Conscience- Natural or learned?

On Thursday our class had to stop in the middle of a discussion on conscience and were left with this question- is conscience something you are born with, or does it begin to develop later in life?

I think conscience is something one is born with. However, because morals aren't learned from birth, conscience does not develop until understanding is present. Conscience begins to take a more defined shape as one matures and starts to discern right from wrong. It begins on a basic level with being taught by parents/guardians what and what not to do. (For example, the cliche "Don't take a cookie from the cookie jar without permission"). At this point, conscience is simply based on the information the child has gathered from his/her parent. As life goes on, the child becomes a teen and must begin to make his/her own decisions because they will soon move away from their moral teachers (parents) and live a more independent life. Conscience becomes stronger as the teen is forced to make his/her own choice of what morals to live by and the values become more personal. Often this choice is made based on the morals previously installed by a parent. The fact that morals vary from person to person is why one person's conscience may condone something another person's would condemn. On the other hand, widely-accepted values give consciences similarities. (For example, most people would understand murder to be against their morals)

Therefore, conscience begins at an early stage of life but develops and becomes more prominent as one ages, makes decisions, and learns from experience. It varies from person to person according to moral teaching and early background.

What do you guys think?

Atlas Shrugged and Knowledge

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).

Know Thyself

The Delphic oracle in ancient Greece had two sayings..."Know Thyself" and "Nothing to Excess." Although the original sayings were in Greek, the first one was displayed in Latin, Temet Nosce, above the Oracle's kitchen door in the first Matrix movie. Several comments on the first post of the year started to move down this path.

How does one know oneself? Is self-knowledge the surest knowledge that we have? Can you be wrong about yourself?

What is Knowledge?

Wow! Talking about jumping in deep quickly! One of the many comments on the last post was the following:

This brings up the question: how do we, collectively, define true knowledge? Is it knowing how people feel, what people think, or why people do things? Is it a perfect understanding of another's mannerisms or history? Is it any combination of the above, or is it all of them? "True knowledge" seems an inherently vague concept- which is odd, as it seems to imply utter clarity.

How do we define knowledge? How do you define knowledge? The question originally asked about a collective definition? Can there be competing or individual definitions of knowledge, or does the question itself require there to be a common, collective, universal definition in the way that there must be a common, collective, universal definition of a triangle?

Welcome IB Class of 2011!

Welcome to the 21st Century Agora! I am excited to start exploring ideas with you, and I look forward to getting to know all of you. The question is, how should I do that? Should I use the same methods by which I have come to know that a classic Mustang is smokin' hot? Should I use the methods I employed as I came to know that the Latin verb portare means "to carry?" Do team mates come to know each other using the same methods by which a parent comes to know a child, a child comes to know a parent, or spouses come to know each other?

How, then, I am to know you?

Oh, and what methods will you use to know me?

Knowing Things Helps

Comprehension is the better part of argument. Despite the tempting simplicity of spewing quotes, reading and understanding them first helps.

“While Ayn Rand retains the traditional classification of art as well as the idea that the arts are essentially mimetic in nature she rejects the traditional view that the primary purpose of art is to afford pleasure and convey value through the creation of beauty, which she does not regard as a defining attribute. In her view, the primary purpose of art is much broader: it is the meaningful objectification of whatever is metaphysically important to man.” My emphasis.

Well golly gee, that sounds awful like recognizing art that doesn’t meet typical standards of beauty may still reflect “whatever is metaphysically important to man," even if it is a blue canvas - but that's a separate battle. A “selective re-creation of reality” is anything mimetic; whenever you reproduce something, you’re picking something real (we’ve got “selective” and “reality”) and reproducing it (“re-creation” – check). Let’s review: while Ayn Rand retains that art is essentially mimetic, she holds that every piece of art is a “selective re-creation of reality,” a phrase synonymous with “mimetic”. Groundbreaking philosophy; too bad Plato didn’t copyright it when he posited that a = a.

Next: “Further, Rand holds that the distinctive character of each of the major branches of art derives from--is determined by--a specific mode of human perception and cognition.” Another shocker: modes of mimetic art derive from the way we perceive the world, almost as if we reproduce things in response to the way we perceive them. Which would mean that art is mimetic. Third time’s a charm.

Now we’re in the deep waters: “As a consequence, she argues that, technological innovations notwithstanding, no truly new categories of art are possible, only recombinations and variants of the primary forms which have existed since prehistory.” Eternally existing primary forms? If only Plato could get paid royalties (or at least get associated with a popular political movement so people would read him). Remember that whole bit about mimetic art reproducing existing elements of Plato’s realm of ideals? Probably not, but I promise, we talked about it in class for about two years. Ayn Rand sure is refuting our class discussions and the foundations of Western thought.

“According to Rand, art serves a vital psychological need that is at once cognitive and emotional. Only through art, in her view, can man summon his values into full conscious focus, with the clarity and emotional immediacy of direct perception.” The dead horse has been thoroughly beaten, so I’ll just point to that discussion we had stemming from Perkins’ book of aesthetics thought experiments, specifically where a student is told by her psychologist to experience art to regain peace.

And the big finisher: “Thus she not only identifies what art is, in terms of essential characteristics, she also provides an enriched appreciation of the importance of art in human life. Moreover, in so doing, she makes clear why much of what the artworld [sic] has promoted as the art of the past hundred years is, by objective standards, a perversion of the very concept." Forgive me for not being blown away. Not ONLY has Ayn Rand told us that art is mimetic, she’s also told us that appreciating it is important. Here’s where things get fuzzy for me though: If art is not only “selective” but its means of presentation derive from “a specific mode of human perception and cognition,” how is it in the least bit objective? If appreciation is an individual task unifying emotion and cognition in an effort to establish a unity in “human existence,” how does it reach towards anything transcendentally objective, especially when art is, by your definition with my emphasis, “the meaningful objectification of whatever is metaphysically important to man”?
If you had actually read your quote before posting it, instead of just skimming from a line with the word “art” to a line with the word “objective,” you’d know that these claims are redundant not only compared to Plato but also to what we’ve said in class. 

UPDATE: If you want to find these exact quotes online, you can do it in three easy steps.
1) Google "ayn rand on art"
2) click on the first result
3) click on Introduction. Don't worry, it's on the top half of the page.

FROM THE EXPERT ON EVERYTHING!!!!

The words to articulate this came to me this morning while watching cartoons and I decided they merit recording.

Here's Ayn Rand on Art....she refutes most of what we've said in class. INTERESTING!!!!!
From the Introduction What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand by Louis Torres and Michelle Marder Kamhi:

"While Ayn Rand retains the traditional classification of art as well as the idea that the arts are essentially mimetic in nature she rejects the traditional view that the primary purpose of art is to afford pleasure and convey value through the creation of beauty, which she does not regard as a defining attribute. In her view, the primary purpose of art is much broader: it is the meaningful objectification of whatever is metaphysically important to man. For Rand, every art work whether of painting, sculpture, literature, music, or dance is a 'selective re-creation of reality' that serves to objectify, in an integrated form, significant aspects of its creator's basic 'sense of life.'

"Further, Rand holds that the distinctive character of each of the major branches of art derives from--is determined by--a specific mode of human perception and cognition. As a consequence, she argues that, technological innovations notwithstanding, no truly new categories of art are possible, only recombinations and variants of the primary forms which have existed since prehistory.

"According to Rand, art serves a vital psychological need that is at once cognitive and emotional. Only through art, in her view, can man summon his values into full conscious focus, with the clarity and emotional immediacy of direct perception. For Rand, then, art is a unique means of integrating the physical and psychological aspects of human existence. Thus she not only identifies what art is, in terms of essential characteristics, she also provides an enriched appreciation of the importance of art in human life. Moreover, in so doing, she makes clear why much of what the artworld has promoted as the art of the past hundred years is, by objective standards, a perversion of the very concept."