Re: Epistemology 101

From: Albert (albertwagner_at_cox.net)
Date: 12/31/04 

Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 11:08:19 -0600

Lester Zick wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:07:49 -0600, Albert <albertwagner@cox.net> in
> comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>
>
>>Lester Zick wrote:
>>
>>>On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 11:33:54 -0600, Albert <albertwagner@cox.net> in
>>>comp.ai.philosophy wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>David Longley wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Anyone with a serious interest in "epistemology" should, I suggest, make
>>>>>an effort to:
>>>>>
>>>>>a) try to find out how and why many think this has been *naturalised*
>>>>>since as behavioural science, explicitly, as Behaviour Analysis aka the
>>>>>Experimental Analysis of Behavior (in distinction to "Learning Theory) and,
>>>>>
>>>>>b) how and why the study of scientific method or behaviour (the
>>>>>philosophy of science) features in a).
>>>>>
>>>>>Doing so may help encourage some to look at the link below, along with
>>>>>the associated (largely critical) work at the same site, and then
>>>>>perhaps, to the very practical developments it all refers to. It might
>>>>>even encourage some folk to do a little more careful analysis as to
>>>>>whether those who don't see things this way, or its relevance, can
>>>>>reliably be said to "disagree", rather than to just "not understand", or
>>>>>worse still, whether they are engaged in behaviours which further their
>>>>>own self-interest, or careers at the expense of contributing
>>>>>demonstrable (i.e. reliably quantifiable) improvements to prediction and
>>>>>control (effective management) of behaviour in the specific domains
>>>>>within which they work.
>>>>>
>>>>>In my view, the behaviours falling into the former class(es) require
>>>>>education, whilst those falling into the latter, require exposure and
>>>>>then re-education. In either case it comes down to criticism and then,
>>>>>demands for demonstrable, auditable, changes in behaviour. "Abstraction"
>>>>>may turn out not be what many initially think it is (any more so than
>>>>>"thinking" aka cognition, is).
>>>>>
>>>>>There's a sinister, dark, global history to the politics of all of this
>>>>>where such behaviour goes uncorrected through self-regulation (as those
>>>>>who know their history will no doubt have already recognised).
>>>>
>>>>David, I occasionally lose all patience with pseudo-academic
>>>>clap-trap such as you post. This usually happens when racial
>>>>bigots like you persist in seeing the control of other people's
>>>>behaviour as the pinnacle of scientific study. When I reach this
>>>>point I become *almost* speechless and feel compelled to point
>>>>out that the emperor has no clothes. So...*** you and the horse
>>>>you rode in on. *** your pseudo-scientific behaviourism and its
>>>>evil spawn: Fascism, Nazism, and all forms of religious and
>>>>academic Fundamentalism.
>>>
>>>
>>>I suspect I agree with you, Albert, but how do you really feel about
>>>it?
>>
>>I'm feeling *much* better now :-)
>
>
> Good. Happy New Year.

Thank you. And a Happy New Year to you too. Today is also my
(and my wife's) 41st wedding anniversary. 

-- 
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the 
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally 
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
     -- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"
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