Re: Epistemology 201: The Science of Science

From: Allan C Cybulskie (allan.c.cybulskie_at_yahoo.ca)
Date: 02/26/05 

Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 08:40:51 -0500

"Tony Orlow (aeo6)" <aeo6@cornell.edu> wrote in message
news:MPG.1c87b5d44313268f9897ee@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
> Allan C Cybulskie said:
> > I have to ask here: Have you read Kant? If you can wrap your head
around
> > his rather confusing prose, you'd find some really interesting
arguments.
> > One of the most interesting -- and relevant to this discussion -- is
that
> > there are certain categories and "concepts" that we have to have
possession
> > of and use in order to make an actual intelligible experience. Cause
and
> > effect is a very famous example of his. So every experience that we
have --
> > every appearance, as he puts it -- will be synthesized through these
> > categories, and so will contain these categories. Which will impose
order
> > on the appearances. But this means nothing as to what reality really
has.
> > So we don't know if reality is actually ordered since we filter
everything
> > through order in the first place.
> >
> > Now, I think Kant didn't go far enough. I think he could have argued
that
> > there had to be SOMETHING about reality that allows me to make those
> > categories fit. But is that enough to give us order, in the way you
want
> > it? I'm not sure about that.
> >
> One still has to ask, where did that order in us that we impose on our
> perceptions come from, if not the "real" world? If we were to have some
> hard wired filter that was at odds with reality, would we survive? I am
> a pretty devout evolutionist, and I decided fairly early on that
> doubting reality was essentially pointless and only served to undermine
> science in behalf of obsolete belief systems based on myth.

I agreed that Kant should have been able to say that the
things-in-themselves have some qualities that allow us to read things like,
say, cause and effect from them. But that would not be enough to say that
they actually HAD causal connections themselves (it could just be Hume's
constant conjunction), and so might not be strong enough for your purposes.

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