SGCS Claims the Objectivist Claim is Fallacious

[coberst]

SGCS Claims the Objectivist Claim is Fallacious

 

SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) has introduced a new paradigm for cognitive science based upon four decades of empirical research. This empirically derived paradigm rejects the a priori rationalizations of objectivist philosophy.

 

An expression in a language is considered to be semantically autonomous if that expression meaningfully stands alone on its independent terms. There are two variations of semantic autonomy: conceptual autonomy and nonconceptual autonomy.

 

Conceptual autonomy assumes that expressions in a language, i.e. words and phrases, express concepts, which are part of human cognition; thus it is concepts that contain meaning. Words and phrases are thus semantically autonomous provided the concept noted is semantically autonomous.

 

Nonconceptual autonomy assumes that concepts either do not exist or that concepts have nothing to do with meaning. Thus words and phrases acquire meaning by means of what they designate in the world.

 

Literal Meaning Theory:

 

The literal meaning theory is about language and not concepts. This theory argues that all literal language, i.e. conventional language, is semantically autonomous. This theory rests on objectivist philosophy, which argues that objective reality is independent of human cognition, i.e. it is ‘mind free’. Objectivist philosophy argues that “statements made in ordinary, conventional language are capable of being objectively true or false

The notion of “literal meaning” presupposes the truth of the Literal Meaning Theory… This is in accord with the common philosophical view that all concepts are reflections of objective reality, and hence cannot be metaphorical.”

 

The Objectivist Claim:

 

“The world comes structured in a way that is objective—independent of any minds. The world as objectively structured includes objects, properties of those objects, relations holding among those objects, and categories of those objects, properties and relation.”

 

The objectivist claim takes for granted that “Conventional expressions in a language designate aspects of an objective, mind-free reality. Therefore, a statement must objectively be either true or false, depending on whether the objective world accords with the statement.”

 

SGCS claims that the Objectivist Claim is fallacious because it does not recognize “that truth and falsity are relative to conceptual frameworks…Thus it fails to recognize that a statement can be meaningful only relative to its defining framework, and it can be true or false only relative to the way we understand reality given that framework.”

 

Do you support the objectivist claim?

 

Quotes from “More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor” by Lakoff and Turner

[TheFaithfulStone]

SGCS claims that the Objectivist Claim is fallacious because it does not recognize “that truth and falsity are relative to conceptual frameworks…Thus it fails to recognize that a statement can be meaningful only relative to its defining framework, and it can be true or false only relative to the way we understand reality given that framework.”

 

Surely this is a distillation of a more complex argument? Of course objectivism does not "recognize that truth and falsity are relative to conceptual frameworks" - it considers truth and falsity to be universal values.

 

There's a problem with the extreme relativism / post-structuralism presented here though. The claim is that "true" and "false" are relative to conceptual frameworks. If we take something that is basically a binary logic gate, the only way we can make the answer ambiguous is by changing the basic rules of the games.

 

Does Bob have an apple, right now? (The answer is either YES or NO - in any language.) What if we think of right now as being equivalent to "at any time in the past or future." (Or, we redefine "have" to mean "is able to plant" rather than "is holding.") Now the answer is ambiguous in our "conceptual framework" but we've destroyed any idea of what the question actually is. Not only are the ANSWERS always in flux, but any QUESTION you ask can be interpreted to give whatever answer they like.

 

So, yes, true and false are "relative to conceptual frameworks" but the questions are not equivalent from separate perspectives. If I structure the question in each "conceptual framework" in such a way that I am after an independent piece of information - then the answer IS objective. If we all agree to interpret the question the same way, or I supply who ever DOESN'T agree with the necessary "translation" to extract the same piece of information, then that answer is either objectively true or false.

 

In the above example, if you only consider a person to have an apple if they have it available to plant RIGHT NOW, and I consider them to have it, if they ever have or ever will be able to hold, then I must structure the questions differently in order to get the same piece of information out of either of us.

 

What is the current location of the apple? It's in Bob's hand.

 

What is current location of Bob's head?

 

TFS

[point nuking post-modernism]

[coberst]

Surely this is a distillation of a more complex argument? Of course objectivism does not "recognize that truth and falsity are relative to conceptual frameworks" - it considers truth and falsity to be universal values.

 

There's a problem with the extreme relativism / post-structuralism presented here though. The claim is that "true" and "false" are relative to conceptual frameworks. If we take something that is basically a binary logic gate, the only way we can make the answer ambiguous is by changing the basic rules of the games.

 

Does Bob have an apple, right now? (The answer is either YES or NO - in any language.) What if we think of right now as being equivalent to "at any time in the past or future." (Or, we redefine "have" to mean "is able to plant" rather than "is holding.") Now the answer is ambiguous in our "conceptual framework" but we've destroyed any idea of what the question actually is. Not only are the ANSWERS always in flux, but any QUESTION you ask can be interpreted to give whatever answer they like.

 

So, yes, true and false are "relative to conceptual frameworks" but the questions are not equivalent from separate perspectives. If I structure the question in each "conceptual framework" in such a way that I am after an independent piece of information - then the answer IS objective. If we all agree to interpret the question the same way, or I supply who ever DOESN'T agree with the necessary "translation" to extract the same piece of information, then that answer is either objectively true or false.

 

In the above example, if you only consider a person to have an apple if they have it available to plant RIGHT NOW, and I consider them to have it, if they ever have or ever will be able to hold, then I must structure the questions differently in order to get the same piece of information out of either of us.

 

What is the current location of the apple? It's in Bob's hand.

 

What is current location of Bob's head?

 

TFS

[point nuking post-modernism]

 

Yes, you are correct; this is a simplification of a complex argument:

 

“The world comes structured in a way that is objective—independent of any minds. The world as objectively structured includes objects, properties of those objects, relations holding among those objects, and categories of those objects, properties and relation.”

 

The objectivist claim takes for granted that “Conventional expressions in a language designate aspects of an objective, mind-free reality. Therefore, a statement must objectively be either true or false, depending on whether the objective world accords with the statement.”

 

I point of SGCS’s claim is that the objectivist do not recognize that what we call mind and body is an integrated unit. There is not a duality in reality. What we think is essentially an aspect of our complete unit, which I will call the body-self.

 

SGCS has empirical evidence that what is called objectivity is in reality a shared subjectivity of the body-self. The truth that we know is not a mirror of something out there but is a creation in the brain that is a function of sensory data received from out there plus our structuring of that sense data by the body-self.

 

The reason that I say objectivity is shared subjectivity is that each human shares a common type of body-self. We all structure our creations in the same way and thus impart a shared objectivity on the sense data.

 

Descarte’s duality of mind/body lingers within our philosophy and our common sense view of the world. If the claim of SGCS is correct, and I think it is, then our common sense view and our philosophical objectivist view causes us to view the world in a dangerously incorrect manner.

[TheFaithfulStone]

What is the practical difference between universally shared subjectivity and objectivity?

 

This is akin to the "perfect model" question. If you can create a model, perfect down to the last atomic detail of an aircraft carrier - haven't you built an aircraft carrier?

 

If there's a "shared subjectivity" that's universal, how is that even distinguishable from "objectivity?"

 

Also - what is SGCS's "empirical data" that basically proves the world doesn't exist outside our mind? (In which case, there is the small problem of non-human perception. I can tell my dog to drop the bone, and he drops the bone. Obviously that bone exists outside of my mind.)

 

Whether or not Fido and I are capable of perceiving the bone in even remotely the same way is definitely a question up in the air - but the objective reality of the bone - not so much.

 

TFS

[coberst]

TFS

 

Question--What is the practical difference between universally shared subjectivity and objectivity?

 

Answer—Objectivity, in the sense as a philosophical objectivist and the common sense view would see it, is truth out there in the world ready for us to perceive it. The SGCS view, which I agree is correct, is that we humans have a common way of structuring truth and as a result we can agree on the truth that we structure not because that truth is out there in the world but because we are confined to creating truth by our common way of structuring truth.

 

The best book for beginning to comprehend the SGCS view is “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson. This book has a very large bibliography citing the empirical research that supports their theory.