William Frank wrote:
> Nietsche is peachy, but not a witness to reason. (01)
(A keeper!) Especially not when his statement is taken out of context
(!). (02)
Len Yabloko wrote:
> Nietzsche once said '... there are no facts, only interpretations'. (03)
Indeed he did, but he was speaking primarily about the absence of
objective measurements of social situations. Arguing about the
existence of objective reality is a pointless philosophical debate.
When it comes to making statements about the behaviors of people and
communities, there are statistical 'facts', which are only summaries of
limited individual observations, each of which may be accepted as an
independent 'fact'. But that set of observations, and the mathematical
derivatives thereof, are merely useless knowledge. The statements of
"useful social fact" come down to argumentum ad populum -- most experts
agree that X, which only means they agree on the interpretation of one
or more sets of observations. (04)
(I'm not arguing against the quality of the statistical theories and
practices associated with the social sciences. The point is that the
presumably verifiable individual facts of the observations are not what
is useful. What is useful, and what is used, as 'fact' is the
generalizations based on interpretation of the set of observations.) (05)
In the natural sciences, inaccurate theories and erroneous
interpretations of observations can be disproved or supported by more
observations, using carefully controlled experiments. In the social
sciences, it is much more difficult to determine whether additional
observations are comparable. And that leaves room for Nietzsche
(especially in his time) to question in principle the validity of
commonly held beliefs about social and individual behaviors. (06)
Now, IMO, this discussion is leaping back and forth among logic,
epistemology, metaphysics and political/social science, which makes it
very difficult to determine any relationship between the statements of
various contributors. (07)
So, having foolishly rushed in where angels rightly fear to tread, I
will now retire to my cave... ;-) (08)
-Ed (09)
--
Edward J. Barkmeyer Email: edbark@xxxxxxxx
National Institute of Standards & Technology
Manufacturing Systems Integration Division
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8263 Tel: +1 301-975-3528
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8263 Cel: +1 240-672-5800 (010)
"The opinions expressed above do not reflect consensus of NIST,
and have not been reviewed by any Government authority." (011)
>
> Note, while the same sentence can obviously be used in different
> speech acts, sometimes to make a true statement, and other times to
> make a false statement, and other times as part of a failed act (and
> so meaningless) the **statements themselves**, expressing a state of
> the world at a point in time, when understood in the context of the
> act, are true or false for all time. And, of course, this is
> independent of whether it is known, or ever will be known, whether the
> statements are true or false.
>
> And, again, if I am not deluded, all the people here talking about
> Donald Davidson and the like, know this 101 stuff so well that except
> for John Sowa, they just don't bother to respond to statements of the
> kind I am referring to. Of course here are alot of details concerning
> these concepts, that many want to think and argue about. I thiink
> that is outside the scope of the forum. The basics, though, I
> thought was commonly accepted by people who want to advance knowledge,
> for otherwise, there is no knowlede to advance.
>
> Most important to me, if there is no truth, then the promises made by
> the U.S. to the American Indians were never broken. Just
> 'misinterpreted,' Thanks Nietsche, says Andrew Jackson and Ulysses
> Grant. This is why Pontius Pilate is one of the guys who wants to
> question whether truth is a meaningful concept. If it is not, no
> guilty conscious necessary.
>
> I suspect that the people who want to deny meaning to all these
> grounding concepts have good motives: they are reacting to unthinking
> absolutism -- to all those people who **think** they know things they
> have not even examined. But this is not the way to combat this human
> tendency, instead, it opens the door to absolute power with no
> justification even needed. Or perhaps, because logicians seem to
> have missed the fact that making assertions is very rare, compared
> with other speech acts, that there is a backlash of some kind going on
> that I don't understand.
>
> Wm
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 11:00 PM, John F Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>
> Len,
> >
> >First, I'd like to emphasize that knowing *facts* has enormous
> >survivor values for every species, including humans. If an animal
> >knows where to find food, water, etc., that can make a difference
> >between life and death.
> >
> >> In nature cooperation is not about truth or facts (however
> defined ),
> >> but about playing games.
> >
> >First of all, there is nothing controversial about the word 'fact'.
> >If you want a definition, just look in a dictionary. If you type
> >"define fact" to Google, you get
> >
> > 1. A thing that is indisputably the case.
> > 2. Information used as evidence or as part of a report or news
> article.
> >
> >Definition #1 is the primary one. The second is derivative.
> >Other dictionaries will give you further fine points, but there
> >is nothing controversial or political about them.
> >
> >But there may be controversies about the facts in any particular
> >case, and finding the facts may lead to a lengthy investigation.
> >
> >> It shows that some strategies are seemingly wasting precious
> >> resources only to "impress" others.
> >
> >Not all facts have the same survival value. When you're starving,
> >it's more important to know where to get food than knowing
> >the capital of Wyoming.
> >
> >The same is true about impressing other individuals of the same
> >or different species. It can be essential for getting a mate,
> >getting a job, or avoiding being robbed or killed.
> >
> >> There may even be connection here to the language games.
> >
> >I agree with that point.
> >
> >John
> >
> >
> >
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>
> --
> William Frank
>
> 413/376-8167 <tel:413%2F376-8167>
>
>
>
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