PSN 2(28) - 19.10.22 Organizational Mandate, Content vs Interpretation, Mindset, Navigating the Cave of Belief, Objects and Properties, Socratic Method, Social Self-Defense
Hello Philosophy Society!
Discussion 1: Organizational Mandate
Today we went through the entirety of the organizational mandate for the philosophy society. You can find it here: https://www.achillesjustice.com/organizational-mandate . It is important to know what it means to be philosophical so that we have an awareness of deviating from that way of being or thinking. The integrity of the group is based on the members having a strong sense of what it means to be philosophical, think philosophically, can engage with non-philosophical ways of thinking/being and engage with students of academic philosophy. It is important to note that students of academic philosophy of all educational levels, bachelor, masters and doctoral, may not live a philosophical life per say. It is not necessarily the case that the skills learned here, in the Philosophy Society, a student of academic philosophy will have learned and trained an awareness/response.
The Philosophy Society approaches wisdom from a broader perspective than simply an academic ‘book learning’ context. Wisdom or to be wise is more than reading content from a book, no matter how profound that content may be. It involves committing oneself to the betterment of their individual being through practice of the mind and body. It is unwise to not take care of either the mind and body, therefore these are parts of being philosophical. It is also unwise to be ignorant to the conceptual developments within the history of philosophy, as found in the texts of over two thousand years. It is then the pursuit of the philosopher to do both, an academic learning of philosophy and as well an understanding of the mind and how to live a healthy lifestyle.
Discussion 2: Content vs Interpretation
We can be clear that this is not a society for poets. This is not to disparage the literary art form of poetry, but it is a distinct discipline than being philosophical. There may be philosophical insight within poetry, but not all poetry is philosophical. Specific content may have some philosophical value in it, in the way it is written or how it is presented. We can also derive philosophical meaning through our mode of interpretation: the context we frame things essentially determines the meaning we derive from it. A person can display a rock, but a rock can have a variety of meanings relative to the context the rock is in. It can be used to plug a leaky dam to preserve water or as a weapon that harms someone.
It is also important to be mindful of our mode of interpretation. Interpreting and understanding it as a mechanism is part of being philosophical. To assume that our interpretation is sound without evaluating its integrity is not a philosophical way of being. It is up to us to be responsible for how we see things and make efforts to be conscious of it. Sometimes we can be imposing preconceived notions into things we are observing and not being parsimonious.
Parsimony is the principle of simplicity or related to ocham’s razor, not to “plausit plurality without necessity.” It basically means that we have no right to make assumptions about things nor impose added elements into our understanding unless there is some reason or evidence to do so. Many beliefs are not parsimonious and the process of being philosophical is to acknowledge the parts of our beliefs that we have added which are unfounded. Then it is up to our intellectual maturity to remove these properties so that we have a more accurate and clearer picture of what we are pondering.
Discussion 3: Mindset
Being philosophical is a mindset towards our beliefs and the beliefs of others. Being philosophical is a mindset of objective evaluation of beliefs and ideas. Objective meaning that the evaluation is not contingent or relative to the person. To be objective means that any person can observe or apply the method to a process or thing. An objective measure still needs to be evaluated itself. For example, one could order 1000 rulers at discounted bulk cost to find out that the reason they were cheap was because they were inaccurate, the ruler does not measure 30cm but 28cm even though it reads 30. In this case, the standardized use of the item is objective, it is not relative to the person, but it is a false measurement. So, systematically, every person who uses it will make the same mistake.
It is important that we find some principles to determine the validity of our evaluation and the application of that evaluation. The first principle is taken from Immanuel Kant, the German Idealist philosopher of the 17th century. Universalizability is when we take a maxim and apply it to all people and determine if society would function if everyone followed that maxim. In this case, we will equally universalize our evaluation of all beliefs, including the set of evaluation itself. This way every belief is being scrutinized and no belief is immune to some sort of exclusionary bias. This would be a principle on how to apply the evaluation method. But what would the evaluation method be itself?
Beliefs can be evaluated on their truth value. First we have to accept that all beliefs, no matter how important to our identity, have the possibility of being false. If we can identify with the value of truth in general more than the content of a specific belief, we are going down the philosophical path.
Each belief that we hold is situated within the context of a network of other beliefs, so that if one belief comes into question, the structure that the belief is connected to becomes slightly weaker. This can be a difficult task for a person to go through for their worldview comes into question during the process of philosophizing. It is best for a philosopher to see the end goal of having a stable sense of oneself, one’s beliefs and approximation towards reality. This is a process of refinement that we can structure our beliefs through reason and educated evidence gathering.
In the process of gathering evidence, we will screen out credible experts in specific areas, like the pandemic, quantum mechanics or ‘how to make vegetable soup on YouTube.’ There are different criteria we can use to evaluate an expert which is basically that their beliefs are truthful at the core.
Thomas Kuhn, who wrote The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is famous for discussing the concept of a paradigm shift. He developed the criteria of adequacy to evaluate theories to determine which are best: scope, coherence, predictability, falsification, and simplicity. These five criteria can be used to evaluate our beliefs and the integrity of an expert’s beliefs.
Discussion 4: Navigating the Cave of Belief
Plato discussed in book 7 of the Republic the allegory of the cave. Here prisoners were chained in a cave with no light and could only see shadows on a wall from a nearby fire. A prisoner broke free and climbed out of the cave to their freedom. This story is an example of the process of enlightenment one goes through philosophically. It is time to bring a new imagery to the concept of cave within philosophy.
We can think of a cave as a belief system. Some caves, beliefs, can be dangerous; they have snakes, bugs or maybe a lynx that will eat us! There can be physical dangers in the cave, like we would fall and injure ourselves, there is no light, etc. Being philosophical is the means and method we can use to navigate the cave of beliefs.
Being philosophical gives us the tools to enter the cave of belief and navigate it without harm. We want to be able to make our way through the belief, understand its contents and retain autonomy and control over ourselves while we are in there. The funny thing is that some caves have a kind of gas where we lose control over ourselves while we are in the cave. These beliefs take control over our autonomy and can lead to harmful outcomes for the individual. We do not want the cave to consume us but to gain the treasure from the cave of belief: knowledge.
Being philosophical gives us the opportunity to gain knowledge. We are able to determine truth from untrue beliefs and establish some form of justification for those beliefs. The treasure in the Cave of Belief is the possibility that there is knowledge within that belief. The danger is that some beliefs can negatively affect our lives by highjacking us as a means to an end for the belief. Being philosophical is a means for us to protect ourselves from the danger of belief and have the opportunity for genuine knowledge.
Meme theory is the idea that there are more modes of informational transmission than DNA from an evolutionary perspective. Ideas are modes of information that can be transmitted between persons. Some beliefs are all encompassing that take the totality of the believer’s identity. Everything becomes filtered through the encompassing belief. An example of an all encompassing belief would be religion, corporate culture or cult groups. The belief becomes more important than the individual.
Being philosophical means to live one’s life where no belief is more important than the individual, aside from the meta belief that evaluating everything is the most important. Being philosophical gives us the tools to evaluate our beliefs so that we increase our autonomy and are able to objectively evaluate our beliefs independent of our values. Being philosophical is important so that we have autonomy over our beliefs instead of our beliefs controlling us.
Some beliefs we may not be aware of because they came to us during early childhood. In this time of socialization, we form beliefs from our caretakers, experience and environment. Through practicing awareness of ourselves, understanding each other, and a healthy place of disagreement, the Philosophy Society can provide a group environment that we can learn about beliefs or behaviours we may not be aware of.
Discussion 5: Objects and Properties
A property is a component of an object. A property is more than an adjective, which is a word used to describe something, because we can use descriptive words that are not real. Someone can call a wall the ‘magical wall’ but has not designated any property of the wall itself. Properties are things that can objectively be observed. This means that any individual with a normal perception or use of instruments like a telescope would be able to observe the property. Properties are not subjective because they are not relevant to the specific individual but general for all individuals. Observing properties is important in distinguishing objects from one another and part of the means to evaluate evidence.
Discussion 6: The Socratic Method
The socratic method is one where we do not make assumptions about what we are thinking or observing. We work with what is given to us and establish our beliefs based on that evidence. We may hypothesize alternative explanations but would have to test those ideas out. Being clear that some phenomena X is not more than what we observe is important in our socratic approach.
In dialogue, we derive the meaning from what is given. We do not impose intentions or assumptions on what the speaker has communicated. Socratically, we ask questions based on what was said and make inferences on the information that is given.
Discussion 7: Social Self-Defense
In some social situations, we can be faced with individuals who engage in bullying or speak to us in a condescending or patronizing way. The principle, “Your position gives you power,’ is important here. When in a room with 1 bully in a position of organizational power, they are a superior, one can gain the approval and trust of the other subordinates. You can establish social power by having a humorous, prosocial bonding experience with the other subordinates, but in a way that excludes the patronizing leader. Then, you look at the formal leader with a sense of awareness that you actually have more power in the situation than they do. The next step is crucial, respond to this indirect ostracization with a prosocial form of cooperation to socialize the patronizing leader to act in a more prosocial way.
© Achilles Atlas Justice and achillesjustice.com, 2018-22. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Achilles Atlas Justice and achillesjustice.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.