Well take Leibniz, the most prominent rationalist of the enlightenment, also a theist. But take also Locke, an empiricist who happened to be religious. Hume, on the other hand, was an atheist empiricist. And there were also rationalist atheists, obviously, many of them. To point is that the prior epistemological question doesn't seem to have necessary consequences for the meaning of science and religion. We simply bracket the metaphysics and epistemology, but some people don't agree with this >>19607673

[Anonymous No.19607721]

>>19607559
>pic rel
Holy fuck! Dawkins is absolutely retarded. Sam Harris and his love for le Buddha was also stupid. God damn, these guys can't be more hypocritical and retarded.

[Anonymous No.19607725]

>>19607683
A good empiricist will follow Hume and affirm that although models employing inductive reasoning can be employed for predictive purposes, any attempt to infer a specific causal order from the model is a mistake. Basically empiricism has become scientific anti-realism.

[Anonymous No.19607728]

>>19607714
This, what an absolutist ironically unscientific position.

[Anonymous No.19607735]

>>19607711
*sigh*

A new study led by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Miami and Franklin & Marshall College finds that chimpanzees that use a multi-step process and complex tools to gather termites are more likely to share tools with novices. The research was conducted in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, Lincoln Park Zoo and the Jane Goodall Institute. The study helps illuminate chimpanzees' capacity for prosocial -- or helping -- behavior, a quality that has been recognized for its potential role in the evolution of human cultural abilities.

"Non-human primates are often thought to learn tool skills by watching others and practicing on their own, with little direct help from mothers or other expert tool users," said Stephanie Musgrave, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Miami, and first author of the study published the week of Dec. 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"In contrast, the results from this research indicate that social learning may vary in relation to how challenging the task is: during tasks that are more difficult, mothers can in fact play a more active role, including behaviors that function to teach."

[Anonymous No.19607738]

Is everyone in this thread retarded? Everything has a basis in science, even the feel-good feeling you get when you get down on your knees like a good boy and pray to the sky man. Everything. If mysticism has any kernel of truth to it then it's some esoteric scientific process we don't currently understand. I don't know what point you dimwits are trying to make, but you're embarrasing yourselves.

[Anonymous No.19607741]

>>19607735
Bricolage is not science

[Anonymous No.19607742]

>>19607738
>midwit ramblings

[Anonymous No.19607743]

>>19607738
Yet again, replicating this fallacy
>>19607714

[Anonymous No.19607744]

>>19607725
>any attempt to infer a specific causal order from the model is a mistake
But Hume meant this in the metaphysical sense i.e. he argued that the "models" aren't real - that causality doesn't constitute knowledge or reality, but rather a psychological projection of regularity onto our senses. When Hume writes on the philosophy of science, you can see that he views scientific knowledge as "knowledge" in the pragmatic sense. Otherwise it becomes a truism that all we know is what we know through the senses.

[Anonymous No.19607749]

Nothing is true, everything is permitted. The only thing stopping anyone from redefining "knowledge" as "emotional feeling" is the fact that our societies and universities are essentially dominated by hereditary masculine beliefs and assertions. Were that to change... Would it change gradually, suddenly, would you notice it?

[Anonymous No.19607751]

>>19607559
Schopenhauer argues that art teaches us more about the world than science does. It's somewhere in WWR.

[Anonymous No.19607754]

>>19607559
>use non fiction to prove my fantastical beliefs
science is just a catch all term for observations and study. Some things we don't know and some things we do. Defaulting to "science is le bad" because atheistic retards worship it is blinding yourself to the particulars of God's will. You can study physics and chemistry down to the perfect molecular level and still summize that these things happen because of God's rule on the universe, and that our understanding of his desires is ever changing. You can say that only 118 elements exist because of God's will. You can say that gravity derived from mass occurs because of God's decision for it to be that way.

[Anonymous No.19607755]

>>19607714
Literally disprove this. You can't.

[Anonymous No.19607761]

>>19607754
But it's weird how these religious folks are saying "science can't prove it!" but somehow their axioms about existence *can* be proved. How do they know?

[Anonymous No.19607766]

>>19607755
Yes, it's impossible to disprove tautological statements. They are true by definition.

[Anonymous No.19607767]

>>19607725
>models employing inductive reasoning can be employed for predictive purposes, any attempt to infer a specific causal order from the model is a mistake
then what other ways of knowing are there? if science is just models, what else do we have that allows us to infer anything?

[Anonymous No.19607769]

>>19607735
what kind of retard response is this?. are you implying primates are making le science when they use a tool?. ants make barriers and tunnels... are they doing it because science?.

[Anonymous No.19607771]

>>19607754
Yes this is always the problem i feel with the self congratulatory nature of "big science". Breathless exaltations of discovery are yet merely gradual revelations.

[Anonymous No.19607776]

>>19607766
Did you come to this conclusion empirically or was it.... pure reason?

[Anonymous No.19607777]

>>19607766
Just say that actually, the only way to attain knowledge is through skyman magic, and get disproven immediately like the fucking retard you are.

[Anonymous No.19607784]

>>19607777
Anon, what are you arguing here?

[Anonymous No.19607789]

>>19607749
Forgot the pic

[Anonymous No.19607790]

>>19607777
Quads of truth

[Anonymous No.19607791]

>>19607683
The chief rationalist idea: Even if you had no senses, just mind, you would still be able to gain knowledge, e.g. by coming up with the Peano Axioms and deriving Mathematical truth from there.
This is similar to how the empiricist demands his "knowledge" be inferred from the senses: In that case it is perception which gives the Axioms.
(This is basically the "justified" part of the classical definition.)
The question is, stupidly: Which type of "justified" is justified?
I think the generic cop-out is to turn it into a question of representation, in the vein of Wolfram’s autism: In the end, the whole "everything" might be a sort of logic computer. So all knowledge would be tied to this computer’s way of working. Whether it be rational or empiric knowledge, in the end both come would come down to being justified by a long, long chain of derivation (logic operations defined by the axioms) on the computer’s initial state.
If you reason about possible other logic computers: You are doing so within the "real" computer, so you are basically running a simulation—in any case basically your thought experiment is ALSO part of the real whole gigantic logic computer. So you again have knowledge; but again the knowledge is justified because it has been derived via the rules of how to lay out the next row of stones from the previous one.

[Anonymous No.19607794]

>>19607671
When you look at an apple (with your eyes), you are doing science

[Anonymous No.19607795]

>>19607767
The empiricist reply is that knowledge proceeds from perception, although not uncritically. You know what you perceive to a greater extent than you know why you perceive what you perceive.

[Anonymous No.19607800]

>>19607777
>he only way to attain knowledge is through skyman magic
Skyman magic more powerful than bugman science

[Anonymous No.19607805]

>>19607776
How can "pure reason" exist without prior empirical knowledge? Surely to have been able to talk about tautologies, you must be alive and at least not be blind or deaf. So how can you reason about something without first having acquired the knowledge about that thing empirically?

[Anonymous No.19607806]

>>19607744
I believe we are in agreement. The models are pragmatically useful but not metaphysically real. Hume’s causal skepticism wasn’t an attempt to say that ‘inductive reasoning is pointless’.

[Anonymous No.19607809]

>>19607776
Does it matter? We are talking Dawkins' definition of science here. which is "any way to attain knowledge". So either way I used science in dawkinsian sense.

[Anonymous No.19607810]

This.

[Anonymous No.19607811]

>>19607761
because most people are dumb and want easy to process answers to things that are generally out of scope to the original question they asked.

>>19607771
Big science isn't real. Actual scientists publish in journals related to their field not the New York Times. Blame big media for "big science."

[Anonymous No.19607815]

>>19607794
At that point what isn’t science? Science is both sense-perception and rationalizing from sense-perception, so I guess only incoherent gibbering fails to meet the criteria of science.

[Anonymous No.19607816]

>>19607809
You're getting hung up on the word knowing. Dawkins is not saying scientific knowledge is 100% certain. He just means that if we can claim to know anything, it is through science. There is nothing that you can claim with any more certainty and doesn't come from science.

[Anonymous No.19607823]

>>19607583
>which went unquestioned for 2000 years
This is very untrue, regardless of what the paper claim JTB has been very much questioned in the history of philosophy. St. Augustine for example, see Against the Academics.

[Anonymous No.19607824]

>>19607810
>god exists trust me!

Yeah really trying to dodge this.

[Anonymous No.19607834]

>>19607805
You missed my kant joke it seems. A priori knowledge does not require empirical observation

[Anonymous No.19607850]

what are some irrationalist pieces of literature? the older i get the more ive come to realize that the complete fetishization of rationalism is absolutely awful and destructive

[Anonymous No.19607859]

>>19607791
>I've built a computer
no you put rocks on the ground, what are they going to do? nothing!

[Anonymous No.19607864]

>>19607850
Finnegans wake. Works of kafka.

[Anonymous No.19607873]

>>19607859
A good rule of thumb is that if your ontological model is a metaphor for the prevailing technological epoch it's probably not an accurate model
>the universe is like fire
>the universe is like clockwork
>the universe is a computer simulation

[Anonymous No.19607885]

>>19607873
This is insulting Heraclitus.

[Anonymous No.19607888]

>>19607834
>A priori knowledge does not require empirical observation
It does. How many beings with no empirical observations can know a prior knowledge?

[Anonymous No.19607890]

>>19607791
>Even if you had no senses, just mind, you would still be able to gain knowledge, e.g. by coming up with the Peano Axioms and deriving Mathematical truth from there.
This is the main point of contention. Do you know hume's argument against this idea? It's in his Essay concerning human understanding