Subject: RE: BHA: scientific realism, Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 09:52:36 -0500 From: "Moodey, Richard W" <MOODEY001-AT-gannon.edu> Hi Carrol, Although I am a sociologist, I have had some training in epistemology and have had many conversations about these issues with a friend who is a neuroscientist. I very much like the way you phrase the epistemological question: "How do we know something?" Epistemologists get locked into a boxes when they start out by asking, "How do I know whether I really know anything?" I maintain that we have to start out with the fact of human knowing, and then ask about what is going on. I am not a phenomenologist, but I do accept the validity of reflecting upon my own conscious acts of knowing and chosing. This gives me information about knowing that I can't get from neuroscience, just as neuroscience gives me information about knowing that I can't get from introspective reflection. Best regards, Dick -----Original Message----- From: Carrol Cox [mailto:cbcox-AT-ilstu.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 8:05 PM To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: Re: BHA: scientific realism, "Moodey, Richard W" wrote: > > Hi Carrol, > > Do you hold that all epistemological questions really belong in > neuroscience? If not, could you give me an example of a question that > does fall into the realm of philosophical epistemology? > I'm neither a neuroscientist nor trained in epistemology -- but insofar as epistemology asks "How do we know something?" I suspect that my answer to your question would be, tentatively, yes. I first came across this perspective on epistemology in Sebastiano Timpanaro, _On Materialism_. The Eleventh Thesis on Feurbach suggests that the findings of neuroscience should be subordinated to (or seen through) the science of social practice. I.e., I am assuming that that thesis is not primarily an ethical or pragmatic injunction to "Make a Difference" but rather an account of how we are to go about interpreting the world -- i.e. through our attempts to change it and reflection on that practice. (Mao wittily articulated this as, "If you want to know what a pear tastes like, you have to change the pear by biting into it." Quoted from memory.) Carrol > Regards, > > Dick > > -----Original Message----- > From: Carrol Cox [mailto:cbcox-AT-ilstu.edu] > Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2003 3:46 PM > To: bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU > Subject: Re: BHA: scientific realism, > > "Moodey, Richard W" wrote: > > > > A very general epistemological question involves reflection upon my > > own acts of knowing -- what am I doing when I am knowing? A related > > ontological question is: what am I knowing when I am doing these > > things? > > The first question properly belongs to neuroscience rather than > philosophy. The second question does seem to be a validly > philosophical question. > > Carrol > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- > > --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu --- --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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