A Methodology of Human Knowledge





George Kampis



Fujitsu Chair
JAIST

g-kampis@jaist.ac.jp

Home page:    www.jaist.ac.jp/~g-kampis/
This course:    www.jaist.ac.jp/~g-kampis/Human_Knowledge.html





This is Lecture One.







0. Preliminary Remarks

This course is about principles and basic concepts of knowledge (viz. human knowledge),
            especially in the light of recent developments.
We will proceed in an elementary, step by step fashion.

Principles and basic concepts -  it is often heard in the advanced fields (such as physics, AI, etc),
            "we know all the principles we need".

Do we know them?
I think we do not.

Purpose of this class:     (1) learn about fundamental concepts and principles as well as their changes
                                                    (classic issues, now generally accepted to be relevant or even true)
                                       (2) present a summary view of a new approach
                                                    (frontline issues, somewhat hypothetical, involves my own research)

In the first lesson today:


          why the topic is important
        what is methodology and "philosophy"
        discuss matters interesting to get to matters important:
e.g.
        what is kowledge & the knowledge society
        how knowledge and the mind are conceived historically
        what is their relationship, how one concept depends on the other
        how a large-scale basic change in the philosophy of mind influences the knowledge concept







1.The Topic: Methodology of Human Knowledge


Methodology,
        definition: study of             concepts        methods        frameworks of thinking

This is not a modeling concept so we are not going to discuss details of models
(cf. methodology, logic and philosophy of science are better related to each other, than to models)


It is perhaps best classified as "philosophy"                   (but there are many kinds of philosophies!)
(analytical) philosophy is closely related to                   the technology of thinking


Tehcnology of thinking means:       looking for consequences
                                                        zooming out         (to find context, relationships, ties)


Need to understand that philosophy (in particular "natural philosophy")
            can provide diagnosis and suggestions.
Basic concetps are the most important, the rest will follow;
            philosophy can help us find and understand them.







2. A Brief Philosophical Introduction


Two philosophical concepts so fundamental that even other fundamental concepts build on them:
(in philosophy, biology, linguistics, AI, cog.sci., and everywhere in science)




The Cartesian View                                                                                        Essentialism
Rene Descartes                                                                                                  Aristoteles


Mind                                                                                              entitites are things
mind is a localized center; empty by itself                                          things come in categories   
the prominent mental process is reasoning                                         categories have names: nouns (nominalization, see later)
reasoning is rational, logical, verbal, linguistic                                     have sharp boundaries
the mental process is overt, serial, monitored                                     have defining ("essential"), intrinsic properties
knowledge is content (internal mirror image)                                      are invariant



World
the world is beyond the person
sharply separated from that
the two are independent ("theater" )






Anti-Cartesian and Non-Essentialist Turn(s)



The Cartesian View and Essentialism are both very natural for us
        (we will see later why)
they express basic and useful eveyday (i.e. ecological, also see later..) strategies of thought


A 2000 years old story of human thinking (in the Greek sense).

But, in XX.century philosophy, philosophy of of sciences, and cog.sci.: it was revealed how
            our Cartesian intuitions fail.


Note
    Our aim is not towards general philosophy (phil.sci, cog.sci.),
    We skip the general history of Anti-C and Non-E.
    I refer to this process (and debate) taking place as a fact        (e.g. "Continental" philosophy)
    Here only some remarks follow.









 





Roots of the Anti-Cartesian Perspective of the Mind


At this point, let us introduce evolution (cf. Darwinism, in full power in XX century) as the perhaps
most important concept in the understanding of mind, knowledge, social knowledge (e.g. language)


Show man as part of nature
    thinking as a process - as a natural concept
    function of intelligence, knowledge, etc - why and how the mind works as a biological organ

Wittgenstein and Quine, their importance
    (1) philosophy "All Stars" ever
    (2) hoped to work in the Cartesian programme
    (3) but they turned out to be the ones who recognized the most important limits
        and the failure of the general concept.

Both Wittgenstein and Quine draw upon Darwin
    (the latter directly, the former either directly or indirectly)


Ultimately, it is Darwinian biology (we will discuss in what sense that fills
        the empty Cartesian mind with structure.
This structure turns out to be different from what was imagined in the speculative Cartesian
        conception.
A prediction: XXI.century is going to be a century of biology (biology changes many things).

Emergence of Cognitive Science as an integrating science.
We will discuss CogSci's double committment,
        starts with the Cartesiean view, and develops towards
        what was foreseen by Wittgenstein and Quine,
        and incorporated in a Darwinism based biology.







Continued