Tjenare grabbar

Här är ett argument från er egna Bertrand Russell. Det gäller frågan om en radikal empiricism kan förse oss med kunskap överhuvudtaget:

1. Myntets form

Normalt, när jag ser ett mynt, ser jag egentligen en elliptiskt form. Ellipsens tjocklek varierar beroende på mitt relativa förhållande till myntet. När ser jag myntets verkliga form?

Sällan, eller aldrig, ser jag myntet direkt ovanifrån. Även om jag gjorde det, hur kan jag veta att den "egentliga" formen är just den som avslöjas när jag tittar direkt uppifrån?

2. Myntets storlek

Storleken varierar beroende på avståndet mellan mig och myntet. Från vilket avstånd ser jag den egentliga storleken?

Ej heller kan jag ta ett måttband, ty hur skall jag veta om måttbandet skall ligga mot myntet eller hållas en bit ifrån?

Och om måttbande visar 3 cm, vad är 3 cm? Längden på 3 cm varierar beroende på avståndet mellan mig och de 3 cm.

3. Myntets färg

Verkar ljusare i dagsljus, mörkare i dämpar ljus. När ser jag den verkliga färgen?

Samma argument för vikt, temperatur, textur (är myntet slätt eller skrovligt? Beror helt på vilken förstoring man använder).

Givet att allt våra sinnen förser oss med är kvaliteter som verkar vara relativa till oss och våra egna tillstånd, hur kan vi egentligen känna till någon objektiv kvalitet hos objekten i yttervärlden?

Och om vi inte kan veta nåt om objekten, hur kan vi ens säga att fysiska objekt existerar? Allt vi någonsin har kunskap om är de kvaliteter som verkar vara relativa till oss själv. Vi ser aldrig något "objekt" som dessa kvaliteter hör till.

Ok, ni som är radikala empiricister, hur löser ni detta?

H/Toffe

Innan jag vet om jag räknas till de radikala empiristerna eller inte måste jag veta vad som menas med uttrycket. Hur definierar Bertrand Russell "radikal empirist" i argumenten ovan?

Tillägg: Kan du ge en referens till var Bertrand Russell ställer de där frågorna och i vilket sammanhang?

[Ändrad 2007-09-21 av PositivAteist]

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Ursprugligen inlagt av PositivAteist Innan jag vet om jag räknas till de radikala empiristerna eller inte måste jag veta vad som menas med uttrycket. Hur definierar Bertrand Russell "radikal empirist" i argumenten ovan? Tillägg: Kan du ge en referens till var Bertrand Russell ställer de där frågorna och i vilket sammanhang? [Ändrad 2007-09-21 av PositivAteist]

Russell definierar aldrig radikal empiricist - han poängterar bara det vi kan veta förutsatt att sinnena är vår enda kunskapskälla.

Vilket är den radikala empiricismen i ett nötksal. Kunskap ggenom sinnesobservationer (enbart)

Han behandlar detta i "filosofins problem" från 1912

Bertrand Russell verkar ha några egna lösningar på problemen:

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In this sense, it must be admitted, empiricism as a theory of knowledge has proved inadequate, though less so than any previous theory of knowledge (min kursivering). Indeed, such inadequacies as we have seemed to find in empiricism have been discovered by strict adherence to a doctrine by which empiricist philosophy has been inspired: that all human knowledge is uncertain, inexact and partial. To this doctrine we have found no limitation whatsoever." (Human Knowledge: It's Scope and Limits, 1948)

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Modern analytical empiricism, of which I have been giving an outline, differs from that of Locke, Berkeley and Hume by its incorporation of mathematics and its development of a powerful logical technique. It is thus able, in regard to certain problems, to achieve definite answers, which have the quality of science rather than of philosophy. It has the advantage , as compared with the philosophies of the system-builders, of being able to tackle its problems one at a time, instead of having to invent at one stroke a block theory of the whole universe... I have also no doubt that, by these methods, many ancient problems are completely soluble." (A History of Western Philosophy, 1945)

För övrigt verkar dina citat vara kritik av Locke, Berkeley och Hume:

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The empiricists - who are best represented by the Brittish philosophers Locke, Berkeley and Hume - maintained that all our knowledge is derived from experience..." (The Problems of Philosophy, 1912)

Följande citat från Problems of Philosophy kanske kan sprida lite ljus över din fråga?

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Nothing can be known to exist except by the help of experience. That is to say, if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists, we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience. Our belief that the Emperor of China exists, for example, rests upon testimony, and testimony consists, in the last analysis, of sense-data seen or heard in reading or being spoken to. Rationalists believed that, from general consideration as to what must be, they could deduce the existence of this or that in the actual world. In this belief they seem to have been mistaken. All the knowledge that we can acquire a priori concerning existence seems to be hypothetical: it tells us that if one thing exists, another must exist, or, more generally, that if one proposition is true another must be true. This is exemplified by principles we have already dealt with, such as 'if this is true, and this implies that, then that is true', of 'if this and that have been repeatedly found connected, they will probably be connected in the next instance in which one of them is found'. Thus the scope and power of a priori principles is strictly limited. All knowledge that something exists must be in part dependent on experience. When anything is known immediately, its existence is known by experience alone; when anything is proved to exist, without being known immediately, both experience and a priori principles must be required in the proof. Knowledge is called empirical when it rests wholly or partly upon experience. Thus all knowledge which asserts existence is empirical, and the only a priori knowledge concerning existence is hypothetical, giving connexions among things that exist or may exist, but not giving actual existence.

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All pure mathematics is a priori, like logic. This strenuously denied by the empirical philosophers, who maintained that experience was as much the source of our knowledge of arithmetic as of our knowledge of geography. They maintained that by the repeated experience of seeing two things and two other things, and finding that altogether they made four things, we were led by induction to the conclusion that two things and two other things would always make four things altogether. If, however, this were the source of our knowledge that two and two are four we should proceed differently, in persuading ourselves of its truth, from the way in which we do actually proceed. In fact, a certain number of instances are needed to make us think of two abstractly, rather than of two coins or two books or two people, or two of any other specified kind. But as soon as we are able to divest our thoughts of irrelevant particularity, we become able to see the general principle that two and two are four; any one instance is seen to be typical and the examination of other instances becomes unnecessary.

Vad gäller existensen av objekt trots att de kan upplevas på olika sätt med våra sinnen så finns det kapitel (The existence of matter) i Problems of Philosophy som tar upp just detta. Två citat:

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There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us. But although this is not logically impossible, there is no reason whatever to suppose that it is true; and it is, in fact, a less simple hypothesis, viewed as a means of accounting for the facts of our own life, than the common-sense hypothesis that there really are objects independent of us, whose action on us causes our sensations.

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Of course it is not by argument that we originally come by our belief in an independent external world. We find this belief ready in ourselves as soon as we begin to reflect: it is what may be called an instinctive belief. We should never have been led to question this belief but for the fact that, at any rate in the case of sight, it seems as if the sense-datum itself were instinctively believed to be the independent object, whereas argument shows that the object cannot be identical with the sense-datum. This discovery, however -- which is not at all paradoxical in the case of taste and smell and sound, and only slightly so in the case of touch -- leaves undiminished our instinctive belief that there are objects corresponding to our sense-data. Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it. We may therefore admit -- though with a slight doubt derived from dreams -- that the external world does really exist, and is not wholly dependent for its existence upon our continuing to perceive it.

För övrigt hittar jag inte begreppet "radical empiricist" i Problems of Philosophy. Vilken sida är det så jag kan hitta det engelska begreppet som man har översatt på det sättet?

Wikipedia definierar radical empiricism så här:

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Radical empiricism is a pragmatist doctrine put forth by William James. It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations. In concrete terms: any philosophical worldview is flawed if it stops at the physical level and fails to explain how meaning, values and intentionality can arise from that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_empiricism

Bara för att undvika missförstånd: Givet den definitionen är jag ingen radikal empiricist eftersom jag inte tror att normativa utsagor (dvs utsagor om mening och värden) kan härledas ur vad som är. Däremot kan det vara intressant att utreda vad det är för problem Bertrand Russell försöker göra oss medvetna om och vilken lösning han har på problemet. Jag försöker alltså varken försvara eller angripa den radikala empiricismen, bara förstå din fråga och hur den eventuellt kan besvaras.

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Bara för att undvika missförstånd: Givet den definitionen är jag ingen radikal empiricist eftersom jag inte tror att normativa utsagor (dvs utsagor om mening och värden) kan härledas ur vad som är. Däremot kan det vara intressant att utreda vad det är för problem Bertrand Russell försöker göra oss medvetna om och vilken lösning han har på problemet. Jag försöker alltså varken försvara eller angripa den radikala empiricismen, bara förstå din fråga och hur den eventuellt kan besvaras.

Uff... det var inte litet citerat det

Vi kan väl börja med definitionen av en radikal empiricist - eftersom det tydligen inte finns någon officiell definition så menar jag en person som påstår att all kunskap kommer genom sinneserfarenheter.

Och ja, du har rätt, argumentet riktas mot empiriker av typen Locke, Berkeley etc. Men jag ser inte hur modern empiricism undviker dessa problem. Inte ens om man som Russell lägger till logik&matte.

Jag föreslår ej heller radikal rationalism, som Russell nämner i förbifarten. Eller att solipsisim skulle vara ett alternativ.

Vi kan väl säga som så - det finns kunskap om yttervärlden, det förnekar väl varken du eller jag.

Men hur kan vi äga kunskap om yttervärlden om
1. Den kommer genom sinnena, och
2. det som sinnena förser oss med är relativt och beroende av våra interna tillstånd? (se mitt öppningsinlägg)

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