990112 2121 - Opinion poll B XVI Results after 1 day

Go to: Next / Index

Von: ed.s@sfnet.com <ed.s@sfnet.com>
An: Multiple recipients of list <kant-l@bucknell.edu>
Betreff: OPINION POLL B XVI: RESULTS AFTER
Datum: Dienstag, 12. Januar 1999 21:29

> FINAL COMMENT: the fundamental task

> Although I received only few answers, I have profited a lot and would like
> to continue the conversation with those interested in this topic. It
> addresses in my opinion the FUNDAMENTAL TASK of any cognitive
> science and philosophy of science.
>
>
> Marco Bettoni

May one ask what this fundamental task is, whether only in your opinion or in
some alleged majority/minority views these days? Then perhaps how it is
addressed will become clear to more readers, including me.

> 3) questioning the question =3D 3

> - 3.b =3D the question is paradox, fictitious and socratic
>
> * I do not see how a question like "do you experience that more
> persons think A or B ?" could be 'paradox, fictitious and socratic'.

> * the question is not "do you agree or not with A or B?"; the
> question is about what paradigm, A or B, do you experience as
> dominant (accepted by the majority of other persons). These are
> different questions.

Let me guess at what is meant -

I don't experience any such thing either way. At most I might have opinions
about the opinions and paradigms of other folks, and I might experience my
opinions as such (I might know what I believe). As such, the question as
stated is asking for hearsay and personal opinion, thus largely fictitious as
opposed to factual, and hardly indicative of science. If the alleged dichotomy
is a false dichotomy, then one might call the question paradoxical. In my
thinking about knowing, knowing "works both ways" (A and B); to call that a
dichotomy is to cut an apple in two and say "Look! It was two parts all
along." If we then ask which piece some people seem to favor, what does that
accomplish for science?

If a question is posed to teach something about proper thinking, can it be
called 'socratic' and be not merely rhetorical?

I suppose one of the fundamental issues is that how you ask a question can
influence the answer you get, something well known to professional pollsters,
for instance. Is that the point, in regards "fundamental task of cognitive
science"?

Ed Severinghaus