Just a little while ago, I was sitting and relaxing in my room. Suddenly, I looked at my "bookshelf" - the floor - which houses some of my favorite books. The first novel I noticed was Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, one of the best in my opinion. It reminded me immediately of TOK and the topics we have discussed in class regarding knowledge and our ways of knowing. In Atlas Shrugged, Rand outlines the foundations of her philosophy - Objectivism - in the tome's climax: John Galt's radio broadcast to the collapsing nation. The statements in his speech are profound, and helped me better understand the concept of "knowing," and also reinforce the conviction that I do know... well, anything... and thus I resolved to post a few of them here:
"Man's mind is the basic tool of his survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its consent is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch - or build a cyclotron - without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think" (Rand 1012).
"To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of non-existence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes. Centuries ago, the man [Aristotle] who was - no matter what his errors - the greatest of your philosophers, has stated the formula defining the concept of existence and the rule of all knowledge: A is A. A thing is itself. You have never grasped the meaning of his statement. I am here to complete it: Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identification... Whatever you choose to consider, be it an object, an attribute or an action, the law of identity remains the same. A leaf cannot be a stone at the same time, it cannot be all red and all green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn all at the same time. A is A. Or, if you wish it stated in simpler language: You cannot have your cake and eat it, too" (Rand 1016).
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7 comments:
Matt I like that first qoute a lot. I had never thought about knowledge in such a cut and dry fashion.
But in short: to do, one must *know* how to do? So how does one learn the initial knowledge to know how to do?
Not going to lie, though, the second quote completely passed me by. Not quite following.
In my opinion, we "know" how to do something based on a combination of instinct and reason, or logic.
This initial knowledge to know "how to do" is instinct. Instinct is what we are born with - an innate type of knowledge. These instincts "make us act in certain ways without our having to consciously think about why we are acting in this way" (Ways of Knowing Woolman). We know that we have to eat to survive, mate to reproduce, and so on. It is inherent in our species. This is how we first know.
Then, there's reason, or logic. Us humans, despite our imperfections, are, at our cores, rational beings. We use our minds - we THINK - to acquire knowledge using our instincts as foundation. Our knowledge, then, comes from our rational conclusions based on our environment and the circumstances. If we can't use our brain - our logical, rational mind - as a way of knowing, then there would really be no need for the brain in the first place.
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In regards to the second quote: It's referring to Aristotle's Law of Identity, essentially: "A is A. A thing is itself." This is what I wrote on the back of my blog permission form on the first day, and it was comical seeing people try to refute it... because you can't. It's a statement so incredibly basic,yet so vital to our concept of knowledge. A is A. A is never NOT A. There's no refutation, no counterexample, and there never will be. A thing is itself. I am me, you are you, a tree is a tree, a rock is a rock, and so on. It is irrefutable. We KNOW this. From there, we can deduce other forms of knowledge because of the fact that we KNOW existence exists - A is A.
How do you know, Matt, that I am who I am in this specific instance? Can you irrefutably prove to yourself that I am not, say, Mr. Perkins typing at a keyboard under the pen name "Bjørn?"
The second quote feels a little situational to me.
That's not what the Law of Identity is stating. It has nothing to do with the whole Mr. Perkins/Mr. Gulde situation, or the circumstance you presented. The Law of Identity means that whoever typed the previous response - using the pen name "Bjørn" - is him or herself: he or she is that entity. Whoever typed it, typed it.
Let me make it clearer: If Eli typed it, Eli typed it. If Eli typed it, Mr. Perkins DID NOT type it. If Mr. Perkins typed it, Mr. Perkins typed it. If Mr. Perkins typed it, Eli DID NOT type it.
MEANING: Eli is Eli. Eli is not Mr. Perkins. Mr. Perkins is Mr. Perkins. Mr. Perkins is not Eli. MEANING: You are who you are.
Sure, I can't irrefutably prove that you are who you CLAIM you are, I can't prove that Eli or Mr. Perkins typed that response. But whoever did type it, typed it. You can't refute that. It's not situational that an entity is itself. I'm me. I'm not you. You're you. You're not me. A is A. A thing is itself.
So how does that help you know things, ever? What you're saying is that I'm who I am, how do you know who I am, besides myself?
The identity property is fine as a statement, sure, but in my opinion is useless in practice.
"The concept of identity is important because it makes explicit that reality has a definite nature. Since reality has an identity, it is knowable. Since it exists in a particular way, it has no contradictions"(http://importanceofphilosophy.com/Metaphysics_Identity.html).
I posted that quote because it, like I said, strongly reinforced the conviction that I know... anything... and that one can ever know... anything... which can, after the first few times in TOK, be a challenge.
It helps you know things because it proves that you CAN know things.
In regards to its use in practice:
"Without understanding the Law Of Identity in some form, it would be very difficult to understand anything about reason--that is, anything about propositions, terms, inference, classification, definition, and so on. Denying the Law Of Identity would implicitly deny the validity of all rational thought. It wouldn't be about anything" (http://clublet.com/why?LawOfIdentity).
Incredible exchange of comments! I forwarded this post and its comments to Mrs. McNew. The original post was excellent, but the questions and responses in the comments...oh, my. This is exactly what TOK is all about!
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