Equal Validity

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I'm reading a short text, Fear of Knowledge Against Relativism and Contructivism by Paul Boghossian. The philosophic concept of equal validity has reared around the ugly corner of rational thought, and I am wondering if anyone wants to talk about it here. Keep in mind that this discussion requires a learned respect for the opinions of others with different beliefs based on the relative argument that some people know more about what they mean than others do. So, to analyse the knowledge of one, means to quite literally view the perspective of the social construct of which the individual has learnt their ideas. I'd like to take it that this simply put, means having an open mind about the process of communication by which people express themselves. So, all you xenophobes contributing to pervasive agoraphobia amongst the Spectrum population, it's time to let go of the fear, and face some of the harder than epistemic facts of life. Judging by the socially biased norms by which Aspies and Auties are distinct, the concept of equal validity is already providing a valid schema by which I can help explain myself as an individual with a distinguishable difference to NTs who just don't quite understand what it means to have Aspergers. I like to think that I need educated was to educate people, and that I don't have to want to teach as a career in order to do it.

Edit:
The last sentence should say, "I like to think that I need educated ways to educate people, and that I don't have to want to teach as a career in order to do it."

Last edited by mixtapebooty on 05 Apr 2009, 10:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

Once again, in plain English, please?

Edit: I need to read the book....

Last edited by claire-333 on 05 Apr 2009, 1:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

You sound like the Dada Engine from Pomo Generator.

"Equal validity" is an absurd idea, unless you're going to deny the principle of non-contradiction. Some people have tried to deny it, but I don't think you really get anything useful by doing so.

I just found a synopsis; I was way off.

Well, Orwell, what if all sides have a lacking ability to establish the validity of their claims with absolute certitude? Then couldn't all claims be considered equally valid? Even as a useful fiction to avoid a debate between multiple sides who all think that they are more valid than the other? Partially even if we take a holistic view of the claims of a worldview, by perhaps claiming that each worldview also represents subjective elements(culture/training/background matters) along with unprovable facts about external realities, then relativism becomes an easier sell, as the subjective things are indisputable as they are subjective, and the unprovable is unprovable.

I'll concede imperfect knowledge, and so from the perspective of humans some questions may not be easily settled one way or the other. However, reality doesn't give a shit about what humans believe. Our delusions and failures to understand the world don't mean anything for objective reality, only that we suck at interpreting it. If two things contradict each other, then it is not possible for both to be true. It might not be possible for humans to decisively know which one is true, and there follows your "useful fiction" of considering all claims to be equally valid. However, I would not say that all views are equally valid, only that it is best not to get too worked up about things which we lack the capability to settle, or to be too certain of things which we don't know very much about.

I wish I had both the time and mental focus to read Dr. Boghossian's text for myself. That said, I gather his work is a critique of the postmodernist twin towers of relativism and "constructivism."

I will limit my observations thus: If metaphysics is the study of "being as such" [ens qua ens], as the classical definition thereof declares, its deepest conclusions must be congruent with - and respectful of - what used to be called "common sense." Consider: in our everyday, practical lives, we act upon the observation that reality is something existing outside our minds, imposing itself upon us in multifaceted ways. We encounter physical objects, smells, sounds, sights that come our way ... or else we will go to lengths, in specific details of action, to encounter them in places we expect them to be. In our daily lives, we respect the principle of non-contradiction, as well as the principle that one cannot draw that which is greater from that which is lesser ... without some outside help of some kind, anyway.

If a being has its reality, its existence, regardless of our mind's ever perceiving it or not, then its existential properties likewise have an objective character, which it always serves our purpose to respect. To deny the objective character of being outright - which is what I've always understood the postmodernist school(s) to do - is to insult the human intelligence: if this latter holds nothing but its own externally-influenced auto-generated constructs, then it has nothing of real worth to share with anyone whatsoever. We can talk about "building our own reality" in the abstract ... but what is that notion worth if we absolutely cannot do this from simply sheer will in our everyday lives?

Orwell's on the right track.

The lack of absolute certainty does not imply all alternative are "equally valid". It implies all alternative lack absolute certainty. But some are more probable than others.

The only domain in which absolute certainty even has a meaning is in mathematics. And even their the proofs of very complicated mathematical theorems have an empirical aspect to them. Are the proofs right? In point of fact any proof other than short trivial proofs are given in a kind of shorthand manner with portions left out to either save room in publication or in preserving comprehensibility. Consider the proof of the Burnside Conjecture given by Feit and Thompson back in the 1960s. * The "proof" is a conventional short hand version taking up an entire issue of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics and occupying over 240 pages of small type. Is it absolutely certain that this proof is correct? No. It is the consensus of qualified competent group theorists that the proof is kosher. Similar comment applies to Wile's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. A world respected committee of qualified group and number theorists went over the second proof with a fine tooth comb and they have not found an error (they did find an error in Wile's first attempt). Is it absolutely certain they are right? No. But it is generally accepted in the community of mathematicians that Wile's has proved FLT. All that can be said is that no falsification has been found thus far after very smart people trying very hard to falsify the proof..

If a completely different proof is found for FLT or the Burnside Conjecture which proves them, it will be regarded as confirmation that the initial proofs are correct, but even that is not absolute certainty.

If 100 people independently summed up a set of numbers and all independently came up with the same sum, it would be unreasonable to assume that all were wrong, so that sum (arrived at independently) and another sum are not "equally valid". Any other sum would be regarded (and reasonably so) as wrong.

ruveyn

*see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feit%E2%80 ... on_theorem

Last edited by ruveyn on 05 Apr 2009, 2:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

The initial problem, of course, derives from the necessity of a living creature to maintain a homeostatic internal environment for the special processes necessary for existence. So the body as well as the mind isolates itself from the universe at large. What the mind sees as the universe is an integration of the input coming from the senses and although necessity and commonality of physiology demands some uniformity of that integration from person to person there are individual differences. Nobody "sees" reality, only the internal model used for reference in looking outward from our sequestered condition. And I assume there is far more out "there" than is or can be accommodated by the apparatus at our disposal. Aside from our physiological differences social and traditional influences make great differences in our paradigms for interpretation of the data we each have accumulated and integrated.

What do you mean "once again"? Do I need to reword my post?

Ok, and the postmodern response is that we don't give a s**t about external realities, but rather are confined to social realities, social realities being subjective to the human race.

Postmodernism cannot refute an objective reality, but rather it attacks the idea that we reach an objective reality and instead argues that people are all bound in subjectivity or intersubjectivity, neither having a relationship to an external thing.

One, it is possible for 2 things to appear to contradict, and an appearance of contradiction or a first formulation that includes a contradiction does not invalidate the contradicting intellectual path, only suggests that a future formulation will have to be more robust. I mean, most ideas are not perfectly axiomatic, but rather are built upon lots of non-logical foundations, and these things are not subject to logic in the same way as a theoretical construct. I mean, one of the tenets of postmodernism is that language fails to encapsulate or convey reality, and therefore we cannot measure things by our language constructions about them.

Well, the issue is that if one takes a skeptical attitude towards a process to show that one thing is better than another, then equal validity *does* follow, particularly if one isn't concerned with the external reality. Many postmodernists focus more upon phenomenology and consider analytical philosophy to just be a game for neglecting that aspect.

Well, even that is disputable, as the absolute claims of the level of certitude will also be uncertain, thus causing problems with determining what is probabilistic. I mean, you cannot get around having to know something with certainty, and if you are uncertain, then the other party still has a right to validly hold their opinion. Particularly because they consider themselves equally certain that you are wrong.


One can make an argument against the 100 by claiming that they were working within a cultural context that somehow promoted this answer illegitimately. In any case, postmodernists see language, likely including math, as a game without any inherent validity. They would only see the agreement as a cultural matter, but not anything with any importance, likely not even worth disputing as they might not even see math as a branch of knowledge. One of the strands of postmodernism is anti-Platonism, and as such, they consider abstractions to be devoid of content.

In any case, their position is that basically nothing can be known period, because absolute knowledge depends upon an absolute foundation for knowledge. So, math cannot work because there is nothing necessitating these numbers be true, it could just as well be a language game. Empirical perception cannot work because people all see different things based upon their cultural narratives.

Because of this, they privilege neither, and there has been an effort to combine postmodernism with pragmatism through philosopher Richard Rorty, given pragmatism is based upon the notion that absolute truth is unknown, but people can still validly hold to their local truths if those truths have validity for their lives.(you might very well be familiar with Pragmatism, and it is true that some have argued that Rorty over-emphasizes the subjective elements of pragmatism) This ends up sating postmodern relativism and cultural constructivism, and it deals with the need to affirm some things.

Whenever I hear the phrase "cultural context" I reach for my Uzi.

ruveyn

Well, consider two different sets of diagnostic criteria for AS that are used in two different countries. Could there be dozens of different sets to compare behaviour on the Autistic Spectrum? People who are not fond of the DSM in general should find the concept of equal validity useful. People on the Spectrum have ways of describing themselves and defining what it means to be on the Spectrum better than a clinical data sheet can. There are at least two methods of understanding Aspergers that are equally valid, although one is scientific and the other is pragmatic to the Aspie. The DSM will never change without pragmatism. Those who favour one test or set of diagnostics over another will understand the importance of equal validity not only while up against the clinical stereotypes that science has created, but within the scientific community as well. Should there even be an official set of diagnostics like the DSM contains, or should the decisive factors be far more broad?

"When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun"
-Hermann Göring

What he said and what you said does have a lot in common...