Epistemology is like the wheels of a plane. You have to be grounded -- have good contact with the ground -- before you can fly. Otherwise, you won't likely return safely.
A philosopher has to be properly grounded before he or she can fly. In this regard, I am not only talking about the philosophers who call themselves philosophers. I am talking about all of us. Because like it or not -- formally or informally, overtly or covertly, academically or practically -- we are all philosophers. We all have to come up with some sort of understanding of ourselves and the world we live in, what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, what is real and what is ideal, and how we should proceed in the world -- what type of choices we should make, and/or want to make, and whether these choices should be 'either/or' choices that demand that we choose one item/action or the other, whehter they should be 'integrative' choices that aim to work two sides of a 'bi-polarity-continuum' towards the middle ('splitting the difference', or 'making a compromise'), or finally aiming to make 'double ended choices' (working both ends of the polarity continuum at their respective ends or worded otherwise, in effect, aiming to 'have your cake and eat it too'. In some areas this last type of philosophy might not be viewed as a 'philosophy with integrity' and may be called 'cheating' or 'collusion' or 'conflict of interest', particularily if and when it is done covertly, naricsisitically, manipulatively, underhandedly).
So again -- whether we like it or not -- we are all philosophers.
And all philosophy starts with epistemology. We have to be properly grounded before we can fly. We have to observe before we reason. We have to know what is real before we search for the ideal. Existence before essense -- I thing Sartre said that. Being before becoming -- I think Fritz Perls and many of the other Gestaltist therapists have said that. Realism before idealism -- if nobody has said that before me, then I said that. Same with Epistemology before Ethics. And Observation before Reason. I would even say Philosophy before Science and Science before Spirituality and Religion. You have to be properly grounded and be able to crawl, walk and then run before you can fly.
Many philosophers have argued that you cannot connect epistemology (what is) to ethics (what should be). I disagree with that. You look at the world around you, what is happening in it, how things work, how things function -- before man's narcissistic and/or ethical intrusion into it -- and you can see a number of different but related things: that things are linked to each other, that some things are attracted to each other and connect with each other, while other things reject each other and eitheer separate and/or compete with each other. You see that there is life and death, living and dying, growth and decay. You see that the world is full of 'opposites' -- plus and minuses, hot and cold, wet and dry, water and fire, earth and sky, males and females, attraction and rejection, union and separation, alkaline and acidic, too much and too little...You see that the world is precariously balanced and that things that affect others affect you. Things that affect your brother or sister affect you, things that affect your father or mother affect you, things that affect your community can affect you, things that are passed in law affect you, things that happen in the economy affect you, that your positive and negative experiences affect you, things that happen in your environment affect you, things that happen half way around the world affect you, or can affect you....
It is impossible to understand the world properly and ourselves properly without understanding the principle of 'homeostatic balance'. (See W.B. Cannon's 'The Wisdom of the Body', 1932). The meeting ground of epistemology and ethics is the principle of homeostatic balance.
You cannot talk about either epistemology or ethics without talking about the principle of homestatic balance. Many of our earliest philosophers -- West and East -- saw that: Anaximander, Heraclitus, Plato to some extent, Confuscius, the Han Philosophers ('yin', 'yang'...). Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Shelling, and Marx saw that at least in some partial realistic-idealistic capacity in their respective ideological developments of the 'dialectic' ...Nietzsche saw that (especially in his first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy')...Freud saw that (the 'id' vs. the 'superego'), Jung saw that (the 'persona' vs. the 'shadow'), Perls saw that (the 'topdog' vs. the 'underdog'), Cannon saw that in 'The Wisdom of the Body'...Erich Fromm saw that as articulated in two of his many books: 'Man For Himself' (1947) and 'The Sane Society' (1955).
There are some epistemological philosophers -- indeed, some of our most famous and cherished philosophers -- who tried to epistemologically fly before they could crawl, walk, and run. Parmenides and Plato are two of the guiltiest culprits in this regard. Descartes and Spinoza -- as much as I like Spinoza -- were not far behind. Any philosopher who tried to 'reason' without 'observing with the senses' first was putting the cart before the horse. We call these types of epistemologists 'idealistic epistemologists' (Parmenides, Plato...) or 'Rationalists' (Descartes, Spinoza...). These are the epistemologists who tried to fly before they could crawl, walk, or run. They tried to 'bipass sensory observation'. Their main argument was that sensory observation was flawed -- thus, the rationale for 'bipassing' it and trying to use 'logic and reason' alone to get to an 'idealistic' or 'rational' epistemology. Big mistake. It was a recipe for epistelogical pathology and disaster waiting to happen. (Parmenides was Plato's pathological influence in the realm of epistemology -- and the consequence was Plato's theory of 'Ideal Forms'.)
Aristotle went a long way towards compenating for, and correcting, the epistemological pathologies and disasters of Parmenides and Plato. Aristotle was more like the Pre-Socratics (Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus...but not Parmenides) in that he started with sensory observation, and then moved up the 'latter of abstraction' to 'reason and logic', 'causes', 'universals', and 'ethics'. In contrast, Plato 'philosophized from the sky' without having any 'epistemological roots and/or wheels on the ground. This was Plato's biggest weakness as a philosopher -- and particularly as an epistemologist. Epistemology needs to be emprically based on sensory observation before reason and logic. Plato dismissed sensory observation -- and in effect, physics and biology -- and this was his greatest undoing as a philosophy. Plato -- at least in terms of his philosophy -- was a man who was alienated from the physical world around him, and/or dismissed the world around him for its imperfections. And this in turn caused the greatest imperfections in his philosophy. A man or woman alienated from the biology and physics of the earth is a man or woman alienated from the biology and physics of him or herself. And this in turn will affect -- adversely at least to my way of thinking -- the person's psychology, spirituality, and soul. Both epistemologically and ethically speaking, there needs to be a dialectic (mutual) influence between biology and physics on the one hand and psychology, philosphy, politics, law, econimics, art and culture...on the other hand. Either extreme -- idealism without realism or realism without idealism, or biology and physics without philosophy and psychology or philosophy and psychology without biology and physics, or spirituality and religion without science or science without spirituality and religion, or self-assertion without social sensitivity or social sensitivity without self-assertion -- will create a one-sided extremist philosophical pathology headed for self-destruction.
The truth shall set you free. The truth is balance and balance is the truth. Biologically speaking. Phsycially speaking. Philosophically speaking. Psychologically speaking. Medically speaking. Politically speaking. Economically speaking. Legally speaking. Relgiously speaking. Epistemologically speaking. Ethically speaking.
The truth is balance and balance is the truth. Many others -- more intelligent thann me -- have said this in similar and/or different ways. I am just summarizing 2700 years of both Western and Eastern philosophy. This is the goal of DGB Post-Hegelian Philosophy. Hegel said that 'The real is the rational and the rational is the real.' I don't entirely agree with this assertion. Man's rationality -- and particularity the 'rationality of balance' -- can be easily corrupted and pathologized by his one-sided longing for narcissistic extremism (sex, violence, righteousness, egotism, selfishness, greed, covert manipulation and collusion...). But in the end, narcissistic extremism usually ends in self-destruction.
Which brings us back to either God's and/or Science's Ultimate Truth: The truth is balance and balance is the truth. And this truth shall set you free.
dgb, Feb. 16th, 2008.
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