What philosophical belief do I subscribe to?
I seem to be halfway between empiricism and naive realism.
To be very short,
Empiricists say that some truths are independent of experience (eg. logical or by definition), but are not innate -- most truths and all ideas come from experience. For example, if I grew up with people all around me telling me that Descartes was spelled 'Day-Carts', something would have gone seriously wrong with my KI entrance test paper and I wouldn't be writing this entry now.
Naive realism is to take the world at face value, in the way that everyone does unless they're philosophers. If I see a cake in front of me it will be because there IS a cake in front of me. [Yes, you can tell I'm hungry, but that's beside the point.] If I say that the roses in the shop window are pink-orange-purple-green it will probably be because the roses in the shop window have pink bits, orange bits, purple bits, and -- more importantly -- green bits. Easy.
Naive realism has problems though with the variability of experience or perception. For example, under a bad light, Britney Spears might look like a camel. You never know. You may not even know she's Britney Spears until you're told, at which you may not believe it because your prior experiences of Britney Spears have probably been different. Of course if someone produces objective proof (eg. a famous but microsopic mole on Britney Spears' left bum cheek) you may then agree, in a shell-shocked sort of way, that Britney Spears was the same as she ever was, only maybe without the airbrushing.
I like John Locke because his ideas seem so cool, and Hume because he stood up to John Locke despite the obvious coolness of his ideas (John Locke's arguments had a few gaping holes, but you can't deny that they were cool. It's all in the perception.), but the one I really agree with should be Hume. Hume is a sceptical empiricist. I think I must have been a Hume follower before I even knew about his existence. The theory that all knowledge of cause and effect comes from habit (with the certainty increasing exponentially to the experience) must have been the foundation and the beginning of my foray into the grand and far too widely explored concrete jungle that is philosophy.
Moreover, as the surrealists say, there is no spoon.
I'll update everyone when I decide to defect to a new philosophical belief. Yes, I'd broadcast my apostasy. Hopefully I'll be influential enough by then to generate riots.
To be very short,
Empiricists say that some truths are independent of experience (eg. logical or by definition), but are not innate -- most truths and all ideas come from experience. For example, if I grew up with people all around me telling me that Descartes was spelled 'Day-Carts', something would have gone seriously wrong with my KI entrance test paper and I wouldn't be writing this entry now.
Naive realism is to take the world at face value, in the way that everyone does unless they're philosophers. If I see a cake in front of me it will be because there IS a cake in front of me. [Yes, you can tell I'm hungry, but that's beside the point.] If I say that the roses in the shop window are pink-orange-purple-green it will probably be because the roses in the shop window have pink bits, orange bits, purple bits, and -- more importantly -- green bits. Easy.
Naive realism has problems though with the variability of experience or perception. For example, under a bad light, Britney Spears might look like a camel. You never know. You may not even know she's Britney Spears until you're told, at which you may not believe it because your prior experiences of Britney Spears have probably been different. Of course if someone produces objective proof (eg. a famous but microsopic mole on Britney Spears' left bum cheek) you may then agree, in a shell-shocked sort of way, that Britney Spears was the same as she ever was, only maybe without the airbrushing.
I like John Locke because his ideas seem so cool, and Hume because he stood up to John Locke despite the obvious coolness of his ideas (John Locke's arguments had a few gaping holes, but you can't deny that they were cool. It's all in the perception.), but the one I really agree with should be Hume. Hume is a sceptical empiricist. I think I must have been a Hume follower before I even knew about his existence. The theory that all knowledge of cause and effect comes from habit (with the certainty increasing exponentially to the experience) must have been the foundation and the beginning of my foray into the grand and far too widely explored concrete jungle that is philosophy.
Moreover, as the surrealists say, there is no spoon.
I'll update everyone when I decide to defect to a new philosophical belief. Yes, I'd broadcast my apostasy. Hopefully I'll be influential enough by then to generate riots.
posted by the zen thing at 6:37 AM
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