Epistemology is the study of knowledge. But what is the study of knowledge? Some important clarification is needed here. For our purposes here, our epistemological study does not include the study of values -- this is primarily the domain of morals, ethics, politics, law, religion and the like -- except for one value that I will include here, and that is the value to be real, or worded otherwise, the value of being truthful, of honoring truth. What is the dialectical connection between realism and truthfulness. Realism honors truthfulness and truthfulness honors realism. When I use the phrase 'dialectical connection' I mean that the 'causal connection' and/or the 'nature of influence' works both ways. Realism influences and honors truthfulness. And truthfulness influences and honors realism. When I say that I am a 'dialectical epistemologist' --a term that I have never seen used in philosophy before -- I am showing the combined influence of Hegel and Korzybski (mainly Hegel) in the realm of epistemology which means that I am looking for 'epistemological influences' that work both ways. Interpretation affects evaluation and evaluation affects interpretation. Twenty-eight years ago when I wrote my honors thesis in psychology which was primarily an essay on epistemology, I was not a dialectical epistemologist. I was a 'one way' epistemologist -- I viewed the line of influence from the senses to interpretation to evaluation but it was not until I finished the essay that I started to see that the line of influence could work both ways, i.e., from the top to the bottom as well as from the bottom to the top. I had met Korzybski in my studies (who we will talk about later) but I had not seriously met Perls, Freud, Jung or the prime influencer of all three of these critically important psychologists -- Hegel (with honorable secondary mention to Nietzsche).
What again do I mean by dialectical epistemology? (In fact, you could call me a 'multi-dialectical epistemologist' meaning that I am looking for 'multi-dialectical exchanges and influences everywhere'.) Dialectical epistemology means that as epistemologists, we look not only at the influence of perception and interpretation on values and evaluation, but also we look at the effect or influence of values and evaluation on perception and interpretation. Put another way, we look not only at the influence of epistemology on ethics but also on the influence of ethics (and/or lack of ethics) on epistemology. Or put still another way, you have to look at the dialectical (two-way) interaction between human narcissism and human epistemology. Because human epistemology not only influences human narcissism (and by 'narcissism' we mean a combination of such things as: selfishness, egotism, self-centredness, self-absorption, pleasure-seeking...) but also the line of influence and causality works both ways and thus, human narcissism influences and oftentimes corrupts, poisons, pathologizes...human epistemology.
To emphasize the point I am making here, I like to compare and contrast the philosophical, and in particular, epistemological work of Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. There are a lot of similarities between the two philosophers. I like them both but both had their strengths and weaknesses. In a lot of ways, Ayn Rand was the Friedrich Nietzsche of the 20th century. Both were conservative, presumably both were capitalist idealists (we know this in Rand's case, in Nietzsche's case we more or less surmise it from his philosophy). Both believed in pushing to the maximum for human excellence and performance, and not accepting much less. Present day advertsing mottos like 'Just do it' and 'Impossible is nothing' would seem to epitemize much of the core message of both philosophers.
Having said all of this, and pointing out the key similarities in their respective philosophies, it is also important, indeed, critical to note their philosophical, and particularly their epistemological differences. You cannot read Nietzsche without noting the important influence and/or similarity between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer was the ultimate philosophical pessimsist and narcissist. It could be argued that much of Schopenhauer's philosophy came to influence Freud's concept of the 'Id' and 'Freudian Psychoanalytic Instinctual (or 'Idian') philosophy and psychology. Much of this line of influence also went through Nietzsche. 'There are no such things as facts, only interpretations' according to Nietzsche. Ayn Rand would never say anything like this. Indeed, she would be apalled by such a philosophical statement. In this regard, Nietzsche was the ultimate philosophical 'subjectivist' and Ayn Rand was the ultimate philosophical 'objectivist'. Ayn Rand was an ethical idealist and an epistemological idealist -- she was a post-product of the Enlightenment era of philosophy, and indeed, if she had been philosophizing back in the days of the beginning and then the height of science, back in the days of Bacon and Locke and Diderot and Voltaire and Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin back in the early to middle 1700s she would have fit right in and been in her glory. Nietzsche, following partly in the footsteps of Schopenhauer and Rousseau, broke out of this mold of 'human reason, logic, and common sense is everything'. Nietzsche saw a different world and it was not a world run by human reason but rather a world run by human passion, narcissism, dionysianism, selfishness, and irrationality. Partly Nietzsche supported this lifestyle, this philosophy, this line of human behavior. And yet partly, he was hugely skeptical, pessimistic, and cynical about it as well. Rightly so, Nietzsche saw human narcissism, bias, subjectivity and its epistemological and ethical influence leading to distortion, corruption, pathology -- everywhere. Thus, you have Nietzsche the ultimate epistemolgical skeptic, pessimist, and cynic vs. Ayn Rand the ultimate epistemological idealist. And both are important. Once again -- here as everywhere else that I philosophize -- Gap Philosophy or DGB ('Dialectical-Gap-Bridging') Philosophy aims to bridge the gap between Nietzsche and Ayn Rand. I 'work' the dialectic between them and their respective philosophies. I value both and what both had to say. I realize that there is a lot of 'epistemological garbage' out there in the world today, as in every other period of human history, due partly to human ignorance, and partly, more sadly, because of the pathological poisoning and corruption of truth and realism by human selfishness, greed, money, power, narciissism...And in this regard, I walk the bridge epistemologically speaking between Nietzsche's ultimate epistemological pessimism, skepticism and cynism (the Schopenhauer influence), and Ayn Rand's continuation of the 'Enlightenment epistemological ideal' of truth, realism, objectivity, and the American Way (which somehow seems to have gotten lost between Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Bush) ultimately defeating any and all brands of human greed, power, money, manipulation, fraud, hypocrisy, narcissism. Actually, right now I would say that Nietzsche's pessimism, skepticism, relativism, and cynicism is winning the war over Ayn Rand's Enlightenment influenced epistemological idealism. However, as Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Korzybski, and Fritz Perls have all directly or indirectly said, 'Everything is subject to change.'
That seems to me to be a decent introduction to where epistemology stands today in the 21st century -- caught between Nietzsche and Ayn Rand with the 'Nietzschean bad guys largely winning the battle between epistemological bullshit and epistemological truth, realism, and objectivism'. Sad to say, but that is my take on epistemology today. Has it every been much different? Maybe in the height of the Enlightenment somewhere in the middle 1700s.
db, April 11th, 2007.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
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