Stars & Pains

On Friday I asked you to try to describe or explain the difference between 

a) seeing a star

b) feeling a pain

This provoked some discussion although most of it was not entirely what I'd hoped for!  

Remember that the bit of philosophy we are doing at the moment is 'Epistemology'. We are looking at the various things various philosophers have said about how we get knowledge and the status of that knowledge. In light of that we might begin to think some useful things about this question. 

The second part of the question (we didn't get that far) should help us think some interesting things about the first part.

try to describe or explain the difference between: 

a) Seeing a star that you believe to be a hole in the floor of heaven.

b) Seeing a star that you believe to a ball of fire several million light years away.

Some thoughts/questions

• Is it possible to make the same kind of mistake about the pain as we have about the star?
• Would we expect the star to look the same even after our beliefs were updated? 
• Would knowing that a pain was 'simply' the result of nerve fibres being stimulated make it 'feel' different? 
• Is there anything different or privileged (superior) about the pain?

You won't need to answer these questions in the exam, but thinking about them might help you to a better understanding of what epistemology is all about. 

On the other hand ... just get on the with essay you haven't finished yet!

(Rorty, P&MN, p.85)

Subjectivity, objectivity and 30 seconds of Newton (Sir Isaac)

I had resisted the temptation to use any of my hero's work, but I succumbed and offered you a brief chunk of Richard Rorty's  'Solidarity or Objectivity?' I'm glad I did because you'd never heard of either - (Oh innocent youth!) 

Subjectivity is a point of view: my point of view, your point of view even Luke's point of view. The thing about subjectivity is that it never gives you 'the whole picture', it never gives you a 'God's eye view', it is only ever how things look from where you are 'standing'. 

The big question is this: is objectivity actually possible? Lots of people claim 'objective' knowledge, they claim facts about all sorts of things (scientists in particular do this), but to really be 'objective' in a philosophical way objective knowledge would have to completely true for ever and in all conceivable circumstances.  It would have to describe a thing or things 'as they actually are in themselves', all the way down and through and completely. If the universe (or a twig) could speak and told us what it was all about then that would be objective knowledge. As long as the universe (or twig) wasn't a liar or just having a laugh. 

Most of you didn't really believe in objective knowledge when defined like this, but then you (it was Eleanor I think - apologies if it wasn't) finally got to see Mark Steel talking about Newton you said that he 'discovered' gravity and I said, very irritatingly no doubt, that he couldn't 'discover' gravity unless gravity was a 'thing' that was 'out there' waiting to be discovered and that if we don't really believe in 'objective' knowledge then it would be better to say that he 'invented' or 'conceived' of gravity as a way of explaining the way the world works. That isn't to say it isn't a marvellously clever or useful concept, but simply to doubt whether if the universe could speak it would tell us, 'well, there's this force called "gravity" and it can be calculated mathematically', etc.