The value of Truth

[Belinda]

Rr6 wrote:

there exists 5 possible regular/symmetrical polyhedra, irrespective of ideas involving multiple local universes within context of one our finite, occupied space Universe.

Is this a fact of mathematics that there are 5 possible regular/symmetrical polyhedra?

[Rr6]

Rr6 wrote:

there exists 5 possible regular/symmetrical polyhedron, irrespective of ideas involving multiple local universes within context of one our finite, occupied space Universe.

Is this a fact of mathematics that there are 5 possible regular/symmetrical polyhedron?

To best of my knowledge. Do you have reason to believe otherwise? I've seen that statement made by two other theoretical physicist types, Lee Smolin and Max Tegmark. One or both are probably formally educated in mathematics much more than myself.

I accidentally left out the word 'only' five. You appear to have gotten the gist{?} of my comment.

r6

[Belinda]

Rr6 wrote:


(Nested quote removed.)


Is this a fact of mathematics that there are 5 possible regular/symmetrical polyhedron?

To best of my knowledge. Do you have reason to believe otherwise? I've seen that statement made by two other theoretical physicist types, Lee Smolin and Max Tegmark. One or both are probably formally educated in mathematics much more than myself.

I accidentally left out the word 'only' five. You appear to have gotten the gist{?} of my comment.

r6

-- Updated Mon Apr 11, 2016 6:41 am to add the following --

Rr6 wrote:


(Nested quote removed.)



(Nested quote removed.)

To best of my knowledge. Do you have reason to believe otherwise? I've seen that statement made by two other theoretical physicist types, Lee Smolin and Max Tegmark. One or both are probably formally educated in mathematics much more than myself.

I accidentally left out the word 'only' five. You appear to have gotten the gist{?} of my comment.

I have no reason to believe otherwise. I don't do maths or physics and I was only seeking information.

I do understand you on the difference between absolute and relative truth. I even understand your assigning numerical values to each on its separate scale.

I think that what the original poster intended was an evaluative comparison between absolute and relative truth. Your evaluation method is very useful for anyone who wants to assign a numerical value to their own stance on some given belief in particular where that belief might be absolute truth or relative truth.

What I think would be even more useful would be a numerical table that can evaluate where someone stands on the comparison. Did you intend this with your numerical tables? I suppose that the tables might work that way, since numerical values are standard throughout. Your numerical evaluation system could then perhaps be extended to compare and perhaps find correlations between certain personality types and beliefs in relative or absolute values.

[Rr6]

Belinda

r6--To best of my knowledge. Do you have reason to believe otherwise? I've seen that statement made by two other theoretical physicist types, Lee Smolin and Max Tegmark. One or both are probably formally educated in mathematics much more than myself.

Belinda-- have no reason to believe otherwise. I don't do maths or physics and I was only seeking information.

I do understand you on the difference between absolute and relative truth. I even understand your assigning numerical values to each on its separate scale.

That is first. So far I mostly get people who say they cant understand a single word I state.

I think that what the original poster intended was an evaluative comparison between absolute and relative truth. Your evaluation method is very useful for anyone who wants to assign a numerical value to their own stance on some given belief in particular where that belief might be absolute truth or relative truth.

If you can give me and example the value of truth that is numerical please share. The value of truth can vary depending on circumstances. If someone tells me auto store is on 5th avenue, when it is on 10th avenue then the value is numerical in the amount of money I'm out for gas and use of vehicle. There is value of frustration that can be cause. The list of values that can go on and on and on, for so many different sets of circumstances.

What I think would be even more useful would be a numerical table that can evaluate where someone stands on the comparison. Did you intend this with your numerical tables?

I only know what I stated. I do not recall intentions beyond what is stated.

I suppose that the tables might work that way, since numerical values are standard throughout. Your numerical evaluation system could then perhaps be extended to compare and perhaps find correlations between certain personality types and beliefs in relative or absolute values.

To be clears, ere exist only absolute and relative truths. Those are a subcategory of 1a, in my cosmic hierarchy that Ive not posted yet. People cannot even grasp the first single word ergo they certainly are not ready for any subcategories, yet here you are wanting more understanding of what I believe, intend etc.....

We can assign a numerical scale anywhere we want. It just metaphysical-1, mind/intellect/conceptually abstract correlation.

I recall a few years back the came out with a machine that could more reliable gauge back pain, and this machine was going to weed out those from actual significant pain from those with no significant paint or just plain faking it.

r6

[Belinda]

Rr6 wrote:

If you can give me and example the value of truth that is numerical please share. The value of truth can vary depending on circumstances.

That's right. However the numerical value(from Rr6's scale of 1 to 10), was to be specifically applied to beliefs in absolute or relative truth. The circumstances were so specified.

Assigning numerical values to choices is quite a usual instrument when researchers want to discover attitudes to beliefs, consumer goods and services, social attitudes and so on. I don't suppose it has been done with regard to absolute and relative truth yet but I cannot see why not, and I actually guess that certain political stances will correlate with the statistics thus revealed.
I am not a statistician and it would be nice if some real statistician would comment.

Rr6 wrote:

I only know what I stated. I do not recall intentions beyond what is stated.

This was me taking the ball and running with it. It's in order to do so . One does not of course misquote anyone , which I trust that I haven't .

Rr6 wrote:

yet here you are wanting more understanding of what I believe, intend etc.....

One comes here hoping to be informed and enlightened. I fear that you will lose me if you persist in your ideosyncratic notation.

[Rr6]

Hi Belinda, I'm not really sure what exactly from me.

Absolute truths all get a 10, if we want to use that scale.

Relative truths all get a a value of 1-10or maybe 1- 9.9, depending on degree of assistance the do for us in specific set of circumstances.

If we are dire need of just a piece of relative truth information, that, may aid us from walking of a canyon cliff, we give it a 10, or so I would think.

So really Absolute truths may not be on a scale, as relative truths may be.

I have a friend who fell in love with mathematics at early age because it offered him something rational and somewhat real to him that he could trust, whereas his childhood family life did not offer that trust in something he found in mathematics.

He explained to me some years ago and that is how I recall his story.

A negative 1- 10 ex -1 or -4 may be like false concepts. However, sometimes we can go forward on misinformation yet it leads to something of positive value that we give a value of 3 too.

What was that movie A beautiful Mind where he makes predictions based on statistics. I think that is related somehow.

r6

[Belinda]

Rr6 wrote:

I have a friend who fell in love with mathematics at early age because it offered him something rational and somewhat real to him that he could trust, whereas his childhood family life did not offer that trust in something he found in mathematics.

I understand. Me, I was and still am not much good at maths. But I did appreciate and understand the reasoning
of Euclid. Euclid's is recognisably natural language, natural language which has been pruned and thinned so the structures of reasoning are revealed.

Late in my life I trusted and understood what a professor of history called 'unwitting testimony'. History depends a lot upon interpretation just as do people. Unwitting testimony leads to the truth of what happened because the testimony is disinterested and might be such as archaeological evidence or old legal documents or fiction stories.

Unwitting testimony might even be unwittingly buried within what posters to Philosophy forums choose to write about.So some historian three hundred years on might find those posts and go "This is so interesting. There was something going on then that caused these particular people to believe that those topics mattered".

[John Bruce Leonard]

Reply to Belinda

I am going to superimpose your remarks about David Hume on top of your challenge about negative capability, or as you say, negative "capacity".

Thank you for pointing out my error here, born of an irritating distraction on my part. Keats' formulation, needless to say, was both more poetic, and more precise.

In what follows I am going to follow your example in forgoing the question of Hume's ideas on causality and induction. I had written a response, but it seemed to me afterward to of dubious relevance to the thread – or, indeed, to the nerve of our own discussion.

Poetry is truth/beauty viewed from experienced impressions of the social subject who, if she thinks about her status as a social subject, understands that she is forever limited to her subjective , and inter-subjective, life. Philosophy unless it contains the humble scepticism that the empiricists support must depend upon faith that reason=good. 

If it is true that we are limited to “subjective, and inter-subjective, life,” is it not yet true that that awareness itself is not so limited? I mean to say – is not the proposition that we are so limited, an “objective” proposition, one that is not based merely on “subjective, and inter-subjective, life”? And if we are permitted this far to extract ourselves from subjectivity, then might there not be other ways in which we may do so? As just a single consideration on this point – does not poetry attempt to surpass at least the limits of its particular society, by seeking also audience in other societies or in other times?

As regards philosophy, there are several remarks in your post which seem to me to blur the fundamental distinction between philosophy and other human activities. I have in mind principally your comment that philosophers, save insofar as they are empiricist, work on the basis of faith, in their (presumably groundless) equation of reason with the good. Now, philosophy, it seems to me, is the human attempt to free oneself precisely from “subjective, and inter-subjective, life,” and toward this end it takes as its most fundamental premise precisely the rejection, and not the embrace, of faith. To accept any proposition on faith, means to blindly (i.e., without prior analysis or examination) presuppose the truth or the goodness of the proposition in question. Philosophy may then be said to accept reason on faith only on one of two conditions: either because philosophy never attempts to determine the value or limitations of reason, or because that value or those limitations cannot in principle be ascertained by philosophy, insofar as philosophy addresses these matters through reason itself. That is to say, philosophy may be said to accept reason on faith, either because philosophy refuses to critique its own underpinnings, or because those underpinnings cannot in principle be critiqued.

The first possibility seems to me incontestably false, as I think any review of many notable philosophers (not all of whom are empiricist) can immediately attest. (Examples to wit: Plato, Rousseau, Kant, Heidegger) The second point is trickier. It might in principle be true that the limits of reason cannot be determined, in which case reason would indeed prove unable to critique itself. But the following problem emerges from this. If it were demonstrated that the limits of reason cannot be determined, that in and of itself would be demonstration of the limitations of reason, arrived at via reason: that is, it itself would be critique of reason by reason. It thus becomes evident that any critique of reason must come from reason; reason is the only capacity able to critique reason, and furthermore is, to my mind, the only capacity able to critique itself. Philosophy in consequence is the only activity I know that is at least in principle capable of taking nothing whatsoever on faith. This is why philosophy seems to me to be the unique vehicle available to us, by which we might hope to near the truth, or at least to evaluate how near we may come to it.

Have you read the theory of linguistic "codes" as formulated by Basil Bernstein? If not could you possibly look up linguistic codes? I don't want to be a nuisance but am making this request because the main gist of your critique of negative capability is about the relative merits of philosophy and poetry.

Why, Belinda, it hardly makes a nuisance of you, that you direct my attention to thinkers with whom I am unfamiliar. On the contrary.

I have had time to perform but the most cursory, and mostly second-hand, review of Bernstein's work. I should like to study it a little more, availing myself better of Bernstein's words themselves, but at present I will likely be prevented from such research by other obligations. You have kindly requested that I look into Bernstein's work, and so I would like to give you my response on it, for whatever that is worth. As I have given the matter only a superficial attention, I am afraid I can provide only a correspondingly superficial response to it, acknowledging at once that whatever I shall say about Bernstein is almost surely perfunctory critique of a man whose work I have not directly read. I would ask you to be so good as to correct me when I misinterpret his ideas, which ideas I will consider in the context of your remarks.

Bernstein approaches the question of language from the point of view of sociology. It seems to me that his codes are consequently extremely useful in our attempt to understand the better part of everyday human speech, and the ramifications of these codes in that context are of interest. I am suspect that they do not permit us a comprehensive or clear understanding of the highest instances of human speech, namely, poetry or philosophy. Now if I have understood you, poetry is a species of restricted code, whereas philosophy pertains instead to elaborated code. The question is, do these two categories help or hinder us in our understanding of the role or the expression of poetry and philosophy?

I note from the outset that poetry seems to be a hybrid case. Although it certainly partakes in aspects of restricted code (lack of explicit language, implicit meanings, use of commonly understood idiom, allusions to specific social or cultural or historical realities) it also demonstrates clear elements of elaborated code – high “level of vocabulary and syntactic selection” (to use Bernstein's words) and the revelation of meanings that cannot simply be taken for granted by the audience as shared prior experience. Elaborated code indeed is differentiated from restricted code principally by this: that it “points to the possibilities which inhere in a complex conceptual hierarchy for the organization and expression of inner experience” (again, Bernstein). Now, poetry seems to me precisely such an attempt at “organization and expression”; the experiences that it attempts to portray might in some cases be common experiences, but they are always “inner” experiences, and the poets strive to show us these experiences at least in a unique light, when the experiences themselves are not unique. The end that poetry takes seems to me to be identical to the end of elaborated code, while the means are mixed – some elements pertain to restricted code, and some to elaborated code. But if this is so, then Bernstein's codes cannot successfully categorize poetry: or put otherwise, poetry transcends Bernstein's dichotomy.

The case of philosophy seems at first sight to be clearer. This is due to a peculiarity of our times: some thinkers of our day (by no means all) have begun in the last hundred years or so to employ unambiguously “explicit language.” I have in mind writers like Russell, Popper, and Dewey. Yet we have it on the testimony of certain philosophers, both of today and of yesterday, that many philosophers write in a manner which is intended to be read in one way by the public, and in another way by the more philosophical. They write, if you will, equivocally. But then, these philosophers have in mind a given public for their works; and this given public, though it could in principle be a public of any society and any “historical epoch,” is in the first place of course the society and epoch of the philosopher in question. The philosopher would then write in a way which is targeted deliberately at the mores, the presuppositions, the accepted concepts and the shared experiences of the philosopher's society. This seems to me to be “restricted code,” although again a high-level, and surely hybrid, case of it.

Moreover, this “code” is penetrable by a mind keen enough to penetrate it - by the true audience of philosophical works. For in such works as these, there are ideas and propositions concealed beneath the skin, which are accessible only to those who know to delve beneath the skin. These ideas are no longer limited to the specific prejudices of the philosopher's time. These ideas are accessible only via the language involved; they are in some way “spoken” or “written” ideas, though they are not available explicitly. Because they are not “explicit,” they seem to pertain to a curious kind of “restricted code,” yet at the same time, they are available to any who are capable of perceiving them, and are to be arrived at by reason and the employment of often very complex conceptualization; and for this they seem to pertain to “elaborated code.” Yet it also seems clear to me that in both these cases “restricted code” and “elaborated code” can no longer even begin to usefully define the language or the intent of the authors in question.

For these reasons, it seems to me that, rather than helping us to perceive the highest forms of human speech clearly, Bernstein's codes obstruct our attempt at perceiving them, by imposing certain divisions on human speech which, while being useful aids for the comprehension of common or everyday speech, prove arbitrary or fundamentally incomplete in the case of poetry and philosophy. Insofar as I have understood Bernstein (which is surely not much), I prefer, when speaking of poetry or philosophy, the simple concept of poetic language on the one hand, and division between exoteric and esoteric writing on the other, as known also to former times.

In all this I am aware that I, in following your invitation, have focused principally on Bernstein's ideas, without addressing your own, Belinda. Now, you have introduced linguistics, and indeed Bernstein, justifying yourself on the grounds of relativity. Relativity can mean many things, some much more extreme than others. It seems in the present context you mean at least this: that poetry and philosophy are marked by a differences in the use of language, in the audiences intended, and in the effect that is meant to be brought about. To this point, we agree entirely. We also agree that poetry and philosophy are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Yet I suspect that you intend relativity somewhat more incisively than the above interpretation, for you introduced Einstein as the basis for your justification of relativity, while the “relativity” that I have presented was, of course, perfectly accessible to any thinker prior to Einstein. You have quoted Keats as admonishing us against “irritable reaching after certainties,” but the original was “irritable reaching after fact & reason.” I agree wholeheartedly with your modification on Keats' words; about Keats' original, which does not seem necessarily identical, I have certain reservations. I have the (perhaps erroneous) sense that, if you and I disagree on anything fundamental in all this, it has to do with the status of reason. You express at least some sympathy for Keats when you say that “humor and sensory perception of the world” might be better aids to the “cause of beauty and truth.” Now, humor is certainly not wholly alien to philosophy (think of Diogenes, Socrates, or Nietzsche), although that there have been many humorless philosophers I will not dispute. Perhaps then you perceive poetry as being able to grant a different and fitter rank to humor? So far as sensory perception of the world goes, this does indeed seem to mark an important difference between the philosophers and the poets; in poetry, there is almost always a sensory element, or the sensory element receives a much greater emphasis. My question, then, is why you perceive this element to be of such importance?

John Bruce Leonard

[Belinda]

John Bruce Leonard, thanks so much for looking up Basil Bernstein, for writing such a long and interesting critique, and for what I gratefully accept as an admonishment for misquoting dear Keats. I'm sure you understand that your post merits a properly considered response from me or from anyone who reads it indeed! This is just to acknowledge it and confirm that I will get back to you when I can.

[Burning ghost]

Poetry tries to make an ideological statement artistically and philosophy does the same via reason. The difference is poetry focuses on relating subjective experience over and above objective experience and philosophy takes to opposite approach.

I remember studying poetry in my youth and arguing with my teacher about the intent of the poet. He was adamant, and I now believe rightly so, that the poet has a precise emotion and perspective to contribute to the reader. Poetry, good poetry, has the ability to instill a feeling in all its readers. Its message is universal. That said the reader as an individual will give different weight to the feelings given by the poem. The feelings should certainly give the same feeling, be it hatred, love, awe, or whatever such intent the poet means.

Philosophy has more direction towards the structure of how these feelings contribute to the human state, and overall the human state in general. Philosophy, as art, must possess an element of each other. Of course I say this because I have reasoned it thus and use language in such a way as to try and break away from everyday usage in order to intricate my understanding and bring it to light. I am a person who views philosophy as a means to intricate language and bring difficult and complex concepts into common everyday use. Sadly it seems this process is extremely slow and prone to vast misinterpretation due to the fluid and nascent nature of language.

Hermeneutics is, in my eyes, an extremely important factor in modern philosophy in our age of global communication.

[Rr6]

Burning ghost---Poetry tries to make an ideological statement artistically and philosophy does the same via reason. The difference is poetry focuses on relating subjective experience over and above objective experience and philosophy takes to opposite approach.

Expressing Ourselves
........R6

With reasoning thought
As prose or verse in rhyme,
Some of us are labeled as Poets
Others as philosophers of the mind.

We follow our earnest endeavors
With expressive emotions in kind
True to hearts contentment
Through eternity's embracing of time.

Lost in our words with passion
As all good souls have befell
Searching for those good ideas,
That ring true like a bell.

We seek the depths of knowledge,
Of whats known and unknown,
We follow a truly great pattern,
A tree of life we have grown.

Branching outward and inward,
May each bud have its say,
Our experiences are continually unfolding,
Throughout the night and each day.

Biology is recursively recycling,
A regurgitative mesh behold,
Of spirits and souls around us,
Exposed as flesh we grow old.

Pleasing all the people,
With concepts and some verse,
Is a challenge for comedians,
Philosophers, poets and worse.

Seek and ye shall find,
All through the historical ages,
All manner of verse and orator,
Mystical and spiritual sages,
Everywhere are to be found.

Words may carry great power,
Of an intense conceptual nature,
They penetrate our essence,
They define all nomenclature.

The rationale that follows
For a prose I combine and concoct,
Is to share a few insightful revelations,
Of mysteries I may unlock.

No the poems are not simple,
In fact their very complex,
For those who do not grasp them,
May feel that they have been hexed.

Life's Universe can be awful pretty,
Or ugly and guilty as hell,
The way that I have defined it,
Is my own special spell.

Enough already you say!
Please give this reader a break,
From this philosophizing poet,
Whom i can hardly take.

Now you may feel kind reader,
That i have spoken enough,
Of ideas in prose and verse,
Now I sit and ponder
At how you may rebuff.

[Belinda]

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

If it is true that we are limited to “subjective, and inter-subjective, life,” is it not yet true that that awareness itself is not so limited? I mean to say – is not the proposition that we are so limited, an “objective” proposition, one that is not based merely on “subjective, and inter-subjective, life”? And if we are permitted this far to extract ourselves from subjectivity, then might there not be other ways in which we may do so? As just a single consideration on this point –If it is true that we are limited to “subjective, and inter-subjective, life,” is it not yet true that that awareness itself is not so limited? I mean to say – is not the proposition that we are so limited, an “objective” proposition, one that is not based merely on “subjective, and inter-subjective, life”? And if we are permitted this far to extract ourselves from subjectivity, then might there not be other ways in which we may do so? As just a single consideration on this point – does not poetry attempt to surpass at least the limits of its particular society, by seeking also audience in other societies or in other times?

That we are so limited is an objective proposition, true, however our attempts to be objective including our insightful attempts are limited by the tragedy, if you like, of our status as subjects of our own experiences. Beauty, as Keats said, is possibly the only possible means by which we can be the same subject of experience as another. By 'beauty' I refer to sensory experiences. This claim might be taken to support that poetic language is truer than philosophic or scientific
language and also the parallel claim that restricted code is truer than elaborated code, but not so. Truth overarches both of those aspects of knowledge.

"does not poetry attempt to surpass at least the limits of its particular society, by seeking also audience in other societies or in other times?". Poets indeed do so, so do philosophers. The quest for truth is a holy quest and can be undertaken by not only poets, philosophers and scientists but also by the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. Shakespeare's time and conscience was notable for a flowering of language in England and the common people too were great talkers . Keats's ideas are rather less profuse so less likely to benefit people of several and various times and places. Both of those poets used sensory imagery, although Keats is the one par excellence for those!

The abstracting of sensory imagery from ideas is a useful heuristic device because it helps to restore balance at this time when so-called "logic" and intellectual ideas dominate thought.

JBL wrote:

The first possibility seems to me incontestably false, as I think any review of many notable philosophers (not all of whom are empiricist) can immediately attest. (Examples to wit: Plato, Rousseau, Kant, Heidegger)

I'm sorry I don't understand probably because I have not read enough notable philosophers including those you mention.I don't know how I am to be helped as there is probably no short cut to this knowledge.

Regarding my contention that the Rationalists are acting from positions of faith in human reason, and your objection that my contention is itself based upon reason, I admit that you are right. Thus philosophy is not objective truth, and love of wisdom is not and cannot be Wisdom. The status of philosophy then is no higher that of poetry or science but is a human endeavour like the others. Philosophy and science have this in common which is not shared by poetry, that the former share the 'elaborated code' with seats of human power, but poetry is abundance of 'restricted code' sharing as it does a birth among popular, bardic, and heroic poetry and the common people who needed those communications for purposes of solidarity.

There maybe is a drawing together of the language codes in classsical poetry and novels , though not a merger. This is only an idea but not a claim. Keats is of course all-out Romantic.

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

I note from the outset that poetry seems to be a hybrid case. Although it certainly partakes in aspects of restricted code (lack of explicit language, implicit meanings, use of commonly understood idiom, allusions to specific social or cultural or historical realities) it also demonstrates clear elements of elaborated code – high “level of vocabulary and syntactic selection” (to use Bernstein's words) and the revelation of meanings that cannot simply be taken for granted by the audience as shared prior experience. Elaborated code indeed is differentiated from restricted code principally by this: that it “points to the possibilities which inhere in a complex conceptual hierarchy for the organization and expression of inner experience” (again, Bernstein). Now, poetry seems to me precisely such an attempt at “organization and expression”; the experiences that it attempts to portray might in some cases be common experiences, but they are always “inner” experiences, and the poets strive to show us these experiences at least in a unique light, when the experiences themselves are not unique. The end that poetry takes seems to me to be identical to the end of elaborated code, while the means are mixed – some elements pertain to restricted code, and some to elaborated code. But if this is so, then Bernstein's codes cannot successfully categorize poetry: or put otherwise, poetry transcends Bernstein's dichotomy.

Your application to the study of Bernstein's language humbles and charms me.Thank you so much. I think that Bernstein's theory illuminates how societies create systems of governance as mediated by language codes. I think at the least Bernstein's theory of language codes is a fertile heuristic. In the olden days of the bards, of heroic poetry, and of original historic ballads the common people were a lot closer to their leaders than they are now. So I think that language was restricted code, sort of, and social superiority was expressed by the usage of a separate language such as French or Latin depending upon who one was, and later on by superior dialects such as standard English. Standard English is of course the dialect of philosophy in English and of governance in English including science.

I regret that I cannot remember what if anything Bernstein had to say about Marxist interpretation of history, so for all I know one of my favourite horses is bolting with me on it, and naturally I hope that I won't fall off. I don't think that poetry transcends Bernstein's codes , mainly because the human makes the world and there is nothing in the social world including language which is not human.


John Bruce Leonard wrote:

I note from the outset that poetry seems to be a hybrid case. Although it certainly partakes in aspects of restricted code (lack of explicit language, implicit meanings, use of commonly understood idiom, allusions to specific social or cultural or historical realities) it also demonstrates clear elements of elaborated code – high “level of vocabulary and syntactic

(Sorry the rest has disappeared). It's many years since I actually read Bernstein and I accept what you say here. Nevertheless I do cling to my contention, whether or not it's also Bernstein's, that the theory of language codes, and poetry itself, are historically and functionally left wing. The fit is just so neat.

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

Yet we have it on the testimony of certain philosophers, both of today and of yesterday, that many philosophers write in a manner which is intended to be read in one way by the public, and in another way by the more philosophical. They write, if you will, equivocally. But then, these philosophers have in mind a given public for their works; and this given public, though it could in principle be a public of any society and any “historical epoch,” is in the first place of course the society and epoch of the philosopher in question. The philosopher would then write in a way which is targeted deliberately at the mores, the presuppositions, the accepted concepts and the shared experiences of the philosopher's society. This seems to me to be “restricted code,” although again a high-level, and surely hybrid, case of it.

I
But there is a difference between the sophistication of even a very popular poem such as Keats's Ode to Autumn, and a popularised version of some philosophy or science. The difference is that, as far as I know, the populariosed versions of philosophy or of science don't include rich layers of metaphor and sensory imagery which depend upon shared, not novel, meanings. While science and philosophy aim to be objective (the extent to which they succeed is another conversation), poetry is inter-subjective. The full flowering of the inter-subjective in the sphere of language is arguably Shakespeare.

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

Moreover, this “code” is penetrable by a mind keen enough to penetrate it - by the true audience of philosophical works. For in such works as these, there are ideas and propositions concealed beneath the skin, which are accessible only to those who know to delve beneath the skin. These ideas are no longer limited to the specific prejudices of the philosopher's time. These ideas are accessible only via the language involved; they are in some way “spoken” or “written” ideas, though they are not available explicitly. Because they are not “explicit,” they seem to pertain to a curious kind of “restricted code,” yet at the same time, they are available to any who are capable of perceiving them, and are to be arrived at by reason and the employment of often very complex conceptualization; and for this they seem to pertain to “elaborated code.” Yet it also seems clear to me that in both these cases “restricted code” and “elaborated code” can no longer even begin to usefully define the language or the intent of the authors in question.

So we are a coterie of chatterers who would do better to contemplate beauty instead of worrying incessantly about absolute truth. Keats vindicated?

JBL wrote:

the original was “irritable reaching after fact & reason.” I agree wholeheartedly with your modification on Keats' words;

I did not intend to modify and am sorry I was so careless. However, yes, facts and reasons should not stand
as certainties and neither should we expend all our energies being dogmatic about their importance.

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

Perhaps then you perceive poetry as being able to grant a different and fitter rank to humor? So far as sensory perception of the world goes, this does indeed seem to mark an important difference between the philosophers and the poets; in poetry, there is almost always a sensory element, or the sensory element receives a much greater emphasis. My question, then, is why you perceive this element to be of such importance?

Because the sensory element taken together with communications which proceed and change through metaphor, is what does allow communication between persons. The sharing of the sensory element is the cause and goal of sexual communion which is quite probably the best means of understanding and cooperation between persons. The sensory element is why we seek health and strength. Without the sensory element that underlies all satisfactions including intellectual satisfaction there
couldn't be any incentive to learning or indeed compassion.

[John Bruce Leonard]

And I thank you in return, Belinda, for an interesting and considered response. I too will take a bit to digest what you have said with anything like the care it deserves. Yet I can assure you that I shall be reflecting on it as I am about my more mechanical work this day, and I will reply to you as soon as I am able.

John Bruce Leonard

-- Updated April 20th, 2016, 7:50 am to add the following --

Reply to Belinda

That we are so limited is an objective proposition, true, however our attempts to be objective including our insightful attempts are limited by the tragedy, if you like, of our status as subjects of our own experiences.

Strikingly put, Belinda. I wonder, however, if you are not describing only the initial condition of our quest for truth? In other words, our awareness of “our status as the subjects of our own experiences” might well be the start, rather than the end, of that quest. The starting conditions of anything contain within themselves the end, it seems to me, but they do not always do so transparently. The seed contains in itself the tree; but who, looking naively upon the seed, could predict the tree? Then I would ask you: what is it about being the subject of one's own experiences that limits us in our quest for truth? Does not everything depend on the possible width and depth of those experiences?

Regarding my contention that the Rationalists are acting from positions of faith in human reason, and your objection that my contention is itself based upon reason, I admit that you are right. Thus philosophy is not objective truth, and love of wisdom is not and cannot be Wisdom.  The status of philosophy then is no higher that of poetry or science but is a human endeavour like the others. 

There are several points here which are very worthy of consideration. Let me first say that I agree that “philosophy is not objective truth”; being the search for truth, philosophy cannot at once be in possession of the truth, or at least not in conscious possession. However, this is a different proposition than the second point that you make, namely: “love of wisdom is not and cannot be Wisdom.” This seems to me not only an open question, but the question of philosophy. The question may be rephrased thusly: can philosophy transform itself into knowledge, or the love of wisdom into wisdom? And it is only because philosophy can ask itself this question, that I perceive philosophy to be the superior human activity.

At the risk of rambling or of boring, I would like to try to articulate this point once more, for it seems to me a point of the most fundamental importance. Before anything, however, it is probably necessary to say why this question is of such importance. For it might seem to be a somewhat idle dispute, if philosophy is precedent over science or science over poetry or vice versa, or if they are all equal to each other.

Now, if we must accept that poetry, philosophy, and science are human pursuits of equivalent value, then it becomes impossible to distinguish between the rank of the claims they make, which is particularly problematic insofar as these claims are conflicting. A rank-ordering is necessary, for if we leave it merely at the liberal premise that each of them has its particular purpose in the world and each of them has something of value to say about a piece of the world, then we are left with the problem of determining the limitations of each of these domains. Yet these limitations overlap; each of these pursuits makes claims regarding parts of the world that the others also would consider their own; and it is equally evident that these various claims are not always in harmony. The proper limits of these pursuits thus cannot be determined without reference to some final arbiter which can suggest to us the standards for such a determination. We can evaluate the status of the various conflicting claims of philosophy, poetry, and science only by adopting one of them (or some other human activity) as the overarching human endeavor, which can be considered the tribunal before which all may be rightly ordered or judged. If we do not take one given human activity as the highest human activity, then we are left somewhat as the survivors of a shipwreck, jostled about in the waves by all the debris that is too small to save us and too large to make us surrender our hope. The question of the rank of philosophy with respect to other human endeavors is a question of paramount importance.

I would claim that philosophy has this single feature of superiority to all other human pursuits, which renders it the most excellent human pursuit, and the one best fit to order and judge the others: that philosophy takes nothing on faith. I would like to explain my view this time by availing myself of the distinction between an object of faith on the one hand, and a presupposition on the other. Both an object of faith and a presupposition are to be found, as it were, at the base of our thought, or, if you prefer, behind or above our thought. They are the actuators or the determinants of our thought. The difference is simply this: that an object of faith is accepted as something that cannot or should not be questioned, while a presupposition is in principle as open to dispute or doubt as any other proposition of human thought. This distinction is important, because philosophy can be described as the quest to expose and analyze all human presuppositions. In the first place, philosophy can be described as the quest to expose and analyze all one's own presuppositions, and, as it were, to leave no stone unturned in one's own soul. Philosophy stands or falls by its ability to consistently and thoroughly perform and undergo such analysis, because philosophy is born of the awareness of our ignorance, and the consequent desire to overcome this ignorance. If there is any element of philosophy that philosophy cannot or will not question – which is to say, if there is any supposition that philosophy takes on faith – then philosophy, which begins in ignorance, lives and breathes necessarily and eternally through ignorance; which is to say, philosophy is a hypocritical or self-contradictory or self-defeating quest. It itself in such a case reveals itself from the start as nothing more than a limited tool of investigation into certain unresolvable questions, to be used in any hands whatsoever, be they philosophical or non-philosophical or anti-philosophical, for any aims whatsoever, be they philosophical or non-philosophical or anti-philosophical. It can as easily be a hobby horse as the guiding pursuit of an entire life; and for this it loses its potentially life-altering character. It moreover reveals itself as patently inferior to pursuits like religion or poetry, which do not explicitly take the rejection of faith as their fundamental premise, and which thus do not render themselves internally inconsistent. From this it emerges that philosophy cannot be assigned equal rank with the other paramount human activities: it is perforce either superior to them or inferior. Its status hinges at least in part on its relation to reason.

The question, given the distinction between an object of faith and a presupposition, is if reason is accepted by philosophy on faith, or if it is presupposed by philosophy. If it is presupposed by philosophy, a further question of interest is – in what way is it presupposed?

Now I submit that a philosopher who refuses to question reason is for that refusal less a philosopher than one who dedicates himself to the ruthless determination of the value of reason. A rationalist of the stamp of Ayn Rand, to take a flagrant example (and quite apart from her other failings), really does seem to build the entire edifice of her philosophy around her unwillingness to question rationality, or around her indefatigable faith in rationality. Yet she appears for this very unwillingness and this very faith to be markedly shallow, compared to one who does not evince such unwillingness. We have the sense that there is a glaring oversight at the very foundation of her philosophy that she herself refuses to look squarely in the face. We have the sense that other and profounder philosophers have taken this question up, which she refused to consider as a problem. But if we can make this judgement, that alone demonstrates that philosophy is not bound to faith in reason – that philosophy can question reason. Philosophy of course must perform any such critique through reason; reason is then presupposed by philosophy, but not taken on faith.

Reason is moreover not an absolute presupposition, like Euclid's geometrical axioms; for it is a presupposition that is forever attempting to render itself something more than a mere presupposition. We might call it a provisional presupposition, a presupposition of a nature similar to that which we assign to the propositions of a thought experiment. Philosophy from this point of view might be considered a massive experiment. Philosophy is the only human endeavor which has this quality; all other activities rest on certain unexamined and necessarily unexaminable premises; and thus to choose any other activity over and above philosophy is to choose blindly. If I take the passions as my guiding light, I will never know if the passions are suitable guides to a human life or not. If I choose science, the presuppositions of scientific method attend, and I cannot address or analyze those presuppositions through science alone. If I choose philosophy, there is at least the chance, though it be indeed a slender chance, that I can determine the value of my own choice.

This seems to me a decisive difference; indeed, it seems to me the decisive difference.

Philosophy and science have this in common which is not shared by poetry, that the former share the 'elaborated code' with seats of human power, but poetry is abundance of 'restricted code' sharing as it does a birth among popular, bardic, and heroic poetry and the common people who needed those communications for purposes of solidarity.

These are fruitful observations, Belinda. Perhaps, following them, I could condense my doubt about Bernstein's dichotomy by saying that philosophy, while it publicly accords itself with seats of human power, privately surpasses these seats of human power; and poetry, while it often has birth in popular sources, matures well beyond the limitations of these sources. Put otherwise, philosophy does not rest content with the ideas endorsed by the powerful, though a superficial reading of it might suggest otherwise; and poetry does not remain enclosed within the popular sphere, though a superficial reading of it might suggest otherwise. I think that a firm distinction needs to be made between the surface and the depth of written works of the highest caliber. The application of Bernstein's codes to philosophy or to poetry seems to me to pertain to the surface alone; yet it would be a severe limitation of Bernstein's codes if they did not allow for a meaning that is not at once and simply visible.

I don't think that poetry transcends Bernstein's codes , mainly because the human makes the world and there is nothing in the social world including language which is not human.

This would suggest only that poetry does not transcend the human; it would not suggest that poetry could not transcend the linguistic. And even if poetry remained firmly within the boundaries of the linguistic, it could be affirmed that it does not transcend Bernstein's codes only if those codes are true representations of the linguistic; which is to say, if they reflect the reality of human language, and were not mere constructs put upon that reality to attempt to understand it in part.

As for the proposition that “the human makes the world” - I have the sense we here touch upon a kernel of your entire philosophy, Belinda, which I doubt I will be able to understand without much effort on my part. I would very much like to understand it, and I hope you will have the patience to aid me in my understanding. Perhaps we can begin to approach it through the matter at hand, if you will permit me a few questions about the following excerpts from your latest post:

But there is a difference between the sophistication of even a very popular poem such as Keats's Ode to Autumn, and a popularised version of some philosophy or science. The difference is that, as far as I know, the populariosed versions of philosophy or of science don't include rich layers of metaphor and sensory imagery which depend upon shared, not novel, meanings.

I agree that poetry relies on metaphor and sensory imagery much more than philosophy, and I agree that this at least could be a clue as to the difference between them. The relation to the question of meanings is less clear to me. Let me ask you, Belinda, focusing for a moment on poetry: do you think that poetry begins and also ends in shared meanings? Or do you think that poetry takes or can take, as at least part of its purpose, the presentation of novel meanings?

Because the sensory element taken together with communications which proceed and change through metaphor, is what does allow communication between persons. The sharing of the sensory element is the cause and goal of sexual communion which is quite probably the best means of understanding and cooperation between persons. The sensory element is why we seek health and strength. Without the sensory element that underlies all satisfactions including intellectual satisfaction there couldn't be any incentive to learning or indeed compassion.

These are fascinating thoughts indeed, Belinda. I would like to ask you a few questions to attempt to better understand them. First, do you think that reason alone also allows communication between persons, or is there a way in which this communication is flat or insufficient without the sensory element? Second (and probably related to the first), what is the link that you perceive between intellectual satisfaction the sensory?

John Bruce Leonard

[Platos stepchild]

Right now, somewhere in the world, someone has an appointment with the world's worst doctor.

[Belinda]

John Bruce Leonard wrote:

These are fascinating thoughts indeed, Belinda. I would like to ask you a few questions to attempt to better understand them. First, do you think that reason alone also allows communication between persons, or is there a way in which this communication is flat or insufficient without the sensory element? Second (and probably related to the first), what is the link that you perceive between intellectual satisfaction the sensory?

I don't know if the questions are related. What do you think, John?

Reason is incomplete without input from the senses is the answer from an empiricist, and I favour empiricism over rationalism as to how we acquire ideas.

As to communicating ideas to other humans and to other animal species language itself is not a rational system of meanings such as are mathematics and formal logic. Let's leave aside explicit language such as technical instructions, for the time being.

Language is made of sensations and also the contexts in which any given communications are made. Communications are conventionally categorised as separate media, but are not necessarily so. Music perhaps can be truly abstracted from meanings and can thus be purely chaotically sensory, but not visual or linguistic communications which I don't think ever lose a degree of formality although they cannot be parted from the sensory.

The spoken word is changed by tone of voice speed of delivery, pitch of voice, and arguably by intrinsic sounds , morphemes, and tonal variations of any given human language. Add to those sensory variables the decor of the meeting, the geographical location, the social occasion, the weather, the social stereotypes, and the latest news, then it's pretty clear that language is not separate from sensory reception and transmission, or from the social context either.

The link that I perceive between intellectual satisfaction and the sensory is a question that I have been trying to work out in the past few days. I thought that Dionysus and Apollo are archetypes which might help to explain types of ruling regimes, the liberal and the despotic. I want to use those same archetypes to explain the sensory and the intellectual. I see Dionysus and Apollo as extremes on a bell curve. The bell curve has no point at which Dionysus and Apollo are in perfect balance, but the bell curve does have the possibility of happy and harmonic enough balance.

I'm not saying where I am on the bell curve as I oscillate to some extent as I hope most of us saner people do.