on 18/1/03 11:29 pm, Richard Baker at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > William said: > >>> I suppose an ontology dependent in that way on epistemology is >>> quite interesting though. >> >> It is :) > > Things are even weirder than they might seem at first sight though. For > example, consider the planet (or Kuiper belt object) Pluto.
Or Phlogiston, or the Piltdown man... > Suppose that there's an isolated valley in New Guinea whose population have > never heard of it. Does that mean that for them, Pluto doesn't exist but for > the rest of us it does? Put like that, I can't think of another answer but 'yes'. If you meant to say 'does the same lump of matter, currently labelled 'Pluto' exist, despite them not knowing about' it, then the answer is yes too :) > How about for people who believe that there's > empirical evidence for Pluto but who've never seen such evidence? Are you > suggesting that the stuff out there in the world is as ghostly and > insubstantial that its very existence depends on what we think about it? Much of our understanding of epistemological reality is quite insubstantial. Plate Tectonics? Garbage DNA? The ontologies of theoretical physics? > That seems like a strange position for someone who's > trying to be a realist. I'm an epistemological realist rather than an ontological realist. I treat the world as how it seems to be, and regard questions as to how it 'really' is (in an ontological sense) as unanswerable. This is probably due to reading too much Philip K Dick as a child :) > What constitutes empirical evidence? Why are > people's feelings about God not such evidence? Feelings about things are evidence about feelings about things and not about things. (cf Wittgenstein on aesthetics.) -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
