Peikoff - Sense Perception And Volition - The Senses As Necessarily Valid Flashcards
(34 cards)
Metaphysics, in the objectivist viewpoint, is a highly delimited subject. In essence, it identifies only the fact of existence (+ its corollaries).
==> The subject does NOT study particular existents or undertake to guide men in the achievement of a goal.
The case is different with regard to the other much more complex branch at the base of philosophy: EPISTEMOLOGY:
Epistemology = the science that studies the NATURE and MEANS of human knowledge.
Epistemology is based on the premise that …?
Man can acquire knowledge ONLY if he performs certain definite processes.
==> This premise means that a man cannot accept ideas at random and count them as knowledge merely because he feels like it. Why not? …?
The objectivist answer has 2 parts. The 1st is …?
That knowledge is knowledge of reality, and existence has primacy over consciousness.
==> If the mind wants to know existence, it must CONFORM TO EXISTENCE.
***On the opposite metaphysics, AR holds, epistemology would be NEITHER NECESSARY NOR POSSIBLE.
==> If thought created reality, no science offering guidance to thought would be applicable. Consciousness could assert whatever it wished, and reality would obey.
The 2nd part is …?
The nature of the HUMAN consciousness.
Existence has primacy for animals, too, but they do not need cognitive guidance, because their knowledge is sensory or perceptual in nature.
==> HUMAN knowledge, however, though based on sensory perception, is CONCEPTUAL in nature, and on the conceptual level consciousness displays a new feature ==> IT IS NOT AUTOMATIC OR INFALLIBLE.
==> It can err, distort, depart from reality (whether through ignorance or evasion).
==> Man, therefore, unlike animals needs to discover a METHOD of cognition.
==> He needs to learn how to use his mind, how to distinguish truth from falsehood, how to validate the conclusions he reaches.
Epistemology is the science that tells …?
A fallible, conceptual consciousness what rules to follow in order to gain knowledge of an independent reality.
==> Without such science, none of man’s conclusions, on any subject, could be regarded as fully validated.
==> There would be no answer to the question: HOW DO YOU KNOW?
Before one can study conceptual knowledge, however, one must cover 2 large topics:
- Sense perception.
2. Volition.
Since concepts, according to objectivism, are integrations of perceptual data, there can be …?
NO CONCEPTS APART FROM SENSE EXPERIENCE.
==> There are no innate ideas, ideas in the mind at birth.
==> Consciousness begins as a TABULA RASA; all of its conceptual content is derived from the EVIDENCE OF THE SENSES.
The sensory-perceptual level of consciousness, therefore-the base of cognition-must be studied first:
We must establish the exact role of the senses in the human knowledge and the validity of the information they provide.
==> If the senses are NOT valid, if they are NOT instruments that provide knowledge of reality, then neither are concepts, and the whole cognitive enterprise is aborted.
==> If seeing is not believing, then thinking is worthless as well.
Since one precondition of epistemology is the fact that the conceptual level is NOT automatic, this fact, too, must be established from the outset:
Before undertaking to offer cognitive guidance, a philosopher must define and establish man’s power of volition.
==> If man has no choice in regard to the use of his consciousness, then there can be NO DISCUSSION OF HOW HE SHOULD USE HIS MIND. No norms would be applicable.
The validity of the senses is …?
An AXIOM.
Like the fact of consciousness, the axiom is outside the province of proof because it is a precondition of any proof.
Proof consists in …?
Reducing an idea back to the data provided by the senses.
==> These data themselves, the foundation of all subsequent knowledge, PRECEDE ANY PROCESS OF INFERENCE.
==> They are primaries of cognition, the unchallengeable, THE SELF-EVIDENT.
The validity of the senses is NOT an independent axiom:
It is a COROLLARY of the fact of consciousness.
==> As we have seen, it is only by grasping the action of the senses that a child is able to reach the implicit concept of consciousness.
If a man is conscious of that which is, then …?
His MEANS of awareness, are means of AWARENESS ===> ARE VALID.
==> One cannot affirm consciousness while denying its primary form, which makes all the others possible.
==> Just as any attack on consciousness negates itself, so does any attack on the senses.
==> If the senses are NOT valid, neither are ANY concepts, INCLUDING THE ONES USED IN THE ATTACK.
The purpose of philosophic discussion of the senses is NOT to derive their validity from any kind of antecedent knowledge, but …?
To define their exact function in human cognition and thereby to sweep away the objections raised against them by a long line of philosophers.
==> The purpose is NOT to argue FOR the testimony of our eyes and ears, but to remove the groundless doubts about these organs that have accumulated through the centuries.
Sensory experience is a form of awareness …?
Produced by physical entities (the external stimuli) acting on physical instrumentalities (the sense organs), which respond AUTOMATICALLY, as a link in a causally determined chain.
==> Obeying INEXORABLE NATURAL LAWS, the organs transmit a message to the nervous system and the brain.
==> Such organs have NO POWER OF CHOICE, NO POWER TO INVENT, DISTORT, OR DECEIVE.
==> They do not respond to a zero, only to a something, something real, some existential object which acts on them.
The senses do NOT INTERPRET their own reactions:
They do NOT IDENTIFY the objects that impinge on them.
==> They merely respond to stimuli, thereby making us aware of the fact that some kind of object exist.
==> We do not become aware of WHAT the objects are, but merely THAT THEY ARE.
“The task of man’s senses” writes AR …?
“Is to give him the evidence of existence, but the task of identifying it belongs to his reason.
==> His senses tell him only that something IS, but WHAT it is must be learned by his mind.
It is only in regard to the “what”-only on the conceptual level of consciousness- …?
That the possibility of ERROR arises.
==> If a boy sees a jolly bearded man in a red suit and infers that Santa Claus has come down from the North Pole, his senses have made NO ERROR ==> It is his conclusion that is mistaken.
A so-called sensory illusion, such as a stick in water appearing bent, is NOT a perceptual error.
It is a testament to the RELIABILITY OF THE SENSES.
==> The senses DO NOT CENSOR THEIR RESPONSE.
==> They do not react to a single attribute (such a shape) in a vacuum, as though it were unconnected to anything else; they cannot decide to ignore part of the stimulus.
==> Within the range of their capacity, the senses give us evidence of EVERYTHING PHYSICALLY OPERATIVE, they respond to the FULL CONTEXT of the facts-including, in the present instance, the fact that light travels through water at a different rate than through air, which is what causes the stick to appear bent.
==> It is not the task of the senses but of the mind to analyze the evidence and identify the causes at work (which may require the discovery of complex scientific knowledge).
==> If a casual observer were to conclude that the stick actually bends in water, such a snap judgement would be a failure on the conceptual level, a failure of thought, not of perception.
==> To criticize the senses for it is tantamount to criticizing them for their power, for their ability to give us evidence not of isolated fragments, but of a total.
The function of the senses, AR holds, is to …?
Sum up a vast range of facts, TO CONDENSE A COMPLEX BODY OF INFORMATION-WHICH reaches our consciousness in the form of a relatively few sensations.
==> We perceive a bunch of roses, for example, as red, cool, fragrant, and yielding to the touch.
==> Such sensations are NOT CAUSELESS. They are produced by a complex body of physico-chemical facts, including the length of the light waves the roses reflect and absorb, the thermal conductivity of the petals, the chemical make-up of underlying atomic structures, their electronic and nuclear features, and many other aspects.
==> Our sensations, do not, of course, identify any of these facts, but they do constitute our first form of grasping them and our first lead to their late scientific discovery.
==> Science, indeed, is nothing more than CONCEPTUAL UNRAVELLING OF SENSORY DATA.
==> IT HAS NO OTHER PRIMARY EVIDENCE FORM FROM WHICH TO PROCEED.
If a “valid” sense perception means a perception the object of which is an existent, then …?
Not merely man’s senses are valid. ALL SENSE PERCEPTIONS ARE NECESSARILY VALID.
==> If an individual of any species perceives at all, then, no matter what its organs or FORMS of perception, it perceives something that IS.
==> Conceptualization involves an interpretation that may NOT conform to reality, an organization of data that is NOT necessitated by physical fact.
==> One can, therefore, “think about nothing”, ie, nothing real, such as perpetual-motion machine or demonic possession or Santa Claus.
==> BUT THE SENSE SUM UP AUTOMATICALLY WHAT IS.
Once a mind acquires a certain content of sensory material, it can as in the case of DREAMS, …?
Contemplate its own content rather than external reality.
==> This is NOT sense perception at all, but a process of turning INWARD, made possible by the fact that the individual, through perception, first acquired some sensory contents.
Nor, as Aristotle observed, is there any difficulty in distinguishing dreams from perception:
The concept of “dream” has meaning only because it denotes a contrast to wakeful awareness.
==> If a man were actually unable to recognize the latter state, the word “dream” to him would be meaningless.
Our sensations are caused IN PART by objects of reality. They are also-an equally important point-…?
Caused in part by OUR ORGANS of perceptions, which are responsible for the fact that we perceive objects IN THE FORM of sensations of color, sound, smell, and so forth.
==> A being with RADICALLY DIFFERENT SENSES would presumably perceive reality in correspondingly different forms.
