I Think, Therefore I Am?

[Fiat_Voluntas_Tua]

[quote]but for effective purposes, such as to not make a mockery of what philsophy can do for us as it's often criticized for, we can know that we exist by virtue of us thinking. and from there, it has always seemed to me, we are free to act in a similar 'rational' way, and begin taking for granted what we see around us too... stop meddling in mumbo jumgbo and get on with it- it might all be false, but at least you are not, and at least you have a good foundation for acting.[/quote]

It sounds like you are on the heels of pragmatism regarding the pursuit of theoretical truths. I mean, Berkely had a brilliant argument for idealism which concluded that for all practical purposes whether there is an external world or not doesn't matter...because our experience is of an external world, so why does it matter whether there is one or not. Does the truth of an external world or merely having expereinces of an external world make any difference for us? For we won't act any differently if we prove whether there is one or not, so why does it matter.

Now, I think it doesn't matter 'practically' but I think it is a question worth pursuing and a question worth taking seriously...and one we shouldn't merely say "Who cares" to, which seemed like your stance.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i think the emphasis puts what i personally think best - 'we exist, if we dont then boy wasnt i wrong' v.'we can't know if we exist, but we'll assume that we do'- i go with the former, but say at the very least given the 'boy wasn't i wrong' possibility, that perhaps the second one would do jsut as fine, to 'get on with it'.

is it wrong for me to give the 'boy wasn't i wrong' possibility instead of just saying 'we exist, period'? it's always an 'in theory' idea that i would allow it. is that 'in theory' allowance okay? i suppose i should reflect on that. with all those 'inductive v. deductive' 'before v. after experience' and 'shadow v. really a shadow?' etc ideas.

[Fiat_Voluntas_Tua]

I think that from a philosophical standpoint, skepticism can be something we at least need to address...and I think it can be addressed properly. But I think from a philosophical standpoint if we are questioning whether we exist or whether the external world exists and we simply ignore those questions and say, "of course we do" without really addressing it, then that seems to be avoiding the issue and not really concerned with the truth.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

The problem that Descartes has when he says "I think therefore I am" is that he creates a dichotomy between subject and object. To know is to be for Descartes and rightfully so. The problem then is that the first thing one knows is himself and through himself. However, in placing everything in the mind he is unable to get out of the mind and to the object as known and as object in its form or essence or being or whatever word you want to use. One cannot know the object as over and against the other without removing the gap between subject and object but yet the gap must remain somehow. Karl Rahner SJ is able to get around the problem and explains how one can know these things in his book [i]Spirit in the World[/i]. The best part is he is able to use Aristotle and Aquinas to do it and it is incredible.

[Fiat_Voluntas_Tua]

So, the question becomes since the way we learn about the external world is through our experiences (i.e., subjective), how do we "bridge the gap" between the experience and the object? Descartes thought he could...but it is pretty clear that his argument is unsound. What do you recommend?

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

The question is not how to bridge the gap but how to maintain a gap between subject and object. here is the paper i wrote on it. It is titled "Quodammodo Omnia and Sensibility."

Modern philosophy is characterized by the turn to the subject. This places epistemology very highly in the hierarchy of different types of philosophies. However, there are several problems that epistemology attempts to solve, one of which is the dichotomy between subject and object or between mind and body that is raised by Rene Descartes. The problem arises when one understands knowledge as being-present-to-oneself and states that this being is a material expression of a certain intensity of being. When one asserts these principles, the knower and the object that is known are necessarily identical. This understanding makes it impossible then to say that one can attain knowledge of another object and thus objective knowledge since the object of knowledge and the being knowing are identical. Karl Rahner of the Society of Jesus presents the understanding of sensibility as a way out of this problem.

Rahner states “Man questions. This is final and irreducible” (57). For man to question everything, he must in some way already know part of the answer. If we say whatever is is knowable and that to be is to know, then when one combines this understanding with that of man as in some way knowing everything one understands man to in some way be everything. Rahner describes this understanding as man “is already quodammodo omnia” (60). This being everything is only in potentiality since if one were to say that man knows everything in himself in actuality then “he would already be with being in its totality in such a way that he would have mastered it and would not have to question anymore” (62). We know this to be false since “[m]an questions” (57). Thus one can say that man is able to know everything in himself since he has a higher intensity of being than the world around him. However, this does not explain how man does indeed know something outside of himself objectively and in actuality. Rahner expresses it this way:
"If being is primarily presence-to-self, then the real and original object of knowing being is that with which it originally is: itself…Thus for the Thomistic metaphysics of knowledge the problem does not lie in bridging the gap between knowing and object by a “bridge” of some kind…Rather the problem is how the known, which is identical with the knower, can stand over against the knower as other and how there can be a knowledge which receives another as such. It is not a question of ‘bridging’ a gap, but of understanding how a gap is possible" (75).
It seems that in some way man must leave himself in knowing an object and yet be able to return, but if to know is to be then how can there be a gap between known and knower.

Sensibility is the power of the soul or mind through which Rahner understands the human person to be able to reach out to an object known and yet maintain “a gap”. Rahner notes that the first act of knowing is making oneself actively available to be impinged upon by an object or to suffer it through materiality, since materiality is for another. In making oneself available to the object through the senses, one sends out his sensibility over and away from himself but not completely letting go of the subject. Sensibility receives the form of the object passively and in such is actualized. It is quite literally in-formed by the object encountered. Sensibility can thus be understood to be material insofar as the senses are material but also is a matter of the mind. Sensibility is a power of the soul or matter of the mind but this is very different than saying it is me. Sensibility is a part of but not me since it is a power just as the hand is a part of me and a power of my body but not me. This power allows one to receive the other in its being but also maintain ‘the gap’ since the power is not the soul and as such can receive and experience in our senses the form of another separate from ourselves. “The being of a sentient knower…is precisely the undivided mid-point posed between a total abandonment to the other and an intrinsic independence over against this other” (81).

One cannot know without body since ultimately all knowledge starts in the senses. However, one sees the form in the particular and understands the form only after having seen the particular. It is this form that is imprinted on sensibility and returns to the knower. Since sensibility possesses the foreign object’s form as its own and sensibility allows one to be totally available to another, the object receives consciousness in the knower; however, this idea must not be confused with that of the object known receiving consciousness in itself. This is what is meant by subjectivity is added to our knowledge as well as objectivity.

Karl Rahner’s answer to the problem of the subject-object dichotomy is begun in sensibility, is continued into abstraction, and the funneled into conversion to the phantasm, which in turn swings back and begins the cycle again. While his answer may be broken up into different parts so that it may be better understood, it is ultimately one united way of knowing and as such sensibility cannot really be separated from the other two movements within the one piece that is knowing. Sensibility is the way that Karl Rahner understands the subject to be able to reach out of himself to the object and know it.

(The best part is this follows Thomas Aquinas's three ways of knowing, changes the words so as to make it more easily understood to the modern and applied to Descartes. This pushes the ideas a bit further and improves them which makes them applicable to the problem. Awesomeness. Now for those of you who haven't read Rahner, and understandably so, abstraction is seeing the possibilities of the object in an object such as seeing that a triangle could be different such as an isosceles or equilateral triangle. Conversion to the phantasm parallels Thomas's understanding of negation. One sees the limits of an object such as a triangle will always have three sides or the three interior angles will always equal up to 180 degrees. In this way one sees the universal, the phantasm, or the form of the object present within it. However, one may be able to talk about these three things as separate but in reality they are all one united way of knowing. Each level informs the other and circles back around. One can see this with abstraction and conversion to the phantasm, you can't really do one without the other. However, you can speak of them separately and in an order since each has a logical priority over the other.)

Edited December 10, 2009 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[dairygirl4u2c]

i like the idea "we know we exist based on our senses. therefore, based on these senses, the outside world exists- it's sensiblity, ie common sense". but i still would point out, that there is indeed a distinction between knowing one thinks and therefore exists, and knowing what he sees is true. thinking is innate to the thinker, it's inherent and if he thinks he must exist... but everything else could be false. like if i were to wake up in a dream, only to find it was never real, only my perception of it was and my thinking was real. there's definitely plenty of holes to poke in this analogy, and i think taht's just the way it is... this is in the realm of analogy and things that can only be argued in these ways circuling around the truer reality of what is being discussed.
but while i like the arguments... to try to jump into 'it's common sense' or sensibility etc is okay for a layman, or for practical purposes, but it sorta does a loop to the truly skepitcal like decartes or others who are truly skeptical.

Edited December 10, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' date='10 December 2009 - 12:14 AM' timestamp='1260418442' post='2017259']
i like the idea "we know we exist based on our senses. therefore, based on these senses, the outside world exists- it's sensiblity, ie common sense". but i still would point out, that there is indeed a distinction between knowing one thinks and therefore exists, and knowing what he sees is true. thinking is innate to the thinker, it's inherent and if he thinks he must exist... but everything else could be false. like if i were to wake up in a dream, only to find it was never real, only my perception of it was and my thinking was real. there's definitely plenty of holes to poke in this analogy, and i think taht's just the way it is... this is in the realm of analogy and things that can only be argued in these ways circuling around the truer reality of what is being discussed.
but while i like the arguments... to try to jump into 'it's common sense' or sensibility etc is okay for a layman, or for practical purposes, but it sorta does a loop to the truly skepitcal like decartes or others who are truly skeptical.
[/quote]

Even if this whole world is a dream (which one cannot in fact live as if it is), then in so far as it is a thought, it is real. However, if one is truly to operate and believe that the world around him is real. One is able to answer the "can you know it?" question with a "yes."

The point is this. One knows that he exists since he thinks. Thus He knows himself and one can state one knows only what one is. The next natural question is then what is the self which one knows and what does it do? I am in some way (potentially) all things since I can ask a question about anything and thus in some way know part of the answer since one can't ask a question unless they in some way know part of the answer. Thus I must in some way (potentially) be all things and thus am able to know anything. How do i know them? By becoming one with them since I cannot know in another way. How do I become one with the other? I suffer it, i am impinged upon by it, I am literally informed by it (its form is impressed into my senses and my mind). Then you get to abstraction and conversion to the phantasm.

Edited December 10, 2009 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[dairygirl4u2c]

"and thus am able to know anything."
there's some very interesting philophy on whether we can know everything, or the limits of kknowing, understanding etc.


fair enough. cause while decartes and true skeptics might have an argument to be made, their conclusions were bad, ie disregarding truth or knowing, or they simply stuck their heads in the sand about knowing we exist and everything else exists. i like that we can answer it with equally (or something like that? maybe less? who knows...) forceful arguments about how we can know we and everything else exists. maybe they have an argument... but at the end of the day, who do ya go with, the philosohpical mumbo jumbo, or the sensible philophy? ask any joe, he could tell ya.

"How do I become one with the other? I suffer it, i am impinged upon by it, I am literally informed by it"
i also thought that was a cool idea. it is a true statement, that we must grow into to appreciate. and it kinda connects to a lot of theological ideas about suffereing that i and im sure others havea bout living life etc. like the philophosical ideas become webbed, much like our knowing becomes webbed, it's all in a poetic whole. but anyways.

Edited December 10, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

Yea. I love that idea too. It has so many implications. In some way, since we make ourselves available to be impinged upon in some way materiality. Thus in some ways we can think of materiality as being given to us. It gives us its form to us, universally and materially. "It literally informs us." Thus everything around us changes us and makes us different. It is great. The same is with knowledge. Everything you learn completely reworks and changes the way you understood the way things related. To learn new things and to change oneself is to change everything. Epistemology is awesome! haha.

[kafka]

nice work!